Rohese Giffard

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 fitzGilbert, 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 fitzGilbert'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 Ralph de Fougères, 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. Sanders English Baronies p. 34
  2. Mortimer "Clare, Richard de" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  3. Keats-Rohan Domesday People p. 413
  4. Keats-Rohan Domesday People p. 363
  5. Cockayne Complete Peerage III p. 242
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References
  • Cokayne, George E. (1982) [1913]. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. 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)" ((subscription or UK public library membership required)). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5445. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  • 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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