Geoffrey Luttrell

Sir Geoffrey Luttrell III (1276 – 23 May 1345) lord of the manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire was a mediaeval knight remembered principally today as having commissioned the Luttrell Psalter, a rare and profusely illustrated manuscript now in the British Library in London.

Another branch of the Luttrell family, which bore the same arms but differenced by tincture (Or, a bend between six martlets sable), in 1376 he acquired Dunster Castle in Somerset, where they were seated until the extinction of the male line in 1737 (although the family continued at Dunster until 1976 via a female line which adopted the surname and arms of Luttrell).

Within the last five years before his death in 1345 he commissioned the Luttrell Psalter,[3] the illustrations to which include a representation of him, his wife and his daughter-in-law, with profuse display of his armorials.

Although he has been praised for his patronage of the arts, it seems that Luttrell, like many medieval landowners, was capable of ruthlessness and violence.

[4] A private war which he conducted together with his neighbours Roger de Birthorpe, Edmund Colville and Guy Goband against the monks of Sempringham Priory was considered serious enough to warrant a Royal Commission of Inquiry in 1312.