1st Earl of Norfolk Hugh Bigod

Notes:

Hugh Bigod, brother of William, steward of the household of King Henry I, was also steward to King Henry I, who being mainly instrumental in raising Stephen, Earl of Bologne, to the throne upon the decease of his royal master, was rewarded by this new king with the Earldom of the East Angles, commonly called Norfolk, and by that designation we find him styled in 1140 (6th Stephen). His lordship remained faithful in his allegiance to King Stephen through the difficulties which afterwards beset that monarch, and gallantly defended the castle of Ipswich against the Empress Maud and her son until obligated at length to surrender for want of timely relief. In the 12th Henry II, this powerful noble certified his knight's fee to be one hundred and twenty-five "devetrifeoffamento," and thirty-five "de novo," upon the occasion of the assessment in aid of the marriage of the king's daughter; and he appears to have acquired at this period a considerable degree of royal favor, for we find him not only re-created Earl of Norfolk, by charter, dated at Northampton, but by the same instrument obtaining a grant of the office of steward, to hold in as ample a manner as his father had done in the time of Henry I. Notwithstanding, however, these and other equally substantial marks of the kings liberality, the Earl of Norfolk sided with Robert, Earl of Leicester, in the insurrection incited by that nobleman in favor of the king's son (whom Henry himself had crowned, ) in the 19th of the monarch's reign; but his treason upon this occasion cost him the surrender of his strongest castles, and a find of 1,000 marks. After which he went into the Holy Land with the Earl of Flanders, and died in 1177. His lordship had married twice; by his 1st wife, Julian, dau. of Alberic de Vere, he had a son, Rogers; and by his 2nd, Gundred, he had two sons, Hugh and William. He was s. by his eldest son, Roger Bigod, 2nd earl. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 53, Bigod, Earls of Norfolk]

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The Bigods held the hereditary office of steward (dapifer) of the royal household, and their chief castle was at Framlingham in Suffolk. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1961 ed, Vol. 3, pages 556/557, Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk.)

Hugh married Juliana de Vere about 1133 in Marriage was annulled. Juliana (daughter of Lord Great Chamberlain of England Aubrey II de Vere and Alice FitzGilbert de Clare) was born in 1116 in Hedingham, Essex, England; died after 1185. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. 2nd Earl of Norfolk Roger Bigod was born about 1150 in Norfolk, England; died before 2 Aug 1221 in Thetford, Norfolk, England.
2. Isabell Bigod was born about 1134 in Framingham Castle, Henstead, Norfolk, England.

Family/Spouse: Gundred de Beaumont. Gundred (daughter of 2nd Earl of Warwick Roger de Beaumont and Gundred de Warenne) was born about 1134 in Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England; died in 1200/1208. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The first of this great family that settled in England was Roger Bigod who, in the Conqueror's time, possessed six lordships in Essex and a hundred and seventeen in Suffolk, besides divers manors in Norfolk. This Roger, adhering to the party that took up arms against William Rufus in the 1st year of that monarch's reign, fortified the castle at Norwich and wasted the country around. At the accession of Henry I, being a witness of the king's laws and staunch in his interests, he obtained Framlingham in Suffolk as a gift from the crown. We find further of him that he founded in 1103, the abbey of Whetford, in Norfolk, and that he was buried there at his decease in four years after, leaving, by Adeliza his wife, dau. and co-heir of Hugh de Grentesmesnil, high steward of England, a son and heir, William Bigod, steward of the household of King Henry I.[Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 53, Bigod, Earls of Norfolk]

Roger Bigod was one of the tight-knit group of second-rank Norman nobles who did well out of the conquest of England. Prominent in the Calvados region before 1064 as an under-tenant of Odo of Bayeux, he rose in ducal and royal service to become, but 1086, one of the leading barons in East Anglia, holding wide estates to which he added Belvoir by marriage and Framlingham by grant of Henry I. His territorial fortune was based on his service in the royal household, where he was a close adviser and agent for the first three Norman kings, and the propitious circumstances of post-Conquest politics. Much of his honor in East Anglia was carved out of lands previously belonging to the dispossessed Archbishop Stigand, his brother Aethelmar of Elham, and the disgraced Earl Ralph of Norfolk and Suffolk. Under Rufus --- if not before --- Roger was one of the king's stewards. Usually in attendance on the king, he regularly witnessed writs but was also sent out to the provinces as a justice or commissioner. Apart from a flirtation with the cause of Robert Curthose in 1088, he remained conspicuously loyal to Rufus and Henry I, for whom he continued to act as steward and to witness charters. The adherence of such men was vital to the Norman kings. Through them central business could be conducted and localities controlled. Small wonder they were well rewarded. Roger established a dynasty which dominated East Anglia from the 1140s, as earls of Norfolk, until 1306. Roger's byname and the subsequent family name was derived from a word (bigot) meaning double-headed instrument such as a pickaxe: a tribute, perhaps to Roger's effectiveness as a royal servant; certainly an apt image of one who worked hard both for his masters and for himself. [Who's Who in Early Medieval England, Christopher Tyerman, Shepheard-Walwyn, Ltd., London, 1996]

ROGER LE BIGOD
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J. R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874..

The owner of this great historical name, who accompanied the Conqueror to England, was apparently the son of Robert le Bigod, the first of the name of whom we have any notice, and who was a witness to the foundation of St. Philibert-sur-Risle, in 1066. Wace, in his enumeration of the leaders in the host at Hastings, designates the member of this family simply as the ancestor of Hugh le Bigot, Lord of Maletot, Loges, and Canon.

"L'Ancestre Hue le Bigot
Ki avoit terre a Maletot,
Etais Loges et a Chanon."
Roman de Rou, I. 1377.

Maletot is near Caen, Canon (Chanon) is in the arrondissement of Lisieux, and Loges may have been either Les Loges, near Aunay, or another commune of the same name in the neighbourhood of Falaise. (Le Prévost: Notes too Le Rom. de Rou, vol. ii, p. 256.) The possession of these lands in Normandy by "the ancestor of Hugh le Bigot" is a curious fact, taken into consideration with the account the monk of Jumièges gives of thiss ancestor. Robert le Bigod, he tells us, was a knight in the service of William Werlenc, or the Warling, Comte de Mortain, and so poor that he prayed his lord to permit him to go and seek his fortune in Apulia, where his countrymen were establishing themselves and acquiring wealth and dignity under the leadership of Robert Guiscard. The Count bade him remain, assuring him that within eighty days he (Robert) would be in a position to help himself to whatever he desired in Normandy.

Whether the Count contemplated the deposition of Duke William, or was privy to the design of others, may never be known, but Robert le Bigod, inferring from this advice that some rebellious movement was projected, repaired to Richard Goz, Vicomte of the Hiemois, who was at that moment highly in favour with the Duke, and requested him to obtain an audience for him. Richard, who, according to the same authority, was a kinsman of Robert -- it would be interesting to learn how -- readily complied, and Le Bigod having repeated to the Duke the words of the Warling, the latter was instantly summoned to attend him, accused of treason, banished the country, and the Comté of Mortain was bestowed upon the Duke'ss half-brother Robert, the son of Herleve by Herluin. That William jumped at this opportunity to rid himself of a possible competitor whose claim to the duchy was clearly stronger than his own, and at the same time to advance one of his own family who would have no such pretensions, there can be no doubt. The truth or falsehood of the story told to him by Robert le Bigod has never been established. The defence of the accused, if he made any, has not been recorded; and even Mr. Freeman admits that the Duke's "justice, if justice it was, fell so sharply and speedily as to look very like interested oppression." (Norm. Conq., vol. ii., p. 290.) We have seen in the previous notice of Raoul de Gael what opinion was held in his own days of this suspicious act of the Conqueror. From that moment Robert le Bigod became a confidential servant of his sovereign, and his son Roger was the companion of the Conqueror, who for his services at Senlac received large grants of land in the counties of Essex and Suffolk, six lordships in the former and one hundred and seventeen in the latter.

Mons le Prévost remarks that Wace, always inclined to treat the presentt as the past, has attributed to Roger the office of seneschal, which was only enjoyed by his second son William. With all deference, I think the learned antiquary has misunderstood his author. Wace is not speaking of Roger le Bigod, the father of Hugh and William, but of "the ancestor of Hugh," Robert, as I take it, "who served the Duke in his house as one of his seneschals, which office he held in fee."

Mr. Taylor remarks that there is no authority for this statement, yet we find that Roger, who was one of the privy councillors and treasurer of the Duke, was seneschal or steward to Henry I, after the decease of his father, and that both William and Hugh, his sons, succeeded each other in that high office, which is a fair corroboration of the assertion that it was held in fee. If Wace be in error it is in his intimation, as I understand him, that it was Hugh's grandfather Robert, and not his father, Roger, who accompanied Duke William to Hastings.

As we have no means at present of ascertaining the age of Robert when he accused his lord of treason, it is not improbable that he, as well as his son Roger, was at Senlac. The latter survived the Conquest forty-three years, and may have been a young man in 1066, and his father not too old to bestride a war steed and lead his retainers into action. Whether father or son, we are told that "he had a large troop, and was a noble vassal. He was small of body, but very brave and daring, and assaulted the English with his mace gallantly." (Roman de Rou, I. 13, 682-87.) We hear nothing of him during the reign of the first William, but at the commencement of that of the second, Roger le Bigod is found amongst the adherents of Robert Court-heuse, fortifying his castle at Norwich and laying waste the country round about: whether eventually reconciled to Rufus, or what was the result of the suppressed rebellion to him personally, we are without information; but in the first year of the reign of Henry I, being one of those who stood firm to the King, he had Framlingham, in Suffolk, of his gift.

In 1103, by the advice of King Henry, Maud the Queen, Hubert Bishop of Norwich, and his own wife, the Lady Adeliza, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Hugh de Grentmesnil, seneschal of England, he founded the Abbey of Thetford, in the county of Norfolk, and, dying in 1107, was buried there.

By the Lady Adeliza he is said to have had seven children -- William, his son and heir, who by his charter, confirming his father's gift to Thetford, informs us that he was "Dapifer regis Anglorum;" 2. Hugh le Bigod, the first earl; 3. Richard; 4. Geoffrey; 5. John; 6. Maud, wife of William de Albini Pincerna; and 7. Gunnora, who married, first, Robert of Essex, and, secondly, Hamo de Clare. William perished in the fatal wreck of the White Ship, and Hugh, his brother and heir, in his turn steward of the King's household, was eventually created Earl of Norfolk; his descendants, by a match with Maud, the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the Marshals, Earls of Pembroke, becoming marshals of England, an office enjoyed to this day by the Dukes of Norfolk.

The name and origin of this family, Mr. Taylor remarks, seem more worthy of consideration than has hitherto been given to it. (Notes to Rom. de Rou, p. 230.) The name is spelt indifferently Bigod, Bigot, Bihot, Vigot, Wigot, Wihot, and Wigelot, generally with the prefix of "le." The Normans are represented by the French to be "Bigoz and Dranchiers;" the latter term is understood to mean consumers of barley -- perhaps beer-drinkers -- and the former presumed to have been given them from their constantly taking the name of the Almighty in vain. Anderson, in his "Genealogical Tables," says, without quoting his authority, that Rollo was styled "Bygot," from his frequent use of the phrase. This derivation receives some support from the well
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Poitevin, "le Scot," &c., and in this category I think we may class "le Vigot," an abbreviation of "le Visigot," spelt, as we find it, indifferently with a "B" or a "W" (Bigot and Wigot), according to the particular dialect of the writers. The application of the name to the Normans generally, while it proves that it was not derived from any hereditary possession or personal peculiarity, as in other cases, also testifies to the purity of the family, which was distinguished amongst its own people by the designation of that great Gothic stock whence they commonly proceeded. A signet ring was dug up some few years ago on one of the estates in Norfolk which had belonged to this family, exhibiting the figure of a goat, with the word "By" above it, being a punning device or rebus "By Goat." It is engraved in Mr. Taylor's translation of the Roman de Rou (p. 235, note), but of the legend round it the word "God" is alone distinguishable. This, however, is merely a mediaeval curiosity of no importance to the question of derivation. To settle that question we must learn to labour and to wait.

Roger married Adeliza de Toeni about 1084 in Leicestershire, England. Adeliza (daughter of Baron of Belvoir Robert de Toeni and Adeliza) was born about 1072 in St Saveur, Normandy, France; died after 1130 in Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Billeheude de St. Sauveur. Billeheude was born in 1040 in St. Sauveur, Normandy, France; died before 1060. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Belvoir: The Heirs of Robert and Berengar de Tosny.

Taken from website http://www.ihrinfo.ac.uk/ihr/nine.html.

K. S. B. Keats-Rohan.

Succession to the fee of Belvoir has been discussed as a problem several times over the years, but perhaps the issue is actually straightforward once one has identified the key players.1 Domesday's Robert de Tosny of Belvoir was a collateral of his contemporaries Ralph and Roger. By c. 1050+ he had a first-born son Berengar who could expect to succeed his father in Normandy.2 Around the time of Domesday Book, a few years before his death, Robert founded Belvoir priory with his wife Adelais. Early charters of Belvoir mention their sons William and Geoffrey and their daughter Agnes.3 At his death, Robert's lands were divided between Berengar, his eldest son and Norman heir - co-incidentally an English tenant-in-chief in his own right - and his next son and English heir, William. Presumably some provision was made for the third son Geoffrey. As it happened, all three sons were to die without issue, which meant that rights of succession passed to Robert's daughters.

Initially, the sole right of succession passed to Robert's eldest daughter Albreda, who inherited the tenancies-in-chief of both her eldest brother Berengar and her younger brother William before the date of the Lindsey Survey, which shows her husband Robert de Insula in charge of both honours.4 It has always been assumed that Albreda was the widow of Berengar who took his land to a second husband, but the idea is clearly untenable once the full story of the Belvoir succession unfolds. The references in confirmation charters of the Lincolnshire abbey of Newhouse to 'the fee of Albreda de Tosny'' is an indication that the wife of Robert de Insula was a blood relative and heiress of Berengar, rather than his widow.5 This view is confirmed by the necrology of Belvoir priory, where the anniversaries of Berengar and Albreda uxor eius, deo sancta (a phrase always referring to a religious in this document) were kept on 29 June.6 All doubt is removed by a charter of c. 1147/52 in which Hugh Bigod made a grant to Kirkstall abbey for the soul of Albrede de Insula amite mee, a phrase that can only mean that Albreda was his mother's sister.7 The phrase also usefully confirms that Albreda de Tosny and Albreda (wife of Robert) de Insula were the same.

Robert de Tosny had two other daughters, of whom the youngest was Agnes. She confirmed her father's grant of land at Aslackby, Lincolnshire, to Belvoir priory as being part of her marriage portion on her first marriage to Ralph de Beaufour of Hockering (fl. 1086/1100).8 Widowed in the early twelfth century, she married secondly Hubert I de Ryes, castellan of Norwich, to whom the tenancy-in-chief of Hockering was given by Henry I. She occurs in the 1129/30 Pipe Roll (p. 93) charged with a debt of 35 silver marks because her son was with the count of Flanders. At a similar date she attested the charter which William de Albini pincerna gave for Wymondham priory on the day his wife Matilda Bigod, Agnes's niece, died. Agnes follows her sister Adelisa Bigod in the witness list, where she was accompanied by her daughter Almud and a niece or granddaughter (nepta) Muriel.9 Her dower lands at Aslackby and at Seaton, Northamptonshire (then in Rutland), were held in 1166 by her son or grandson Ralph de Beaufour from her grandson Hubert II de Ryes.10

The elder of Robert de Tosny's younger daughters was Adelisa, wife of Roger Bigod at his death in 1107. It is probable that Roger was married only once, although he is usually credited with two wives of the same name on the inconclusive evidence of a pro anama clause in a charter of his son William.11 Roger and his wife Adelisa gave charter for Rochester priory which referred to their sons and daughters and was attested by their children William, Humphrey, Gunnor and Matilda.12 This charter tellingly refers to King Henry, making it highly unlikely that Roger acquired a second wife and second family before his death in 1107. It is likely that Rogers' children were born from the late 1090s onwards, and that the youngest of them were Hugh and Cecilia.13 Roger's daughters Gunnor and Matilda were married soon after 1107. Gunnor's marriage to Robert fitz Swein of Essex had perhaps been arranged by her father. Matilda was married to William de Albini pincerna by Henry I who bestowed 10 Bigod fees on her as a marriage portion. The marriages certainly took place before Adelisa de Tosny became the heiress to Belvoir on the death without issue of her eldest sister Albreda, some time between 1115/18 and 1129, when Adelisa, as widow of Roger Bigod, accounted for her father's land of Belvoir.14

In 1129 the sole surviving issue of Robert de Tosny were his younger daughters Adelisa Bigod and Agnes de Beaufour, who was then already married to Hubert de Ryes. At that date his Bigod granddaughter Matilda de Albini was probably already dead and her sister Gunnor not long removed from her second marriage to Haimo de St Clair. Of their siblings, only Hugh Bigod and Cecilia, then wife of William de Albini Brito, survived. The Carta returned by Hugh Bigod in 1166 shows him holding the fee of his aunt Albreda de Insula.15 At the same date William de Albini Brito II held the fee of Belvoir. The conclusion from this must be that Adelisa succeeded Albreda in the fees of both Berengar and Robert de Tosny as next surviving sister. When she in her turn died she left issue of both sexes. Her sole surviving son Hugh succeeded his aunt Albreda - and by extension, her eldest brother Berengar - as heir both to Berengar's tenancy-in-chief in Lincolnshire and the Norman lands of Robert de Tosny of Belvoir. His tenancy of Robert's Norman lands is shown in a Norman record of 1172 where he is named as holding land of the fee of Conches and Tosny.16 More important in terms of size in England, the lordship of Belvoir was nonetheless the lesser of the two Tosny lordships because it as not associated with their Norman heritage. As the inheritance of a woman married to an important tenant-in-chief it could be expected to pass to one of her younger children and not her husband's principal male heir. Since she had no surviving younger sons after 1120, the devolution of Belvoir to one of her daughters was inevitable. Gunnor and Matilda had long since been provided for from their father's inheritance by the time, after c. 1115/1118, that Adelisa succeeded to Belvoir. Consequently it was the youngest daughter Cecilia - quite probably a mere infant at her father's death in 1107 - who became her mother's heiress. She was, of course , an heiress whose marriage could advantageously be used to reward one of the king's loyal new men. Cecilia's marriage to William de Albini Brito has been said to have occurred as early as 1107 on the basis of a Belvoir charter given by Ralph de Raines and attested by Roger Bigod, but it certainly took place much later. The Belvoir charter just mentioned probably begins to the early 1140s . It was attested by William de Albini senior and his wife Cecilia, their son William junior, Roger Bigot, Robert de Toteneio, Ralph de Albeneio and others.17 Since William, Robert and Ralph were certainly sons of William and Cecilia it is clear that Roger Bigod was also, as is confirmed by the order of their sons William, Robert, Roger, listed in the Thorney Liber vitae (BL Add, 40,000, fol. 2r)

The prosopography of Domesday Book which is part of the COEL research project will be published later this year by Boydell and Brewer as Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166. Volume I. Domesday Book.

It is hoped that the COEL database will be published in November/December. Final details are still to be decided, but a network copy will probably cost around Ãii600. A few screen shottttts frommm theeeee database are available on the Unit website, http;://www.linacre.ox.ac.uk/prosop/home.stm (or, if that proves troublesome, www.linacre.ox.ac.uk, then click on Unit).

Inquiries can be sent be e-mail to katherine.keats-rohan@linacre.ox.ac.uk

Footnotes
1 Cf. J. Green, Government of England Under Henry I, 228-9.
2 Named after his father's brother Berengar Spina, all three occur in a Marmoutier charter of 1063, when Berengar , probably then still an adolescent, authorised an agreement made by his father (Faroux, Recueil...de Normandie, 157).
3 Mon. Ang. ii, 288-9.
4 Lindsey Survey (Lincoln Record Soc. Vol. 19) L3/8, 4/3, 6/5, 7/5, 10/1.
5 Stenton, Danelaw Charters, nos. 238-9.
6 BL Add. 4936, fol. 27.
7 Coucher Book of Kirkstall (Thoresby Soc. Vol. 8, 1904), no. cclxvi, pp. 188-9.
8 Mon. Ang. ii, 290, no. vii.
9 Mon. Ang. iii, 330-1.
10 RBE, 401.
11 Mon. Ang. iii, 330-1.
12 BL Cotton Domitian A x, fol. 201v-2r.
13 The view that all his children were minors at his death in 1107 was expressed in A. Wareham,'Motives and politics of the Bigod family c.1066-1177', Anglo-Norman Studies 17 (1995).
14 Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, 114.
15 RBE 397.
16 At Guerney and Vesley, Eure, cant. Gisors; RBE, 642; cf. Loyd, Anglo-Norman Families, 74.
17 Mon. Ang. ii, 289, no. 111.

Robert married Adeliza. Adeliza was born about 1050. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Raoul married Fredistina de Bayeaux. Fredistina (daughter of Balso de Bayeux, Count of Bayeaux and Poppa de Valois) was born in 974 in Bayeux, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France; died in 1015 in Guerny, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]