Gervase of Tilbury was an English canon lawyer, statesman and cleric. He enjoyed the favour of Henry II of England and later of Henry's grandson, Emperor Otto IV, for whom he wrote his best known work, the Otia Imperialia.
Life and works
Gervase was of aristocratic stock, claiming kinship with Patrick, Earl of Salisbury. He was born in West Tilbury, in Essex, a manor in the hands of Henry II, but was brought up in Rome. He travelled widely, studied and taught canon law at Bologna, was in Venice in 1177, at the reconciliation of Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa, and spent some time in the service of Henry II of England, and of his son, "Henry the Young King". For the latter he composed a Liber facetiarum, now lost, as well as the basis for what would become the Otia Imperialia. He also served Henry's uncle William of Champagne, Archbishop of Reims. offering the Monreale Cathedral to the Virgin Mary. Some time after 1183 Gervase found service at the court of William II, the Norman king of Sicily, who had married Henry's daughter Joan. From William he received the gift of a villa at Nola in Campania. After the King of Sicily's death in 1189, Gervase moved to the court of the Otto of Brunswick, a grandson of Henry II. Under Otto's auspices, Gervase married and settled in Arles. In 1198, Otto – now one of the two rival kings of the Holy Roman Empire – appointed Gervase Marshal of the Kingdom of Arles. Gervase accompanied Otto to Rome in 1209 on the occasion of his Imperial coronation. The following year Gervase was enmeshed in the papacy's struggle with his patron Otto, who was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Gervase employed the next years, from 1210 to 1214, writing the Otia Imperialia for his patron. He also wrote a Vita abbreviata et miracula beatissimi Antonii and a Liber de transitu beate virginis et gestis discipulorum. Details of his latter years are uncertain. It has been suggested that, after the resounding defeat of Otto and his English ally John at the Battle of Bouvines, Gervase was forced to retire to the duchy of Braunschweig, where he became, and died, provost of Ebstorf, and it is apparent that his work was known to the authors of the Ebstorf world map. However, it is recorded by Ralph of Coggeshall that he became a canon in later life, and other evidence suggests that he may have been a member of the Premonstratensians of l'Huveaune.
