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Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry (before 1330-between 1402 and 1406)[1] was a nobleman ofAnjou who fought in theHundred Years War.
In 1371–1372 Geoffroy compiled theLivre pour l'enseignement de ses filles ("The Book of the Knight in the Tower") for the instruction of his daughters—La Tour Landry stands (a ruin today) betweenCholet andVezins.
Geoffroy fought in theHundred Years War; he was at thesiege ofAguillon in 1346 and was in the war as late as 1383. His name again appears in a military muster in 1363. He married Jeanne de Rougé, younger daughter ofBonabes de Rougé, sieur of Derval, vicomte deLa Guerche, and chamberlain to the king. In 1378, as a "knight banneret", he sent a contingent of men to join the siege ofCherbourg, but he did not serve in person. In 1380 Geoffroy was fighting inBrittany, and was last mentioned in 1383. He made a second marriage withMarguerite des Roches, dame deLa Mothe de Pendu, the widow ofJean de Clerembault, knight.[2]
Geoffrey compiled theLivre 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[citation needed] of theLate Middle Ages. It was translated into German, asDer Ritter vom Turn, and at least twice into English, once byWilliam Caxton, who printed it asThe Book of the Knight of the Tower in 1483.[a] A Dutch adaptation, titledDē spiegel der duecht, appeared in 1515 by the Brussels printerThomas van der Noot.
TheLivre pour l'enseignement de ses filles served as a tutorial for De la Tour Landry's daughters on proper behaviour when visiting the royal court, which, the knight warns, is filled with smooth-talkingcourtiers 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 behaviour of his peers and warns his daughters about the dangers ofvanity.
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 atower andfortress that were destroyed at the end of the eleventh century. The site of the subsequently rebuilt castle still stands in thecanton ofChemillé,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 theLivre as enjoying the company ofminstrels, and lauded for her generosity and piety.
In the fifteenth century, Pontus de la Tour Landry commissioned[citation needed] theromance ofPontus et la belle Sidonie, glamorizing the family's origins in the train of Pontus, the son of the king ofGalicia 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.
In the novelThe Once and Future King, byT.H. White, a reference is made that states "beforeKing 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".[3]
In the novelTimeline, byMichael Crichton, a reference is made which states
As the Professor left, Marek said, "I pray God look with favor upon your journey and deliver you safe back." That was what he always said to departing friends. It had been a favorite phrase of the Count Geoffrey de la Tour, six hundred years before."[4]
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