page_title: Gilbert de Lyvet
section_title: Sheriff
hierarchical_section_title: Gilbert de Lyvet / Biography / Sheriff
caption_attribution_description: English: Marriage of Storngbow and Aoife
context_page_description: Gilbert de Lyvet was an early Anglo-Norman nobleman and merchant who became one of the earliest Mayors of Dublin. He donated extensive properties to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Dublin, acted as witness for early gifts to the cathedral, and was a partisan for the Bigods, the de Clares, the de Lacys and other Norman magnates.
context_section_description: "Gilbert de Lynet (Lyvet) was of sufficient importance to be Sheriff of Connaught from 1287 to 1289," according to The History of the County of Mayo to the Close of the Sixteenth Century. "The family appear again as owners of half the castle and lands of Carn -- the other half owned by Carews -- and of the lands of Kincon, Ellagh, and Seehaunmore in Kilfian."
  By 1302, John Lyvet was granted arms in Ireland, and in 1311 was appointed steward of Carlow with the keeping of Old Ros and the Isle of Hervey, as well as the Knights Templar's hamlet of Kilclogan in Wexford. (A branch of the Dublin Levett family apparently relocated to Waterford at some later date, as the first family member appears as mayor in the early seventeenth century.) In 1302 King Edward I of England issued a call to convene the magnates of Ireland to assist in an invasion against the Scots. John de Lyvet was one of the Irish nobles named in the writ.
  The de Lyvet family were one of the earliest of the Anglo-Irish families, but unlike other early Normans like the de Burghs and the De Lacys, the Levetts seem to have been largely overlooked by historians. Perhaps the orthography made them difficult to trace: the spelling of the name varied wildly, including 'de Liuet,' 'de Lyvet', 'de Leuet', 'de Lyuet,' 'de Lynet,' 'Linet', and even 'de Yvet" and "Del Ynet." One historian assures us that "at the commencement of the reign of Edward II, the De Lynets were a powerful family in the south of Ireland." By the seventeenth century, an Irishman named Levett had registered his coat of arms, and it was distinct from those of his English brethren, which was unsurprising given that the first Levetts who came to Ireland did so as heraldry was only beginning to come into use.
caption: Marriage of 'Strongbow'and Aiofe: Norman occupation of Ireland a complicated affair by Daniel Maclise
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