Maud de Lacy, Baroness Geneville (1230 – 11 April 1304) was a Norman-Irish noblewoman and wealthy heiress who inherited half the estates of her grandfather Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath, upon his death in 1241. The lordships of Trim and Ludlow passed to her second husband Sir Geoffrey de Geneville, 1st Baron Geneville by right of his marriage to her; although she helped to rule and administer the estates in an equal partnership. She is sometimes referred to as Matilda de Lacy.
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Family
Maud (otherwise Matilda) was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1230, the youngest child of Gilbert de Lacy of Ewyas Lacy and Isabel Bigod, daughter of Hugh Bigod the Earl of Norfolk and his wife Matilda (Maud), daughter of William Marshall the Earl of Pembroke. Her paternal grandparents were Walter de Lacy and Margaret de Braose, daughter of Maud de Braose, who was walled up alive by King John of England. Her maternal grandparents were Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk and Maud Marshal. She had an elder brother, Walter and sister Margery. On 25 December 1230, the year of her birth, Maud's father died, leaving her mother a widow at the age of eighteen. Less than four years later on 12 April 1234, her mother married again; he was John FitzGeoffrey, Lord of Shere in Surrey, England, and Justiciar of Ireland. Maud had six younger half-siblings from her mother's second marriage to John.
In early 1241, Maud's brother Walter died. He was in his early teens. When their grandfather Walter de Lacy died shortly afterwards on 24 February, Maud and her sister, Margery inherited his vast estates and lordships in Ireland, Herefordshire, and the Welsh Marches. Maud and Margery both received a moiety of Ewyas Lacy in Herefordshire, and a share of the lordship with the taxes and revenues that attached to it.
