General Notes

Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, b. c. 1095, Lord of Framlingham, 1120, Royal Steward, 1123 (son of Roger Bigod, d. Sep 1107, and his wife Alice, living 1130, daughter of Robert de Toeni, Lord of Belvoir).  [Magna Charta Sureties]

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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 "de vetri feoffamento," 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 favour, 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.)