Family tree of Geoffroy de Donjon
French Ancien Régime
Born Geoffroy de Donjon
Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller serving from 1193 through his death in 1202
Born on December 31, 1130 in Picardie ou Auvergne , France (71 years)
Deceased on 1202 in Saint-Jean d'Acre , Israel
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... Geoffroy de Donjon (died 1202 in Acre), also known as or Geoffroy de Duisson, was the eleventhth Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller serving from 1193 through his death in 1202. He succeeded Garnier de Nablus who died in August 1192.
Biography
It is not known if Geoffroy was from Picardie or Auvergne. His name is first mentioned for the first time in an act of April 1185 where he appears as a simple brother in the Holy Land, arriving with the Crusaders some time before that date. The second time was when he was elected Grand Master at the general chapter meeting held in Margat in January 1193.A letter from him, undated, speaks of an earthquake in Syria. This event has been since identified as the 1202 Syrian earthquake happening in 20 May of that year. He was certainly present during the summer of 1202 at the side of the papal legate Soffredo Gaetani during the first trip to Antioch. They were attempting to reconcile the parties in the War of the Antiochene Succession concerning the Principality of Antioch. On 23 March 1203, the second voyage of Soffredo Gaetani to Antioch took place, but without Geoffroy de Donjon. He was replaced ad interim by the Grand Commander Pierre de Mirmande. They were accompanied by Phillipe de Plessis, Grand Master of the Templars. These elements make it possible to situate the disappearance of Geoffroy between these two diplomatic trips.His magisterium took place during a relatively calm period in the Holy Land. There were many disputes with the Templars, as the orders were jealous of each other. Under Geoffroy, several agreements were concluded. The independence of the Teutonic Order is such an arrangement. For a long time they had benefited from the kindness of the Hospitaller order, but the Teutonics wanted to acquire their independence. They had taken the rule of the Temple for clerics and knights and that of the Hospitaller for their own rules of hospitality. The Grand Masters of the Hospitallers and Templars attended the solemn ceremony, obliged by the circumstances, on 5 March 1198, curbing their pride and in the silence of their reprobation.Geoffroy de Donjon increased the possessions of the Hospitallers by adding on 24 October 1197 the Casalia Hautefié which belonged to Juliana Grenier and her second husband Aymar de Lairon, the Lady and Lord of Caesarea. Aymar later became a brother in the Order, and Juliana was buried in a Hospitaller cemetery. They also obtained the castle of Digegie in May 1201 which belonged to Christine and Rohard of Jaffa. Geoffroy was succeeded by Fernado Afonso of Portugal.
See also
Cartulaire général de l'Ordre des Hospitaliers
List of Knights Hospitaller sites
Langue (Knights Hospitaller)
Flags of the Knights Hospitaller
References
Bibliography
External links
Geoffroy de Donjon. French Wikipedia.
Liste des grands maîtres de l'ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem. French Wikipedia.
Eugène Harot, Essai d’armorial des Grands-Maîtres de l’Ordre de Saint Jean de Jérusalem.
Seals of the Grand Masters. Museum of the Order of St John.
Charles Moeller, Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Knights of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, Encyclopædia Britannica. 20. (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 12–19.
Biography from Wikipedia (see original) under licence CC BY-SA 3.0
Geographical origins
The map below shows the places where the ancestors of the famous person lived.
