Geoffrey Ridel

Who was Geoffrey Ridel?

Geoffrey Ridel was the nineteenth Lord Chancellor of England, from 1162 to 1173.

Ridel was probably the great-nephew of Geoffrey Ridel, who died in 1120 and was a royal justice. He was a royal clerk by about 1156, when he first starts witnessing charters. He was a king's clerk before he was Archdeacon of Canterbury, which office he held by March 1163. He performed the duties of the chancellor's office after Thomas Becket's resignation of the office, but no documents explicitly name him to the office. He also served as a royal judge. By 1165, Ridel was a baron of the Exchequer.

During the controversy between King Henry II of England and Archbishop Thomas Becket, Ridel supported the king. Ridel was one of the persons whom the Constitutions of Clarendon were addressed to, along with Richard de Luci and Richard of Ilchester. Ridel went to Rome in 1164 to represent the king before the papal curia, and in 1166 opposed Becket once more. By 1169 he was urging King Louis VII of France to no longer give refuge to Becket. Becket's supporters called Ridel the "archidiabolus", or "our archdevil", a play on the office of archdeacon which Ridel held. Ridel also urged King Henry's son, Henry the Young King, to refuse to see the archbishop in 1170, telling the prince that Becket wished to disinherit the prince.