Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk

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Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk (around 1212 - July 3 or 4, 1270 ) was an English magnate and courtier.

Origin and youth

Roger Bigod came from the Anglo-Norman aristocratic family Bigod . He was the eldest son of Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk and his wife Matilda Marshal, the eldest daughter of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and Isabel de Clare . Hugh Bigod , who later became justiciar , was his younger brother. Roger was still a minor when his father died in 1225. His mother married William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey , in 1225 . The guardian of Roger was initially William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury , but after he died the following year, the king gave the guardianship to King Alexander II of Scotland. Bigod had already been married to Isabella , a sister of the king, in Alnwick in May 1225 .

Magnate and courtier under Heinrich III.

On June 11, 1233 Bigod was by King Henry III. beaten in Gloucester to the Knight of the Bath , so that he could inherit as Earl of Norfolk . In late July, however, he supported his uncle Richard Marshal , who rebelled against the king. Bigod initially joined Marshal at High Wycombe , Buckinghamshire , but submitted to the King again before September 8th. The king then occupied Framlingham Castle , the headquarters of the bigods, until the rebellion was put down in February 1234 . When the king married Eleanor of Provence in January 1236, Bigod claimed the office of high steward in vain .

Since he had previously served the king as negotiator vis-à-vis France, Bigod appealed in 1242 to extend the armistice with France. However, the king decided on a new campaign to Poitou , on which Bigod accompanied him despite concerns. On July 22nd he distinguished himself in a battle at Saintes , but after the English defeat at Taillebourg he returned to England in the autumn of 1242. In 1245 he led the English delegation to the First Council of Lyon , which protested against the tax demands of Pope Innocent IV on the English Church. In 1246 he was again involved in a protest against the papal demands, as well as in 1249 when he again traveled to Lyon as envoy.

Share in the Marshal family legacy

After his mother's brothers, Matilda Marshal, all died childless, his mother became one of the heiresses of the Marshal family. Through her, Bigod inherited the office of Earl Marshal of England in 1246 . After his mother's death in 1248, he inherited her share of the inheritance, especially lands in Ireland. With this inheritance, however, were also connected payments to Eleanor , the sister of the king and widow of William Marshal the Younger , to which Eleanor was entitled as compensation for a Wittum . But Bigod and the other heirs did not regularly meet their payment obligations to Eleanor, which strained Bigod's relationship with the king.

Increasing conflicts with the king

In the 1240s and 1250s, Bigod continued to be one of the leading courtiers at the royal court. As one of the richest magnates, because of his military and diplomatic experience and because of his rank as Earl Marshal, he often served as a witness of notarizations and as an intermediary in negotiations between the king and parliaments . From the mid-1250s onwards tensions grew between the king and Bigod. In 1253, as Earl Marshal, he accompanied the king to Gascony , where there had been unrest against the rule of the English king. Already in May 1254 he left the English army prematurely for unknown reasons and returned to England. During a parliament in 1255 there was a violent dispute between Bigod and the king, whereupon the king briefly demanded that Bigod repay his outstanding debts without delay. These were caused by the high fees for taking on the inheritance of the Marshal family, but also by Bigod's military obligations as Earls of Norfolk. There had already been a protracted dispute between Bigod and the royal treasury over the payments made under the military obligations. The king quickly rejected his repayment order, and Bigod's heavy debts remained unpaid.

Participation in the aristocratic opposition to the king

Another strain on the relationship between Bigod and the king was the hostilities between Bigod and the French half-brothers of the king, the Lusignans. In 1256 there was an open dispute between Bigod and Bishop Aymer de Lusignan , and in April 1258 Bigod supported his brother-in-law John Fitz Geoffrey in another dispute with Aymer. He allied himself with other barons with the aim of forcing the Lusignans into exile and reforming the king's government. At the end of April 1258 the conspirators, led by Bigod, appeared armed in parliament. They forced the appointment of a committee that eventually drafted the Oxford Commission . With the help of this commission the government of the empire should be improved. Bigod belonged to this 24-member committee and also to the new 15-member State Council, which in fact took over the government in July 1258. Bigod initially worked actively in the Council of State until he again supported the king in early 1260, when the latter refused to convene a parliament by the Council of State during his absence. He still considered the Provisions of Oxford to be valid, although the King now rejected them and wanted to repeal them. Therefore, Bigod was ready for an armed rebellion in 1261 when the king appointed his own sheriffs against the provisions . In November 1261 he was one of the three barons negotiating the Kingston Agreement with the king . When the king had to recognize the commission again in January 1263, Bigod was one of the four earls who were supposed to keep the promises of the king. After Simon de Montfort , the leader of the aristocratic opposition, broke openly with the king in October 1263, Bigod again supported the king, whom he accompanied to Amiens , where the French king made his arbitration award, the Mise of Amiens , on January 23, 1264 Validity of the commission announced. During the open war of the barons against the king that followed, Bigod probably did not take part in the fighting, but after the victory of the aristocratic opposition in the Battle of Lewes he supported the government under Montfort until the royal party defeated the rebels in the Battle of August 1265 Defeat Evesham and kill Montfort.

heritage

Bigod's marriage had been childless. In 1245 he had separated from his wife Isabella from Scotland and tried to have the marriage annulled because they were too closely related. Only when the English bishops finally refused to annul his marriage in 1253 did he take his wife back into his home.

In early May 1270 he handed over his office as Earl Marshal to his nephew Roger Bigod , who after his death about two months later also became his heir. He was buried in Thetford , Norfolk, while his wife Isabella, whose year of death is unknown, was interred in the Dominican Church in London.

Others

Bigod was a well-known tournament fighter who, among other things, excelled in a tournament in Blyth in Nottinghamshire in February 1237 . A tournament accident was probably the cause of a serious illness Bigod in 1257, according to other sources he was injured so badly at a tournament in Blyth in Nottinghamshire at Pentecost 1256 that his injuries prevented him from participating in further tournaments and fights for life.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 109.
  2. Juliet Barker: The tournament in England, 1100 - 1400 . Boydell, Woodbridge 2003. ISBN 0-85115-942-7 , see. 163
predecessor Office successor
Hugh Bigod Earl of Norfolk
1225-1270
Roger Bigod
Anselm Marshal Earl Marshal
1245-1270
Roger Bigod