Today 800 years ago, one of the greatest knights of his age died. William Marshal was in his early 70s when he died on the 14th of May 1219 (his birthdate was probably 1147 but it is not known for certain). This was a remarkable age for his era and in his lifetime he had ten children, was a knight errant, a commander, an Earl, went to the Holy Land, served five kings and rose from the fourth son of a non hierarchically important baron to be Regent of England at his death. He is remembered because of a remarkable contemporary biography commissioned by his son after his death. The History of William Marshal is the earliest non classical biography of a lay person, and it is a fascinating window into the 12th century.

I wrote my thesis on William Marshal in 2011, and I have written about him, and his equally remarkable wife Isabel de Clare, on this blog before so I am not going to recap his life story. There are lot of celebrations of Marshal’s life happening in the UK and Ireland at the various castles he was involved in the construction of. Sadly as I’m Australian I can’t attend any of them, so I thought I’d write this post as a recap of everything I’ve written about Marshal in the nearly five years since I began this blog.

You can read about Marshal in more detail here

https://historicalragbag.com/william-marshal-and-isabel-de-clare/

And about Isabel de Clare here

https://historicalragbag.com/2014/11/27/marriage-alliances-1180-1250-part-4-isabel-de-clare/

I have also written about several structures that he was involved in building:

Tintern Parva in Ireland

https://historicalragbag.com/2017/12/11/advent-calendar-of-medieval-religious-institutions-december-11th-tintern-parva/

Hook Lighthouse in Ireland

https://historicalragbag.com/2015/08/16/hook-lighthouse/

Ferns Castle in Ireland

https://historicalragbag.com/2016/12/20/advent-calendar-of-castles-december-20th-ferns-castle/

Chepstow Castle in Wales

https://historicalragbag.com/2016/12/18/advent-calendar-of-castles-december-18th-chepstow-castle/

Pembroke Castle in Wales

https://historicalragbag.com/2015/11/15/pembroke-castle/

And you’ll find many Marshal sites discussed in my post From Page to Place about places I’ve visited because of books I’ve read. This post specifically features the book that introduced me to Marshal in the first place: Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Greatest Knight

https://historicalragbag.com/2017/09/29/from-page-to-place/

Finally you’ll also find Marshal and Isabel as the key figures in the only fictional part of Historical Ragbag.

https://historicalragbag.com/accidental-love-a-medieval-love-story/

You’ll find Marshal scattered through all of Historical Ragbag, not just in the posts actually about him. In many ways Marshal is the heart of this blog. He certainly encapsulates his time, which happens to be the 70 odd years that I’m most interested in.

Seeing as this is the 800th anniversary of his death I thought it was appropriate to conclude with the archbishop’s words as Marshal’s body was interred in the Temple Church, as recorded by History of William Marshal.

All the writings in the History have to have taken with a lot of grains of salt, because it is a biography commissioned by his son, and it is perfectly possible these words were not actually said, but the sentiment most likely holds true.

See my lord, how it is with this life: when each and everyone of us comes to his end, there is no sense be found in us, for we are nothing but so much earth. Look there, see the best knight to be found in the world in our times. And, in God’s name what will you say then? All of us must come to this, it is an inescapable fact that each of us must die when his day comes. Just look at this exemplar here, ours as well as yours. Let each man say the Lord’s prayer, entreating God to receive this Christian soul into his realm in heaven, to sit in glory beside his own, for we believe this man to have been a good man.

For me the final line says it all, Marshal was good man.

References: History of William Marshal, Volume II, p. 457

The photos are all mine.