The Life and Times of a Medieval Knight: Sir Geoffrey de Langley and family

Sir Geoffrey de Langley, a Warwickshire knight, was studied within the context of a ‘crisis’ of the knightly class.This much respected, and much cited study, concluded that this family failed to achieve anything much of note and fell from history, due to lack of heirs. Meanwhile, in Middleton, Lancashire, historians were trying to establish the beginnings of the local Langley family.Their most famous son is ‘Cardinal’ Thomas de Langley, Bishop of Durham.Thomas’ parents seem to spring up from nowhere, as sheep farmers.Some built Agecroft Hall, but that now stands in Virginia, USA.Despite much hypothesis, nothing is confirmed with a primary source. The Langley Cartulary was translated, and published, which confirmed the bride’s pedigree, when Isabella de la Pole married Sir Walter de Langley, of Kent.In Shipton-under-Wychwood, a local historian published a history of the Langley family, wardens of Wychwood Forest. But at no point, until now, has the possibility that all of this research