Rohese Giffard

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Rohese Giffard (sometimes Rose,[1] or Rohais;[2] died after 1113) was a Norman noblewoman in the late 11th and early 12th century.

Early life[]

Giffard was the daughter of Walter Giffard. Her maternal grandfather was Gerard Fleitel.[3] Walter Giffard was the lord of Longueville-sur-Scie in upper Normandy.[2]

Marriage[]

Giffard was the wife of Richard fitz Gilbert, the son of Gilbert, Count of Brionne.[3] Domesday Book records him as the eighth-richest landowner in England, with lands centered on two locations—lands in Kent and Surrey grouped around Tonbridge and lands in Essex and Suffolk grouped around Clare.[2] Their children were Roger, Gilbert, Walter, Robert, Richard,[4] Godfrey,[2] Rohese (or Rohais), and Adelisa.[4]

Roger received the Norman lands after Richard fitz Gilbert's death, Gilbert received his father's English lands, Walter was given a Welsh lordship by King Henry I of England, and Robert was given lands around London by King Henry I.[2] Richard became a monk at Bec Abbey and was later abbot of Ely Abbey.[4] The last son, Godfrey, is known only from his burial at Clare.[2] Rohais married Eudo Dapifer and Adelisa married Walter Tirel.[4] A daughter of Richard, who is unnamed, is said to have married , but it is not known whether this refers to another marriage for either Rohais or Adelisa or if this is a third daughter. Some of the children were born before 1066, as a gift to Jumièges Abbey in 1066 mentions the souls of their children.[2]

Landowner[]

Giffard occurs in Domesday Book as a landowner in her own right.[3] Richard died between 1085 and 1087, as his son Gilbert witnesses a charter of King William II of England in that year. Rohese survived him and was still alive in 1113, when she gave a gift to St Neot's Priory which had been founded as a dependent priory of Bec on Rohese's own manor of Eynesbury.[2] Rohese's descendants eventually were the heirs to the lands held by her father,[5] receiving half the honour of Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire in the reign of King Richard I of England (r. 1189–1199).[1]

Citations[]

  1. ^ a b Sanders English Baronies p. 34
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Mortimer "Clare, Richard de" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  3. ^ a b c Keats-Rohan Domesday People p. 413
  4. ^ a b c d Keats-Rohan Domesday People p. 363
  5. ^ Cockayne Complete Peerage Vol. III p. 242

References[]

  • Cokayne, George E. (1982) [1913]. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Vol. III (Microprint ed.). Gloucester, UK: A. Sutton. ISBN 0-904387-82-8.
  • Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (1999). Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066–1166: Domesday Book. Ipswich, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-722-X.
  • Mortimer, Richard (2004). "Clare, Richard de (1030x35–1087x90)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5445. Retrieved 7 January 2015. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  • Sanders, I. J. (1960). English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent 1086–1327. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. OCLC 931660.

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