This surname is derived from a nickname. or offic.

Roger le Bygod. Hundred Rolls.

Alina le Bigod. Placitorum in domo capitulari Westmonasteriensi.

William le Bygot. Hundred Rolls.

John le Bygot. Writs of Parliament.

Gundred la Bygote, Close Roll, 5 Edward I.

Three of these entries are of the 13th century. For the controversy on these terms, Bigod and Bigot, see Skeat's and Wedgwood's Dictionaries; also reply to Skeat by Wedgwood in the Academy, Aug. 9, 1879; see also Freeman's Norman Conq. ii. 288. That the derisive term 'bigod' arose from the oath 'by God' seems probable. 'Pardew' (i.e. 'par Dieu') is a still existent surname with a similar origin. That it was transferred to some religious order seems equally certain (v. Wedgwood), and that through them it became a term to express religious devoteeism seems almost clear.

1750. Married — John Bigott and Grace Williams: St. George's Chapel, Mayfair.

(French) a nickname applied by the French to the Normans. [origin. much discussed, but still unsettled] Roger le Bygod.—Hundred Rolls William le Bygot.— do.

Alina le Bigod.—lacita in Domo Capitulari Westmonasteriensi Bigot, dénomination injurieuse donnée aux Normands.

—Moisy, Noms de Fam. Norm., p. 25.

(English, French) Nickname given to one by reason of the excessive use of the oath, “by God”; a hypercritical or intolerant person.

“The Bigots “Bigot has been supposed to have its origin in the By-God of a Northern tongue, and to have been used as a war-cry by early Normans, answering to the later Dex-aie. Anderson, in his Genealogical Tables, says, without quoting his authority, that Rollo was called By-got from his frequent use of the phrase.”—Taylor. His famous exclamation, when he was asked to kiss King Charles’s foot, “Ne si, by Got!” are literally the only words that have been handed down to us of the old Dansk tongue. Wace says, “the French spoke scornfully, and called the Normans Bigoz and Draschiers” (consumers of barley, probably as the material of beer). or Wygots appear, from various circumstances too long to be detailed, to be descended from Wigot de St. Denis, one of the greatest nobles of Normandy, who made grants to Cerisy Abbey in 1042, and in 1050 subscribed a charter of Duke William at the head of the Norman barons. He was married to a sister of Turstin Goz, father of Richard d’Avranches (whose son was Hugh Lupus), and had a younger son, Robert Wigot, Fitz Wigot, or Bigot, who was introduced by Richard d’Avranches to the favour of Duke William.”— The Norman People. The story is differently told by the monk of Jurmièges, who says that Robert was a knight in the service of William Warlenc, Count de Mortaine, and so needy that he asked leave of his liege lord to seek his fortune abroad, and follow Robert Guiscard to Apulia. The Count desired him not to go, promising that within eighty days he should have no need to better his position, as he might then help himself to whatever best pleased him in Normandy. From this intimation Robert concluded that his lord was planning an insurrection that should place the crown of Normandy on his own head, and asked his cousin Richard d’Avranches to obtain for him an audience of the Duke, to whom he at once communicated his suspicion of the plot. William acted upon it with such vigour that “his justice, if justice it was, fell so sharply and speedily as to look very like interested oppression.”—Freeman. He at once accused the Count of treason, banished him, and gave the Comté of Mortaine to his own half-brother Robert Bigot himself must have been rewarded with several grants; for Wace (who mentions him at Hastings) speaks of him as a land-owner:— “L’Ancestre Hue le Bigot Ki avoit terre à Maletot Etais Loges “Some at least of the family continued attached to Hugh Lupus; for the Earl of Chester’s charter to St. Werberg—about 1094—is witnessed by, among other of ‘his barons,’ two Bigots, namely, Roger Bigot and Bigot de Loges. The latter appears also separately in Domesday. An important branch of this stock remained in Normandy. Jean le Bigot was a leading baron at the meeting of the States in 1350.”—Taylor. Four different families of the name are given in the Nobiliaire de Normandie, three of whom bore either the chevron or leopard’s heads of the English house; and they were all represented at the great Assembly of the Nobles in 1789.

et a Chanon:”

adding that “he served the Duke in his house as one of his seneschals, which office he held in fee. He had with him a large troop, and was a noble vassal. He was small of body, but very brave and bold, and assaulted the English with his mace gallantly.” There is some doubt whether it is Robert, or his son Roger that is here described; for both may have been in the battle; but it was at all events the latter who is recorded in Domesday as holding a great barony of one hundred and seventeen manors in Suffolk, besides other lands in Norfolk and Essex. He sided with Robert Court-heuse, and fortified his castle of Norwich against William Rufus, laying waste all the country round; yet he seems to have suffered no penalty for his revolt, and on the accession of Henry I. received a grant of Framlingham in Suffolk, with his father’s office of Lord Steward of the Household. He married Adeliza, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Hugh de Grentemesnil, Seneschal of England, with whom he founded Thetford Abbey in 1107, and left seven children. His eldest son, William, styled Dapifer regis Anglorum, perished in the Blanche Nef; and it was the second Hugh le Bigot, who became the founder of this splendid house, and “the principal instrument for advancing Stephen, Earl of Boloigne, to the Crown of England. For being Steward of the Household to King Henry (an Office that gave him great repute) he hasted into England; and in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, averred upon his Oath, that King Henry on his death-bed, upon some dislike towards his Daughter Maud, the Empress, did disherite her, and appoint Stephen to be his Heir; whereupon the Archbishop (being credulous) solemnly anointed him King. For which great service, as some say, it was, that King Stephen, soon after, advanced him to the Earldom of the East Angles, commonly called Norfolk.”—Dugdale.

Henry II. was no sooner seated on the throne, than he espoused his mother’s quarrel by seizing Bigot’s castles and declaring his honours forfeit. All were restored to him in 1163: yet, eleven years later, he made a secret treaty with the King’s rebellious sons, and took up arms in their behalf. He and his Flemish levies were defeated by Robert de Lacy at Bury St. Edmund’s; and the King, entering Suffolk with a strong force to deal out to him the full measure of his wrath, razed his castle of Walton to the ground, and captured Framlingham. But Bigot owned another stronghold that he deemed impregnable, and of which, according to tradition, he was wont to boast— “Were I in my Castle of Bungay, Upon the River of Waveney, I would not set a button by the King of Cockeney.” This proves the extreme antiquity of the term. An old ballad recites how “Bigot bold,” when summoned to appear before the King,—laughed in the herald’s face, “And rode away on his berry brown steed,” setting all pursuit at defiance; “The Baily he rode and the Baily he ran To catch the gallant Lord Hugh; But for every mile the Baily rode The Earl he rode more than two.

“When the Baily had ridden to Bramfield oak, The Bramfield Oak, recorded as a way mark to Roger Bigot in his flight to Bungay, remained standing till 1843. Sir Hugh was at Ilksall bower: When the Baily had ridden to Halesworth Cross, He was singing in Bungay tower: “Now that I’m in my castle of Bungay, Upon the river of Waveney, I will ne care for the King of Cockeney.’ Yet this flourish of trumpets proved mere idle bravado; for when the King’s troops beleaguered the place, Bigot’s little garrison of five hundred men lost heart and deserted, leaving him to make what terms he could with his angry master. They were, as might have been foreseen, sufficiently humiliating. He had not merely to pay a fine of one thousand marks, but to see his cherished fortress levelled to the ground; and in his discomfiture he left the country, journeyed to Palestine with the Earl of Flanders, and only returned home to die in 1177.

He was succeeded by his son Roger, whom Cœur de Lion, on his accession, re-constituted Earl of Norfolk and Lord Steward; but for this charter, and the confirmation and restoration of his lands, he had to give a further sum of one thousand marks to the King. He was one of the confederate barons who confronted King John at Runnymede, and, with his son Hugh, numbered among the twenty-five illustrious “conservators” of Magna Charta. This Hugh, third Earl, married Maud, the eldest of the three great Pembroke co-heiresses; and their son Roger obtained from Henry III., in her right, the great hereditary office of Earl Marshal of England. In 1247, “the King solemnly gave the Marshal’s Rod into her” (the Countess Maud’s) “hands, in regard of her seniority in the inheritance of Walter Marischal, sometime Earl of Pembroke; which she thereupon delivered unto this Earl Roger, her son and heir.”

Earl Roger, “noted for his singular skill in all warlike exercises,” was one of the most accomplished knights of his day; and had few equals either in the tilt-yard “In 21 Hen. III., there being great animosities betwixt the Nobles of England, a Tournament was held at Blithe, in Nottinghamshire, where those of the South sided against them of the North; In which Tournament, they falling to hostility, the Southern lords had the better of the day: But in that Action, none behaved himself more bravely than this Earl Roger, for which he was so much taken notice of, that it was not long after that Peter de Savoy (an Alien), then Earl of Richmond, to make tryal of his valor, desired to Tilt with him in a Tournament held at Northampton, 25 Hen. III.” —Dugdale. or the field. His domain contained one hundred and sixty-two knight’s fees: and he stands forth in history as the true type of the great feudal Seigneur, haughty in bearing and fearless of tongue, whose power in the realm might challenge—if it did not threaten—the authority of the King himself. His name is brought prominently before us in all the transactions of Henry III.’s reign; and Dugdale has preserved two characteristic anecdotes of him. In 1248, “having advertisement that the Earl of Gisnes was arrived in England, this Earl caused him to be taken; by reason whereof, a great complaint was made. Whereupon, being sent for to give answer thereunto, he told the King, That when he himself went as Ambassador to the Council at Lions, riding through the Territories of that Earl, instead of kind usage, for the many favours he had received from the King, he was shamefully dealt with, having his Horses and Servants detained, until he had satisfied their unreasonable demands for his passage: which incivility, he had now only retaliated to him, passing through his Lands, saying to the King, ‘Sir, I do hold my Land as freely of you, as he holds his of the King of France, and am an Earl as well as he. How happens it then, that he hath power to make merchandise of the Ways and Air unto Passengers?’”

Some years afterwards, he had an altercation with the King himself. When “making a just apology for Robert de Ros, then charged with some crime that endangered his life, he had very harsh language given him by the King, being openly called Traytor. Whereupon, with a stern countenance, he told the King ‘That he lied’; and, ‘that he never was, nor would be a Traytor’; adding, ‘If you do nothing but what the Law warranteth, you can do me no harm.’ ‘Yes,’ quoth the King, ‘I can thrash your Corn, and sell it, and so humble you.’ To which he replied, ‘If you do so, I will send you the Heads of your Thrashers.’ But by the interposing of the Lords then present, this heat soon passed over.”

Towards the close of his career, he joined the Baronial standard, and was appointed Constable of Oxford. He died s. p. in 1269, having married the Scottish princess Isabel, daughter of William the Lion, to whose brother, Alexander II. of Scotland, he had been in ward.

The Earldom then passed to his nephew Roger, fifth Earl of Norfolk and second Earl Marshal, the son of Hugh Bigod, appointed Justiciary of England by the Barons in 1257; “a famous Knight, and Skillfull in the Laws of the Land, who stoutly executing the Office of Justitiar, suffered not the rights of the Kingdom at all to waver/’ “This great and last Earl of his Family,” as Dugdale terms him, was no whit behind his predecessors in spirit and daring. He and another “stout Earl,” Humphrey de Bohun, resisted Edward I.’s oppressive and vexatious war taxes, invited the Londoners to stand up for their liberties, and resolutely refused to follow the King to Flanders until he had ratified the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest. He attended his sovereign in the Welsh and Scottish campaigns; but when summoned to go to the war of Gascony without him, he and the Earl of Hereford, then Lord High Constable, claimed the privileges of their tenure. “I will go,” quoth Bigod, “if you, Sir King, go in person, and attend you in the fore-front of the army, as I am bound to do by hereditary right; but otherwise I will not go.” “But you shall go with others,” cried the angry King, “and that without me!” “I am not so bound,” replied Bigod, “neither will I go without you.” Then the King swore a great oath—”By God! Sir Earl, you shall either go or hang!” “Sir King,” retorted Bigod, “I will neither go nor hang”; and “so departed without leave.”

Yet this notable passage of arms, and perchance others of like quality, led to no ultimate breach between them; for the Earl, some five years before his death, settled the whole of his possessions on the King. Various motives have been suggested for his so doing: but there were at least three sufficiently cogent ones.

He was in want of money; he had no children; and he had quarrelled irretrievably with his heir. “His younger brother, John, a rich dignified churchman, having lent him great sums of money which he exacted again in haste, the Earl constituted King Edward I. heir to all his estates, and delivered also to him the Marshal’s Rod, upon condition of having it rendered back to him in case he should have any children; as likewise to have £1ooo pension for his life, and £1000 in present from the King to pay his debts. It should be borne in mind that money is computed to have then had at least sixteen or seventeen times its present value. This instrument was dated from St. John’s, Colchester, in 1302.”—Morant’s Essex. The more completely to exclude this unlucky John from the succession, he at the same time surrendered his Earldom into the Kings hands; which was then re-granted to him with limitation to the heirs male of his body.

The settlement signed at Colchester included all his castles, towns, lands, and tenements in England and Wales, with the famous castle of Bungay, which he had received license to rebuild; but reserved Settrington and three other Yorkshire manors, as well as two more in Norfolk. Settrington was, it appears, the residence of his uncle Ralph (the Justiciary’s younger son), who married Berta Furnivall, and had a daughter named Isabel, married first to Gilbert de Lacy, and secondly to John Fitz Geoffrey. There is no mention of a son; yet the name existed in Yorkshire at least three hundred years after this; for we find Sir Francis Bigod of Mogreve Castle, in Blakemore, taking an active part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. He sent out a circular through Richmondshire and the county of Durham, inviting the people to a muster at Settrington, raised an enthusiastic force, and captured Beverley. He was executed with the other leaders in 1537. The family must have been extinct in 1666, as the name does not occur in Dugdale’s Visitation of the county.

A branch of the Bigots settled in Somersetshire, where they owned the parish of Marston-Bigot “Walter de Bigot was Lord 43 Hen. III., and was succeeded by Richard de Bigot, his son, who, incurring the displeasure of Edward II. by fortifying his mansion here without licence, and disrespecting the King’s messenger, forfeited his land here to the Crown.”—Collinson’s Somerset.

"When Rollo had Normandy made over to him by Carolus Stultus, with his daughter Gisla, he would not submit to kiss Charles's foot. And when his friends urged him by all means to kiss the king's foot, in gratitude for so great a favour, he made answer in the English tongue, Ne se by God; that is, Not so by God. Upon which the king and his courtiers deriding him, and corruptly repeating his answer, called him Bigod; from whence the Normans are to this day termed Bigodi." Camd. Britannia, Ed. 1722, Vol i. p. ccix. It was said of that people that at every other word they would swear "By God," and thus Bigod, (whence our word bigot,) became synonymous with Norman. The equivalent French oath 1 Par Dieu,' has in like manner become an English surname. See Pardew.

BIGOD, BIGOT: "When Rollo had Normandy made over to him by Carolus Stultus, with his daughter Gisla, he would not submit to kiss Charles's foot. And when his friends urged him by all means to kiss the king's foot, in gratitude for so great a favour, he made answer in the English tongue, Ne se by God; that is, Not so by God. Upon which the king and his courtiers deriding him, and corruptly repeating his answer, called him Bigod; from whence the Normans are to this day termed Bigodi." Camd. Britannia, Ed. 1722, Vol i. p. ccix. It was said of that people that at every other word they would swear "By God," and thus Bigod, (whence our word bigot,) became synonymous with Norman. The equivalent French oath 1 Par Dieu,' has in like manner become an English surname. See Pardew.

A name given by the French to the Normans, because, as Camden says, "At every other word they would swear 'By God,'„ from which they were termed Bigodi. It became the surname of Roger de Montgomery, one of the followers of William the Conqueror, who was called Roger Bigod. The English word bigot has probably the same origin.

Richard le Bigot and Robert, Normandy, 1180-95 (Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae). See Wiggett.

Bigot: “He served the Duke in his house as one of his Seneschals, which office he held in fee. He had with him a large troop, and was a noble vassal. He was small of body, but very brave and bold, and assailed the English with great gallantry.” Robert Bigot was apparently the first of his name; his father was Roger. But Wace says: “L’anceste Hue le Bigot qui avait terre à Maletot.” It has been said that he took his nickname from the oath he had frequently in his mouth, “By God!” but it is possible that he was a Bigaud, of the neighbourhood of Quimper. He held 117 manors in Suffolk, besides other lands in Norfolk and Essex (Domesday).