Gervase of Tilbury or
Gervasius Tilberiensis (ca. 1150 – ca. 1228) was a 13th century
canon lawCanon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
yer, statesman and writer, apparently born in either
East TilburyEast Tilbury is a village in the unitary authority of Thurrock borough, England and one of the traditional parishes in Thurrock.-History:In Saxon times, the location on which the church now stands was surrounded by tidal marshland...
or
West TilburyWest Tilbury is a village situated on the top of a river terrace overlooking the river Thames. The modern town of Tilbury is mainly in the traditional parish of Chadwell St Mary.-Location and administration:...
, in
EssexEssex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Life and works
Gervase was of
aristocraticThe aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
stock, claiming kinship with
Patrick, Earl of SalisburyPatrick of Salisbury, 1st Earl of Salisbury was an Anglo-Norman nobleman, and the uncle of the famous William Marshal.His parents were Walter of Salisbury and Sibilla de Chaworth. Before 1141, Patrick was constable of Salisbury, a powerful local official but not a nobleman...
, and relations allegedly descended from a fey serpent-woman recognizable as the
MelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, suggesting an alliance with the
House of LusignanThe Lusignan family originated in Poitou near Lusignan in western France in the early 10th century. By the end of the 11th century, they had risen to become the most prominent petty lords in the region from their castle at Lusignan...
in Poitou, with which England had contemporary dynastic connections.
He travelled widely, studied and taught
canon lawThe canon law of the Catholic Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. It lacks the necessary binding force present in most modern day legal systems. The academic...
at
BolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, was in Venice in 1177, at the reconciliation of
Pope Alexander IIIPope Alexander III , born Rolando of Siena, was Pope from 1159 to 1181. He is noted in history for laying the foundation stone for the Notre Dame de Paris.-Church career:...
and Frederick Barbarossa, and spent some time in the service of
Henry of AnjouHenry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
, and of his son, "
Henry the Young KingHenry, known as the Young King was the second of five sons of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine but the first to survive infancy. He was officially King of England; Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and Maine.-Early life:Little is known of the young prince Henry before the events...
". 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 ReimsThe Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese around 250 by St. Sixtus, the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese around 750...
. He spent some time between 1183 and 1189 at the Sicilian court of the Norman
William IIWilliam II , called the Good, was king of Sicily from 1166 to 1189. William's character is very indistinct. Lacking in military enterprise, secluded and pleasure-loving, he seldom emerged from his palace life at Palermo. Yet his reign is marked by an ambitious foreign policy and a vigorous diplomacy...
, who had married Henry's daughter
JoanJoan of England was the seventh child of Henry II of England and his queen consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine.Joan was a younger maternal half-sister of Marie de Champagne and Alix of France...
(1177).
From William he received the gift of a villa at
NolaNola is a city and comune of Campania, southern Italy, in the province of Naples, situated in the plain between Mount Vesuvius and the Apennines...
in Campania.
At some point after William's death in 1189, Gervase settled in
ArlesArles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
and was appointed Marshal of the
Kingdom of ArlesThe Kingdom of Arles or Second Kingdom of Burgundy of the High Middle Ages was a Frankish dominion established in 933 from lands of the early medieval Kingdom of Burgundy at Arles...
in 1198 by
Otto IV, Holy Roman EmperorOtto IV of Brunswick was one of two rival kings of the Holy Roman Empire from 1198 on, sole king from 1208 on, and emperor from 1209 on. The only king of the Welf dynasty, he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1215.-Early life:Otto was the third son of Henry the...
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 IIIPope Innocent III was Pope from 8 January 1198 until his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni....
. Gervase employed the next years, from 1210 to 1214, writing the
Otia imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") for his patron.
Gervase's
Otia imperialia has also been titled
Liber de mirabilibus mundi,
Solatia imperatoris, and
Descriptio totius orbis. It is an encyclopedic miscellany of wonders in the manner of
speculum literatureThe medieval genre of speculum literature, popular from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, was inspired by the urge to encompass encyclopedic knowledge within a single work. The modern equivalent is a summary survey, in the sense of a survey article in a scholarly journal that summarizes...
, divided into three parts (
decisiones) concerning history, geography, and physics. During the following three centuries it was much read, and it was twice translated into French in the fourteenth century. The philosopher
Gottfried LeibnizGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
, who edited parts of it, called it a "bagful of foolish old woman's tales"; its modern
Oxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
editors less dismissively report "a wealth of accounts of folklore and popular belief", but Catholic apologists respect it most of all for the support it offers of Innocent's papal claims in his conflicts between Church and Empire.
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 martyrdoms of the blessed virgins 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
JohnJohn , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...
at the
Battle of BouvinesThe Battle of Bouvines, 27 July 1214, was a conclusive medieval battle ending the twelve year old Angevin-Flanders War that was important to the early development of both the French state by confirming the French crown's sovereignty over the Angevin lands of Brittany and Normandy.Philip Augustus of...
(1214), Gervase was forced to retire to the duchy of
BraunschweigBraunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
, where he became, and died, provost of Ebstorf, and it is apparent that his work was known to the authors of the
Ebstorf world mapThe Ebstorf Map is an example of a mappa mundi similar to the Hereford Map, made by Gervase of Ebstorf, who was possibly the same man as Gervase of Tilbury, some time in the thirteenth century....
(ca. 1234–40). However, it is recorded by
Ralph of CoggeshallRalph of Coggeshall , English chronicler, was at first a monk and afterwards sixth abbot of Coggeshall, an Essex foundation of the Cistercian order....
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.
The arguments for Gervase of Tilbury being the maker of the Ebstorf map are based on the name Gervase, which was an uncommon name in Northern Germany at the time and on some similarities between the world view of the mapmaker and Gervase of Tilbury. The editors of the
Oxford Medieval Texts edition of Gervase of Tilbury's
Otia Imperialia conclude that although the two Gervases being the same man is an "attractive possibility", to accept it requires "too many improbable assumptions".