The Anglo-Normans were the medieval ruling class in England, composed mainly of a combination of francized ethnic Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Northern French, Flemings and Bretons, following the Norman conquest. A small number of Normans had earlier befriended future Anglo-Saxon king of England, Edward the Confessor, during his exile in his mother's homeland of Normandy in northern France. When he returned to England some of them went with him, and so there were Normans already settled in England prior to the conquest. Edward's successor, Harold Godwinson, was defeated by Duke William the Conqueror of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings, leading to William's accession to the English throne.
Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury, PC QC later KC was a British lawyer and Conservative politician. He served three times as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, for a total of seventeen years.
Earl of Halsbury, in the County of Devon, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Halsbury is a historic manor in the parish of Parkham, near Bideford, Devon, long the seat of the Giffard family and sold by them in the 18th. century. The title was created on 19 January 1898 for the lawyer and Conservative politician Hardinge Giffard, 1st Baron Halsbury, and son of Stanley Lees Giffard, the first editor of the Evening Standard newspaper. Hardinge Giffard was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1885 to 1886, 1886 to 1892 and 1895 to 1905, and had already been created Baron Halsbury, of Halsbury in the County of Devon, on 26 June 1885, and was made Viscount Tiverton, of nearby Tiverton, at the same time he was given the earldom. Those titles were also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. He was descended from the family of Giffard of Brightley, Chittlehampton, a junior line of Gifford of Halsbury. A younger son of the first of the Brightley family was Roger Giffard (d.1603) who purchased Tiverton Castle which he made his home. The 1st Earl in fact had no close connection with Halsbury, as the closest of his ancestors born there was Sir Roger Giffard of Brightley (d.1547) and even less with Tiverton, the home of none of his ancestors but only of a very distant cousin, but nevertheless chose these places as his titles.
The FitzGerald dynasty is a noble and aristocratic dynasty of Cambro-Norman and Anglo-Norman origin. They have been peers of Ireland since at least the 13th century, and are described in the Annals of the Four Masters as having become "more Irish than the Irish themselves" or Gaels, due to assimilation with the native Gaelic aristocratic and popular culture. The dynasty has also been referred to as the Geraldines and Ireland's largest landowners. They achieved power through the conquest of large swathes of Irish territory by the sons and grandsons of Gerald de Windsor. Gerald de Windsor was the first Castellan of Pembroke Castle in Wales, and became the male progenitor of the FitzMaurice and FitzGerald Dynasty. His father, Baron Walter FitzOther, was the first Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle for William the Conqueror, and was the Lord of 38 manors in England, making the FitzGeralds one of the "service families" on whom the King relied for his survival.
Piers is an old English given name and surname, and has the same origins as Peter. Its meaning is 'rock, stone'.
Halsbury is a historic manor in the parish of Parkham in North Devon, England. It is situated 2 miles north-east of the village of Parkham and 4 miles south-west of the town of Bideford. Halsbury was long a seat of the ancient Giffard family, a distant descendant of which was the celebrated lawyer Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury (1823–1921), who adopted the name Halsbury for his earldom and was the author of the essential legal reference books Halsbury's Statutes. Halsbury Barton, now a farmhouse, retains 16th- and 17th-century elements of the former manor house of the Giffard family. It was described in a record of 1560 as a "new dwelling house".
The Cavendishfamily is a British noble family, of Anglo-Norman origins. They rose to their highest prominence as Duke of Devonshire and Duke of Newcastle.
Fitzmaurice is a Hiberno-Norman, Cambro-Norman, Anglo-Norman surname. It is patronymic as the prefix Fitz-
derives from the Latin filius, meaning "son of".
The House of Harcourt is a Norman family, and named after its seigneurie of Harcourt in Normandy. Its mottos were "Gesta verbis praeveniant", "Gesta verbis praevenient", and "Le bon temps viendra ... de France".
Fitz was a patronymic indicator used in Anglo-Norman England to help distinguish individuals by identifying their immediate predecessors. Meaning "son of", it would precede the father's forename, or less commonly a title held by the father. In rare cases it formed part of a matronymic to associate the bearer with a more prominent mother. Convention among modern historians is to represent the word as fitz, but in the original Norman French documentation it appears as fiz, filz, or similar forms, deriving from the Old French noun filz, fiz, meaning "son of", and ultimately from Latin filius (son). Its use during the period of English surname adoption led to its incorporation into patronymic surnames, and at later periods this form was adopted by English kings for the surnames given some of their recognized illegitimate children, and by Irish families when anglicizing their Gaelic patronymic surnames.
de Burgh is an Anglo-Norman surname deriving from the ancient Anglo-Norman and Hiberno-Norman noble dynasty, the House of Burgh. In Ireland, the descendants of William de Burgh (c.1160–1206) had the surname de Burgh which was gaelicised in Irish as de Búrca and over the centuries became Búrc then Burke and Bourke.
Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville in Normandy, 1st Earl of Buckingham was an Anglo-Norman magnate.
Walter Giffard (c.1225–1279), was the Chancellor of England and archbishop of York.
Walter Gautier Giffard, Lord of Longueville, Normandy, was a Norman baron, a Tenant-in-chief in England, a Christian knight who fought against the Saracens in Spain during the Reconquista and was one of the 15 or so known companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Bourke an Anglo-Norman Irish surname, a variant of the surname Burke, deriving from the ancient Anglo-Norman and Hiberno-Norman noble dynasty, the House of Burgh. In Ireland, the descendants of William de Burgh (c.1160–1206) had the surname de Burgh which was gaelicised in Irish as de Búrca and over the centuries became Búrc then Burke and Bourke.
Carteret is a surname of Norman origin. It derives from Carteret, Normandy, an inhabited place on the northwest coast of the Cotentin peninsula, facing the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands are the only remnant of the Duchy of Normandy, the original territorial holding of William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066. Historically, members of the Carteret family have occupied influential positions in the Channel Islands, notably as hereditary Seigneurs of Sark and hereditary Bailiffs of Jersey.
Longe is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin. The name Longe derives from the Anglo-Norman French ‘Lung’ or ‘Lang’ for tall or high. The family descend from the noble family of de Préaux who were barons in Préaux, Roumois and Darnétal, Normandy. Variants of the name include: le Long, de Long, Le Lung, Longe, Long and Longue. The family are believed to have arrived in England following the Norman Conquest and during the early 13th century divided into two branches, the Wiltshire branch and the Norfolk branch. In the Hundred Rolls of 1273, early variations have been found including, Henry le Longe in Buckinghamshire, John le Longe in Huntingdonshire; and Walter le Longe in Shropshire.
