(English) belonging to Whitgift (W. Yorks), 14th cent. Whidgift.

[This unique name is curious, and not without difficulties. The I4th-cent. form, however, gives us a good clue to the probable origin of the first element-Old English ge)hwœde, small, slight; and the second may reasonably be supposed to be what it seems—O.E. gift, denoting more esp. a bridegroom’s marriage-gift to his bride. This interesting place-name therefore app. exemplifies the famous old Teutonic custom of giving a wife a present on the morning after the wedding as the price of her virginity, the act being crystallized in the term 'morning - gift’—O.E. morgen- gifu = Old Norse morgingiöf= Ger. morgengabe]

Or Painel, of Normandy. John, Archbishop of Canterbury, was grandson of John W., Lord of Whitgift, York. In 1308 John, son of Adam de W., gave lands to St. Mary’s, York (Strype, Life of W., i. 4; Surrey Archæol. Collect., ii. 202). Whitgift was held from Drax, the barony of the Paganels or Painels, with Airmine (Drake, Eboracum), and in 13th century Adam bore these two names (Whitgift and Airmine) indifferently. He had—Adam, ancestor of the Airmines, baronets; and John de Whitgift, a benefactor to St. Mary’s, York (Burton, Mon. Ebor. 100). The elder, Adam, in the 13th cent., held as ‘Adam Painel’ one fee in Lincoln (Testa de Neville, 345), which had been held in 1165 by Fulco Painel fromWilliam Painel or Paganel, of Drax (Liber Niger). The Whitgifts bore the arms of Paganel or Painel, a cross- flory or moline. The Paganels were a great baronial family in Normandy.