Lionel's Name and Title 123 



nearly opposite the island of Zante (Corfu), from which some 

 have supposed the title to have been derived. This opinion is 

 thus combated by Leake'^" : 



An unfounded opinion has long prevailed, and has been repeated 

 by some of the latest travellers, that the name of the English dukedom 

 of Clarence was derived from Glarentza or Klarentza, the modern 

 name of Cyllene. But no royal or noble family of England is knowm 

 to have possessed any territory in the Peloponnesus, and there can be 

 no question, that Clarentia or Clarencia was the district of Clare, 

 in Suffolk. The title was first given in 1362, by Edward III., to his 

 third son Lionel, when the latter succeeded to the estates of Gilbert, 

 earl of Clare and Gloucester, uncle to his wife, who was heiress also 

 to her father, William de Burg, earl of Ulster. On Lionel's death, 

 the title became extinct for want of heirs, and was thrice renewed 

 with the same result: in 1411, by King Henry IV., in favour of his 

 second son, Thomas Plantagenet; in 1461, by King Edward IV., in 

 favour of his brother, George Plantagenet; and in 1789, by King 

 George III., in favour of his third son, William Henry. KXaperrfo, 

 VXapevT'^a, or TXapavr'^a, is a name found in other parts of Greece, 

 and appears to be derived from the Romaic rxdpos, a water-fowl 

 so called. It is possible that this error as to the title of Clarence 

 may have been partly caused by the identity of the Latin form of the 

 name of the two places, although so widely distant from one another. 



The views of Leake have been traversed by Sir Rennell 

 Rodd**' : 



It has been maintained that after the marriage of Florence of 

 Hainault with Isabella Villehardouin, the family of the counts of 

 Hainault took a title from the Achaian city of Clarenza, and that 

 through Philippa of Hainault, the wife of Edward III., it was revived 

 in favour of her son Lionel. 



of Cyllene. It was the place of disembarkation for reinforcements arriv- 

 ing from France and the kingdom of Naples, and destined for the Morea. 

 It was, too, the resort of foreign merchants, especially the Venetians, and 

 a place of considerable commerce ; and its citizens formed a financial 

 aristocracy. The local French fleet was under the control of an admiral, 

 and the money coined here was esteemed throughout the Orient, as the 

 weights and measures of Glarentza were recognized as standard in all 

 Romania.' See also Leake, Peloponncsiaca, pp. 210-211; Rodd i. no, 141, 

 173-5, 266; 2. 3, 18, 30, 34; JNIiller, pp. 267-8, 272, 289, and Index s. v. 

 Glarentza; Boccaccio, Decameron 2. 7; Ptolemy, Geographia, ed. Noble, 

 3. 16. 6 (where later manuscripts record that Cyllene was subsequently 

 known as Klarentza). 



^^ Peloponnesiaca, p. 212. 



"2. 275-6. 



