GEOFFREY (d. 1154), abbot of Dunfermline, monk, and afterwards prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, must have been elected prior about October 1126, for his predecessor, Conrad, died on 16 Feb. 1127, after having been abbot of Holme for eighteen weeks (J. de Oxenedes, p. 294). Geoffrey witnesses as prior a charter granted to the monks of Rochester by Archbishop William (Textus Roffensis, Hearne's ed. p. 156, not Archbishop Ralph, as stated in Anglia Sacra). In 1128, at the request of David of Scotland, he became first abbot of Dunfermline in Fife, and was ordained by Robert, bishop of St. Andrews. Florence of Worcester, who is our authority for this, calls him a man of distinguished piety. The church of Dunfermline was dedicated during his tenure of the abbacy in 1150 (Chron. Holyrood). He is stated to have written ‘Historia Apostolica,’ a work which has apparently perished. He died in 1154 (Chron. S. Crucis Edinb.) His name is given as Gaufridus or Gosfridus; the former seems the more correct.
[Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 137, 161, 796; Dempster's Hist. Eccles. Scot. vii. 602.]
GEOFFREY (d. 1178), abbot of Dunfermline, was nephew of Geoffrey (d. 1154) [q. v.], whom he succeeded as abbot in 1154 (Chron. S. Crucis Edinb.; Anglia Sacra, i. 161). He was the recipient of two bulls from Alexander III, the first undated, confirming the grant by Malcolm IV of the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunkeld to Dunfermline, the second dated June 1163, confirming all grants yet made or to be made to Dunfermline (Reg. Dunf. Bannatyne Club, p. 151). He appears as witness to several charters of Malcolm IV, of William the Lion, and of Bishops Arnold and Robert of St. Andrews. He was one of the ecclesiastics who at the convention of Falaise in 1175 conceded that ‘the English church may have that right in the church of Scotland which it ought to have by right;’ a cautious method of saying that the church of Scotland was and always had been independent of England. This would harmonise with Dempster's statement that he was a vigorous defender of the independence of the church of Scotland, and wrote ‘pro exemptione ecclesiæ Scoticæ’ (vii. 611). Geoffrey died in 1178 (Chron. Melrose).
[Hoveden, ii. 80; Gordon's Monasticon, p. 417.]
GEOFFREY (1158–1186), count of Brittany, fourth son of Henry II, by his queen, Eleanor, was born on 23 Sept. 1158, and was probably called Geoffrey after his uncle, the Count of Nantes, then lately dead, his father, perhaps from his birth, hoping to provide for him by the acquisition of Brittany. As Henry had set up and supported Count Conan the Little, he had good reason to expect that he would not oppose his designs, but he had to reckon with the ill-will of Louis VII and the dislike of the Breton lords to Norman domination. During the war of 1166–7 which Henry undertook on Conan's behalf he proposed that Geoffrey should marry the count's daughter and heiress, Constance, who was then five, and should be recognised as the heir to Brittany. Conan agreed, and gave up Brittany to Henry, reserving for himself only the county of Guingamp and the honour of Richemont. In January 1169 Henry and Louis agreed at Montmirail that Geoffrey should do homage for Brittany to his eldest brother Henry, as duke of Normandy, and Henry did homage for it to Louis (Robert of Torigni, ii. 12). Accordingly Geoffrey was sent over from England in May, was acknowledged on his arrival at Rennes by Stephen, the bishop, and other prelates, and received the homage of the Breton lords in the church of St. Peter. He joined his father at Nantes, and after Christmas accompanied him to different parts of Brittany, receiving homage from the lords who had failed to attend at Rennes (Gesta Henrici, i. 3). While Henry lay sick at Domfront in August 1170, he divided his dominions among his sons by will, and left Brittany to Geoffrey, with Constance as his wife. Conan died on 20 Feb. 1171, and Henry at once took measures to secure Brittany, and adjudged Guingamp and Richemont to Geoffrey. The following Christmas Geoffrey attended the court of his brother Henry at Bures. He and his brother Richard were living with their mother in England in 1173, and were sent by her to the French court to join the young prince Henry in a revolt against their father (ib. p. 40). The brothers took oath at a council at Paris that they would not make any peace with their father except by the advice of Louis and the French barons. Several Breton lords joined in the revolt. Geoffrey marched with his brothers in the French army to invade Normandy. At the conference held at Gisors on 25 Sept. Henry offered to give up to him all the hereditary estates of Constance as soon as he married her with the pope's consent. As, however, Louis was not willing that a reconciliation should as yet take place between Henry and his sons, the offer was not accepted. On 30 Sept. of the following year Henry made peace with his sons at a meeting held at Mont-Louis, near Amboise; he promised Geoffrey half the revenues of Brittany in money until his
