General Notes

REFN: 4068AN
REFN: P4069
Companion of William the Conqueor's invasion of England.
The Conq ueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Bro thers, 1874.
Here we have the name of an illustrious Norman, the progenitor of a race
from which the noblest families in England are proud to trace their
descent; and, strange to aay, beyond this fact little or nothing is known
ab out his own family which can be supported by credible authority. Even
the ori gin of the name of Giffard, Gifford, or Giffart, as it is
indifferently spelt , has yet to be definitively settled.
The story that lias been so often told a bout it, viz., that it signified
a free-handed or liberal giver, is without a ny substantial foundation,
and is, I believe, one of the many which have been so detrimental to the
study of genealogy and heraldry, by misleading tlie in quirer or checking
research altogether. It is upon the authority of William o f Jumièges that
this Walter Giffart, the companion of the Conqueror, the firs t we know of
that name, has been set down as a son of Osborn De Bolbec by his wife,
indifferently called Avelina and Duvelina, sister of Gonnor, wife of
Richard, Duke of Normandy. Granting this to be true, as we have no
documenta ry evidence to contradict it, the appellation of Giffart or
Gifford, appears to be one of those sobriquets founded on personal
peculiarities so commonly a pplied to distinguish certain members of a
family previous to the general est ablishment of hereditary surnames.
Instances of the practice are familiar to t he veriest schoolboy, and in
the preceding memoir I have mentioned Lambert th e Bearded, Eustace with
the Eye, and Eustace with the Whiskers. Hence the com plimentary
suggestion of " Free-Giver," which I should be happy to leave undi sputed
could it be borne out by etymology. The family, however, was Norman, n ot
Saxon; and it is in the Norman-French, or Low-Latin of the eleventh
cent ury, that we must look for its derivation. The word occurs in both
those dial ects. In Roquefort's Dictionnaire De la Langue Romane,
"Giffarde" is rendered "Joufloue, qui a des grosses joues — servante de
cuisine," the word being De rived from giffe "the cheek," giffle also
signifying in the same language "un soufflet," or blow on the cheek. An
old French poet, Gautier cle Coisiny, co mplains that women of every class
paint themselves, even the torchepot, " scu llion," and the Giffarde, "
kitchen maid or cook." So in the new Dictionnaire Franco-Normand, by M.
George Métivier, we have "Giffair, rire comme un joufl ou." And, to my
great satisfaction, I find that this esteemed philologist has come to the
same conclusion as myself, for under that word he has " Giffe, G iffle,
Joue. Telle est l'origine De l'illustre famille NormanDe De Giffard, n om
répandu très au-delà De cette Province (Jersey, of which Mons. Métivier
is a native) et De nos îles." ViDe also Ducange, sub voce "Giffardus,"
who ha s a similar interpretation, "Ancilla coquina." It is almost
impossible to res ist the conviction that Giffard, in the language of that
day, signified a per son with large cheeks, and was in consequence applied
to a cook, who is popul arly represented as fat and rubicund.
I beg to apologise to those of my reader s who may not take any interest
in such disquisitions, and hasten to the sayi ngs and doings of Walter
Giffard, with whom the name, whatever it meant, coul d not have
originated, as an Osborne and a Berenger Giffard were his contempo raries,
proving that the sobriquet of an individual had become the appellatio n of
a family.
We first hear of him in 1035, as a companion of Hugh De Gourn ay in the
abortive attempt of Edward son of King Ethelred to recover the crow n of
England (viDe vol. ii. p. 113), and next in 1053, when he was left by
Duke William in command of the forces blockading the Castle of Arques,
and at that period was Lord of Longueville, and alrea