General Notes

[Isabel De Birkin.FTW]

The first of this great family that settled in England wa s Roger Bigod who, in the Conqueror's time, possessed six l ordships in Essex and a hundred and seventeen in Suffolk, b esides divers manors in Norfolk. This Roger, adhering to th e party that took up arms against William Rufus in the 1s t year of that monarch's reign, fortified the castle at Nor wich and wasted the country around. At the accession of Hen ry I, being a witness of the king's laws and staunch in hi s interests, he obtained Framlingham in Suffolk as a gift f rom the crown. We find further of him that he founded in 11 03, the abbey of Whetford, in Norfolk, and that he was buri ed there at his decease in four years after, leaving, by Ad eliza his wife, dau. and co-heir of Hugh de Grentesmesnil , high steward of England, a son and heir, William Bigod, s teward 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 Norfo lk]

----------Roger Bigod was one of the tight-knit group of se cond-rank Norman nobles who did well out of the conquest o f England. Prominent in the Calvados region before 1064 a s an under-tenant of Odo of Bayeux, he rose in ducal and ro yal service to become, but 1086, one of the leading baron s in East Anglia, holding wide estates to which he added Be lvoir by marriage and Framlingham by grant of Henry I. Hi s territorial fortune was based on his service in the roya l household, where he was a close adviser and agent for th e first three Norman kings, and the propitious circumstance s of post-Conquest politics. Much of his honour in East Ang lia was carved out of lands previously belonging to the dis possessed Archbishop Stigand, his brother Aethelmar of Elha m, and the disgraced Earl Ralph of Norfolk and Suffolk. Und er Rufus --- if not before --- Roger was one of the king' s stewards. Usually in attendance on the king, he regularl y witnessed writs but was also sent out to the provinces a s a justice or commissioner. Apart from a flirtation with t he cause of Robert Curthose in 1088, he remained conspicuou sly loyal to Rufus and Henry I, for whom he continued to ac t as steward and to witness charters. The adherence of suc h men was vital to the Norman kings. Through them central b usiness could be conducted and localities controlled. Smal l wonder they were well rewarded. Roger established a dynas ty which dominated East Anglia from the 1140s, as earls o f Norfolk, until 1306. Roger's byname and the subsequent fa mily name was derived from a word (bigot) meaning double-he aded instrument such as a pickaxe: a tribute, perhaps to Ro ger's effectiveness as a royal servant; certainly an apt im age of one who worked hard both for his masters and for him self. [Who's Who in Early Medieval England, Christopher Tye rman, Shepheard-Walwyn, Ltd., London, 1996]