Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/138

 (, ii. 11;, p. 535). Geoffrey laid siege to Norwich in company with Earl William of Warren, and received the capitulation of the town. In 1077 he was present at the dedication of St. Stephen's at Caen, and in 1080 attended a provincial council at Lillebonne. He wrote to Lanfranc apparently on behalf of some English ladies who had taken refuge in nunneries for fear of the Frenchmen, and was informed by the archbishop that in such cases ladies were not to be compelled to adopt a religious life (Epp. Lanfranci, No. 35). Either at this time (, Norman Conquest, iv. 676) or possibly in 1088, when his nephew, Robert of Mowbray, was earl, he for a while governed Northumberland (Monasticon, iii. 546;, Baronage, p. 56; , Hist. of Northumberland, p. 92). He attended the funeral of the Conqueror in September 1087. When the Norman lords in England rebelled against Rufus in 1088, Geoffrey took part in the movement, and in company with his nephew Robert went to Bristol; they harried the neighbouring country, and brought their booty into the castle. William of Eu also acted in conjunction with them (Peterborough Chronicle;, ii. 24). Geoffrey was probably the constable of Bristol Castle, and received the king's dues from the town (Domesday, f. 163;, William Rufus, i. 40). He perhaps built the castle, which is said to have been exceedingly strong at this time, though it was afterwards strengthened by Robert, earl of Gloucester, and the outer wall of the town may also be set down as his work. He seems to have been included in the general pardon which the king granted to the greater Norman lords, and in the following November attended the king's court at Salisbury, where charges were preferred against William, bishop of Durham. There he urged that the prelates should withdraw and determine the question whether the bishop ought to be called upon to plead before he was restored to his bishopric. He spoke on behalf of the privileges of the clergy, but was overruled by Lanfranc (Monasticon, i. 247). At a later stage of the hearing one of Geoffrey's men made a claim against the Bishop of Durham, declaring that the garrison of his castle had taken two hundred cattle belonging to his lord (ib. p. 248). It is said that when Duke Robert sold the Cotentin to his brother Henry, Bishop Geoffrey refused to acknowledge the new count, declaring that his church should own no lord save him who was owned by the church of Rouen, and that frequent frays took place between the men of the bishopric and Henry's barons (Gallia Christiana, xi. 872; Recueil des Historiens, xii. 644 n.) He died at Coutances on 3 Feb. 1093, in the presence of Odo of Bayeux and other prelates who had come to visit him, and was buried in his cathedral church. He left his English estates to his nephew, Robert of Mowbray, earl of Northumberland.

[Freeman's Norman Conquest, vols. iii. and iv.; Gallia Christiana, xi. 870; Bessin's Concilia Rotom. Prov. i. 40, 49; Orderic and William of Poitou, ed. Duchesne; Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Rolls Ser.); Florence of Worcester (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Wace's Roman de Rou; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontiff.; B. Lanfranci Opera, ed. Giles; Anglia Sacra; Dugdale's Monasticon and Baronage, p. 56; Planché's Conqueror and his Companions, ii. 25; Gally Knight's Architectural Tour in Normandy, p. 100.]  GEOFFREY (d. 1146), abbot of St. Albans, was descended from ancestors of noble rank both in Normandy and in Maine, of which county he was a native. He was a learned clerk, and, though a secular, was invited by Richard, abbot of St. Albans, to come to England and take charge of the abbey school. As he delayed to come, the post was given to another. The abbot, however, promised that he should have it at a future date, and he settled at Dunstable and kept a school there. While he was at Dunstable he composed a miracle-play of St. Katharine, either for the weavers of the town, for St. Katharine was the patron of their craft, or for his scholars. For the dress of his players Geoffrey persuaded the sacristan of St. Albans to lend him the choir copes of the abbey, for Dunstable Priory was not founded until some years later (Monasticon, vi. 238). On the night after the play, doubtless 24 Nov., the eve of the saint's feast day, Master Geoffrey's house was burnt, and with it his books and the St. Albans copes. Not knowing how to make up the loss to God and the saint, he determined to make an offering of himself (Gesta Abbatum, i. 73); became a monk of St. Albans, and in after days as abbot took special care to provide the house with valuable choir copes. He became prior, and, on the death of Abbot Richard in 1119, was elected to succeed him. He made improvements in the internal economy of the abbey, built a fine guests' hall, and next to it a room called the queen's chamber, for the use of the queen, the only woman who was allowed to lodge within the abbey, and an infirmary with a chapel. Although he was anxious to complete a shrine which he was making for