The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Ianuile : for Joinville or Geneville. "Thomas de Joannisvilla and his fief occur in Normandy 1180-95: Ralph de Jehanville 1198 (Magn. Rotul. Scaccarii Normanniae). Of this family, Roger de Geneville gave the church of Pictariville about 1000 to St. Taurin Abbey, near Evreux (Gall. Christ, xi. 139 Inst.). His descendants came to England 1066; and temp. Henry I. Hugh de Janville witnessed the charter of Lenton Priory 1100-1108 (Mon. i. 654). He was Viscount of Leicester 1130, and Seneschal to Matilda de Senlis (Rot. Pip. and Mon. i. 672). Ivo de Leicester, his son, was living 1130 (Rot. Pip.)."—The Norman People. Nicholls gives their coat Azure 3 barnacles Or, on a chief Ermine a lion naissant Gules. William Jaunville was knight of the shire for Leicester in 1322. Nicholas de Janville was of Oxfordshire, and Galfrid de Ganville of Devonshire temp. Ed. I.—Rotuli Hundredorum. He must have been the Geoffrey de Geyneville, sometimes called Joinville de Vaucouleurs and Dominus de Valli Colons, who is mentioned at Ludlow in 1277, and was the brother of Sir John de Joinville, Grand Seneschal of Champagne, the biographer and companion-at-arms of St. Louis, whom he accompanied to the Holy Land in 1248. He was of an altogether different race from the Jehanvilles or Genevilles of Normandy. The house to which he belonged was one of the noblest of Champagne, and had been seated at Joinville, a small town on the river Marne from whence it derived its name, as early as the nth century. The elder brother, on his return from Palestine, spent his time chiefly at the court of his suzerain the King of Navarre, Count of Champagne; but Geoffrey became the second husband of a wealthy Englishwoman, Maud, the eldest of the two granddaughters and coheiresses of the great Walter de Lacy. She brought him a moiety of Meath in Ireland, afterwards called the Lordship of Trim, and the castle of Ludlow in Wales, with the privileges and duties of a Baron Marcher; and he was twice summoned for military service against the Welsh. He also fought in Gascony, and had summons to parliament as a baron of the realm in 1298. Eyton mentions him among the chief benefactors of the Black Friars of Shrewsbury. According to Dugdale, he had four sons, Geoffrey, Peter, Simon, and William. Geoffrey died before him, leaving no posterity; and Peter succeeded to his possessions, though not to his barony by writ. Peter's wife was Joan de Lusignan, daughter of Hugh XII., surnamed Le Brun, Count de la Marche, by whom he had three daughters, Joan, Isabel, and Beatrix; the two youngest took the veil at Aconbury, and Joan remained sole heiress. She was married to Roger Mortimer Earl of March, the notorious favourite of Edward II., "whereby the whole inheritance of Genevill, and half the lands of Lacy came to that family, and by its heiress eventually to the Crown, in the person of King Edward IV."—Banks.

Simon de Genevill, the next brother, married Joan de Fitz Leons, Lady of Culmullen, and, as one of the "Fideles" of Ireland, several times occurs in Palgrave's Parliamentary Writs. He was three times called upon to serve against the Scots: thanked for "his good service against the Scottish and Irish rebels" in 1315: and "commanded to attack and pursue Roger de Mortimer" (his niece's husband) "in the event of his taking refuge in Ireland" in 1323. He had one son, Nicholas; and five daughters; the eldest married to John Hussey, Lord of Galtrim; the second to William de Loundres of Athboy; the third to the Baron of Slane; the fourth to Walter de la Hyde, and the fifth to John Cruce, or Cruys. Nicholas left no heir male; and his only daughter Joan conveyed Culmullen to John Cusack of Beaurepaire.

The youngest son of Geoffrey, William de Geneville, received from Edward I., "in consideration of the valuable services performed by them both, the marriage of the younger Daughter of John Giffard of Brimsfield, and Maud Longespe his Wife, one of the Co-heirs of the said Maud."—Dugdale. It must have been through this, his last born son, that Geoffrey became, as the Pere Anselme styles him, "tige des Seigneurs de Vaucouleurs," but I have met with no account of his posterity.