Name Gervase Tilbury Role Lawyer | Books Otia Imperialia | |
Died 1228, Arlington, United Kingdom | ||
Gervase of Tilbury (Latin: Gervasius Tilberiensis; c. 1150–1220) was an English canon lawyer, statesman and writer, born in West Tilbury, in Essex, England. His best known work is the Otia Imperialia, intended for the prince Henry, son of Henry II in whose circle Gervase, a learned scholar and cleric, was retained until the young man’s death in his late twenties, in June 1183.
Life and works
Gervase was of aristocratic stock, claiming kinship with Patrick, Earl of Salisbury. He was born in Tilbury in Essex, a manor in the hands of Henry II.
Gervase of Tilbury next found service at the court of William II of Sicily, a move which would have been arranged due to the fact that the Sicilian monarch was himself son in law of Henry II (he married the Princess Joan, sister to Richard Lionheart and King John). His progresses after the King of Sicily’s death in 1189 to the court of the Emperor Otto was again a ‘family’ opportunity from within the circle of Henry II. Under Otto IV’s auspices, Gervase married (which bought him a palace) and was made judge of the Court of Provence and Marshal of Arles.
He travelled widely, studied and taught canon law at Bologna, was in Venice in 1177, at the reconciliation of Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa, and spent some time in the service of Henry of Anjou, and of his son, "Henry the Young King". For the latter he composed a Liber facetiarum (‘Book of entertainment’), now lost, as well as the basis for what would become the Otia Imperialia. He also served Henry's uncle William of Champagne, Archbishop of Reims (where Gervase's famous attempt to seduce an unwilling girl precipitated her condemnation by the archbishop as a cathar). He spent some time between 1183 and 1189 at the Sicilian court of the Norman William II, who had married Henry's daughter Joan (1177). From William he received the gift of a villa at Nola in Campania.
At some point after William's death in 1189, Gervase settled in Arles and was appointed Marshal of the Kingdom of Arles in 1198 by Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor and grandson of King Henry. Ex officio he accompanied Otto to Rome in 1209 on the occasion of his coronation. The following year Gervase was enmeshed in the papacy's struggle with his patron Otto, who was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Gervase employed the next years, from 1210 to 1214, writing the Otia Imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") for his patron. He also wrote a Vita abbreviata et miracula beatissimi Antonii ("Shortened life and miracles of the most blessed Antony") and a Liber de transitu beate virginis et gestis discipulorum ("Book of the passing of the blessed virgin and acts of the disciples").
Details of his latter years are uncertain. It has been suggested that, after the resounding defeat of Otto and his English ally John at the Battle of Bouvines (1214), Gervase was forced to retire to the duchy of Braunschweig, where he became, and died, provost of Ebstorf, and it is apparent that his work was known to the authors of the Ebstorf world map (c. 1234–40). However, it is recorded by Ralph of Coggeshall that he became a canon in later life, and other evidence suggests that he may have been a member of the Premonstratensians of l'Huveaune.