Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry

Geoffrey IV de la Tour Landry (c. 1320 – 1391) was a nobleman of Anjou who compiled "Livre pour l'enseignement de ses filles" for the instruction of his daughters, in 1371-1372. A similar book he had previously written for his sons, according to his opening text, has disappeared. The work became the most popular educational treatise of the Late Middle Ages. It was translated into German, as "Der Ritter vom Turn", and at least twice into English, once by William Caxton, who printed it as "The Book of the Knight of the Tower" in 1483. [It was reprinted in 1868 from a manuscript made in the reign of Henry VI by T. Wright for the Early English Text Society.]

De la Tour Landry fought in the Hundred Years War; he was at the siege of Aguillon in 1346 and was in the war as late as 1383. La Tour Landry stands (a ruin today) between Chollet and Vezins. His name again appears in a military muster in 1363. He married Jeanne de Rougé, younger daughter of Bonabes de Rougé, sieur of Erval, vicomte de La Guerche, and chamberlain to the king. In 1378, as a "knight banneret", he sent a contingent of men to join the siege of Cherbourg, but he did not serve in person. In 1380 Geoffroy was fighting in Brittany, and was last mentioned in 1383. He made a second marriage with Marguerite des Roches, dame de La Mothe de Pendu, the widow of Jean de Clerembault, knight. [Thomas Wright, introduction, "Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry", London 1906 p. vii.]

Work

The "Livre pour l'enseignement de ses filles" served as a tutorial for De la Tour Landry's daughters on proper behavior when visiting the royal court, which, the knight warns, is filled with smooth-talking courtiers who could potentially disgrace them and embarrass the family. The author was a widower, and concerned for his daughters' welfare. He takes a strong moral stance against the behavior of his peers and warns his daughters about the dangers of vanity.

Family

"Landricus Dunesis" is the name of the first known member of the De La Tour Landry family; his name appears in a charter dated from c. 1061. He built a tower and fortress that were destroyed at the end of the eleventh century. The site of the subsequently rebuilt castle still stands in the canton of Chemillé, Maine-et-Loire. De la Tour Landry's grandfather, Geoffroy III de la Tour Landry, had married Olive de Belleville, the daughter of a neighboring grand seigneur. She is mentioned in the "Livre" as enjoying the company of minstrels, and lauded for her generosity and piety.

In the fifteenth century, Pontus de la Tour Landry commissioned the romance of "Pontus et la belle Sidoine", glamorizing the family's origins in the train of Pontus, the son of the king of Galicia who fell in love with the fair Sidonia, daughter of the king of Brittany, where part of the ancestral possessions of the lords of La Tour lay.

Cultural references

In the novel "The Once and Future King", by T.H. White, a reference is made that states that "before King Arthur had made his chivalry, the Knight of the Tower Landry had been compelled to warn his daughter against entering her own dining hall in the evening unaccompanied – for fear of what might happen in the dark corners." [T. H. White, "The Once and Future King" (New York: Berkley Publishing, 1958), 425.]

Notes

External links

* [http://mw.mcmaster.ca/scriptorium/tourlandry.html (Scriptorium) Geoffrey de la Tour Landry on "jangling" in church]
* [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/dap/1999/00000028/00000001/art00002 Framing Lives: The Narratives of Behavior in "Der Ritter vom Turn"]
* [http://www.landrystuff.com/latour_landry.htm LaTour Landry]
* [http://blake.montclair.edu/~vincentiw/reviews/chivalry/chivalric_manuals.htm Chivalric Manuals]
* [http://www.herve.gros.nom.fr/genanglais/html/dat62.htm#15 Genealogical Data]
* [http://mw.mcmaster.ca/scriptorium/delatour.html Text of "The Book of the Knight of the Tower"]
* [http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cme;cc=cme;view=toc;idno=KntTour-L "Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry", London 1906]
* [http://arlima.net/mp/ponthus_et_sidoine.html "Ponthus et Sidoine"]

Further reading

* D. B. Wyndham Lewis, G. S. Taylor (Editors), "Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry" (Kila, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003).