Before daybreak on a December morning in 1143, a band of armed men emerged from the mist-shrouded fens of East Anglia and stormed into Ramsey Abbey. The monks were ripped from their beds and driven into the wilderness as the intruders stabled their horses in the cloisters and plundered the church of its sacred treasures. Their leader, Geoffrey De Mandeville, granted the Abbey’s land to his followers and sent them forth to ravage the surrounding countryside. A monk from nearby Huntingdon complained that Geoffrey “made of the church of God a very den of thieves.”
Historians have often proclaimed Geoffrey De Mandeville an embodiment of “the feudal and anarchic spirit” that characterised the chaotic reign of King Stephen (1139-1154). After Stephen seized the throne, England descended into a civil war between his supporters and those of Matilda, daughter of Henry I. Mercenaries, bandits and opportunist barons joined the fight, and the country collapsed into what would later become known as “the Anarchy”. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle wrote of the suffering of the time, “I know not how to tell of all the atrocities, nor all the cruelties wrought upon the unhappy people of this country. They lasted throughout the 19 long winters that Stephen was King. Never did a country endure greater misery. Wherever the earth was tilled the earth bore no corn, and men said that Christ and his saints slept.”
Initially, Geoffrey pledged loyalty to Stephen, but in 1141, when Matilda appeared to be in the ascendency, he defected in exchange for valuable concessions. When Stephen regained control, Geoffrey returned to the king’s side, with each swap accumulating more power and wealth. His titles included Constable of the Tower of London, Sheriff of Hertfordshire and the first Earl of Essex and some claim he was so influential that “he was obeyed more than the king”.
In 1143, Stephen tried to curb Geoffrey’s power. According to the Chronicle of Walden Abbey, “The king, moved by what counsel we know not, seized the earl by craft at his court at St Albans, and compelled him to surrender his castles.” Enraged, but helpless, Geoffrey was only released after surrendering his titles and all his castles to the king.
Releasing Geoffrey proved to be a mistake. Retreating to the inaccessible fens of East Anglia, Geoffrey took control of the Isle of Ely. He built forts across his territory, using the marshy fenland to ambush his enemies and launch hit and run raids. Geoffrey probably inspired Anglo-Saxon chronicle’s complaint that “They cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works, and when the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men.”
After seizing and fortifying Ramsey Abbey, Geoffrey used it as a centre for waging a campaign of terror across eastern England. The ensuing desecration of church property led to his excommunication from the church, but threats to his immortal soul did not deter him. Instead, he intensified the raids. He “plundered and burned everywhere” and “spared neither churches nor churchyards.” Rebels and mercenaries flocked to his banner, and he soon had a private army at his disposal that terrorised the country from the fens to the North Sea.
Geoffrey sacked Cambridge and sent out spies disguised as beggars to find any hidden treasure. The Liber Eliensis (Book of Ely) records how his men kidnapped travellers and local merchants, hanging them from their limbs in the bell towers until they revealed where their valuables lay or their families paid ransom. The outlaws are recorded as using gruesome forms of torture: some victims were suffocated by “foul smoke”, while for others, “They tied knotted strings about their heads, and twisted them till the pain went to the brains. They put them into dungeons, wherein were adders, snakes, and toads; and so destroyed them.”
Particularly shocking to Geoffrey’s contemporaries was the abuse of sacred sites, both of sanctuary and pilgrimage, Geoffrey corrupted Ely’s sacred status, by turning this holy landmark into a watchtower for outlaws. From the cathedral spires, they kept watch across the fens, lighting warning fires whenever royal forces approached. The local population suffered terribly, with many abandoning their homes and leaving their crops to rot in the fields rather than face Geoffrey’s men. Geoffrey also ran a protection racket, extorting money from villages, burning to the ground those villages that refused to pau.
The “Christmas Raid” of 1143-44 epitomises Geoffrey’s merciless indifference to even the holiest dates in the Christian calendar. At a time when peace and religious observance were expected, the ‘outlaw earl’ launched a series of brutal assaults upon villages and religious houses across Suffolk. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded how his men “spared neither child nor woman, neither sick man nor priest.”. Many raids took place as congregations gathered for Christmas services. Taking advantage of the icy winter weather, the outlaws used frozen fens to move quickly across what was normally impenetrable swamp. Churches were attacked during mass, and sacred treasures stolen in the middle of the service. One chronicler describes how “the cries of mothers were mingled with the sounds of Christmas hymns” as Geoffrey’s troops rampaged through the countryside. The ruthless timings of these raids horrified even the most hardened observers, with one writer noting that “even the pagans of old would have respected such a sacred time.”
Geoffrey’s violent career ended in September 1144. According to the Peterborough Chronicle, “Geoffrey, who had made himself exceeding strong, was wounded in fight by a common footsoldier at the siege of Burwell. Of this wound he died, being under excommunication. See how a divine revenge overtook him!” Having removed his helmet on account of the heat, Geoffrey was hit in the head by an arrow and died shortly after. Having been excommunicated, Geoffrey could not be buried in consecrated group. His body was seized by some passing Knights Templar, who encased his corpse in a lead casket, took it to London and hung it from a fruit tree in the Temple churchyard. His remains dangled there until 1163, when the Templars finally buried him in their new Temple Church, where his effigy still lies today. Geoffrey was both a symptom and a symbol of the complete breakdown of law and order during the Anarchy. Yet the grievances of the nobility provoked Henry II into reform, laying the foundations of the English legal system. Geoffrey, ironically, ended up buried in the Middle Temple, at the very epicentre of English legal establishment.