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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2006-02 > 1139331986


From: "John Higgins" <>
Subject: Re: Geoffrey Plantagenet's name
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 09:06:26 -0800
References: <43E8192F.2030703@sampubco.com>


A note from DNB re Plantagenet:

"Inveterate usage has attached the surname Plantagenet to the great house
which occupied the English throne from 1154 to 1485, but the family did not
assume the surname until the middle of the fifteenth century."

BTW, this DNB snippet is quoted in a recent publication called "Plantagenet
Ancestry" by (guess who!) Douglas Richardson. The very first article in the
book is about someone whom the author refers to as 'Geoffrey Planatagenet".
This is certainly a sensible (but not historically accurate) way to refer to
him since that's what he's commonly known as now, regardless of what his
contemporaries called him.

This use of non-contemporaneous nomenclature is rather ironic, given the
position that Mr. Richardson took just a week or two ago regarding the queen
of Charles I, Henrietta Maria. I guess it's OK to refer to a 12th century
individual by a modern name, but not a 17th centeruy individual. Must be
another of those Richardson "rules of thumb"....

----- Original Message -----
From: "W David Samuelsen" <>
To: <>
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 7:51 PM
Subject: Geoffrey Plantagenet's name


>
> <http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2006-02/1139280743>;
>
> CED,
> Geoffrey received his nickname for the sprig of broom (= genêt plant, in
> French) he wore in his hat as a badge.
>
> Hence his descendants are known as the Plantagenets, to separate from
> the rest of the Angevins. The lines continued until last of the male
> Plantagenets died out, females marrying into the Lancaster and York
> houses as well as fraticides. The last Plantagenet King was Richard II
> and his actions led to his abdication, died either by murder or
> starvation depending on whose version it was then, and succeeded by
> Henry IV Bolingbroke, first of House of Lancaster.
>
> Suggest you do your history homework!
>
> W. David Samuelsen
>

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