GERVASE OF TILBURY (fl. 121I ), Anglo-Latin writer of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, was a kinsman and schoolfellow of Patrick, earl of Salisbury, but lived the life of a scholarly adventurer, wandering from land to land in search of patrons. Before 1177 he was a student and teacher of law at Bologna; his first employer of royal rank was Henry fitz Henry, the young king of England (d. 1183), for whom Gervase wrote a jest-book which is no longer extant. Subsequently Gervase was a clerk in the household of William of Champagne, cardinal archbishop of Reims (d. 1202), and before 1189 he entered the service of William II. of Sicily, who had married Joanna, the sister of Henry fitz Henry. Some time after '198, he found em ployment under the emperor Otto IV. Though a clerk in orders Gervase became marshal of the kingdom of Arles, and married an heiress of good family. For the delectation of the emperor he wrote, about his Otia Imperialia in three parts. It is a farrago of history, geography, folklore and political theory—one of those books of table-talk in which the literature of the age abounded. The most interesting of his dissertations are contained in the second part of the Otia, where he discusses, among other topics, the geography and history of England.