Geoffrey (abbot of the Temple of the Lord)
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Geoffrey (Latin: Gaufridus) was a 12th-century Latin churchman in the Kingdom of Jerusalem who served as the abbot of the Temple of the Lord from 1137/8 to sometime between 1160 and 1166. He probably came from France, becoming prior and then the first abbot of the Temple, the reconstruction of which finished during his tenure. He became a confidant of King Fulk, Queen Melisende, and King Baldwin III. Because he spoke Greek, he was sent on sensitive diplomatic missions to Byzantine emperors in 1142 and 1158/9.
According to the historian Rudolf Hiestand, Geoffrey was probably one of the "new men" of Fulk of Anjou, who travelled to the Levant in 1128-29 to marry Melisende of Jerusalem and eventually become king of Jerusalem. Hiestand presumes that Geoffrey did not accompany Fulk at this time but arrived later.[1]
Geoffrey had become the prior of the Temple of the Lord by the winter of 1137-38, succeeding Prior Achard.[2] He revised an 800-line poem about the Temple originally written by Achard. This is one of the few surviving examples of metrical poetry from the Latin East. Geoffrey appears to have refined certain stylistic weaknesses in the original, though the extent of his revisions is still debated. He also expanded the work with two additional books, which departed from the original’s fifteen-syllable metre and were instead composed in octosyllabic verse.[3] Geoffrey refers to this poem in a letter sent between November 1135 and late 1137 to King Fulk's son Count Geoffrey V of Anjou, whom he probably expected to donate money to the Temple.[4]