The Giroie: An Eleventh-/Twelfth-Century Norman Noble Family

(from Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History of the Normans, ca. 1140)

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY (Abels)

The family that became known as the Giroie was typical of the upper strata of Norman elite in the 11^th and early 12^thcenturies. What we see is an extensive multilateral network of kinship, in which the affinity to the duke was becoming increasingly important. Our main source for their history the Anglo-Norman monk Orderic Vitalis (1075-c.1142), was mainly interested in family because they were patrons of his monastery St-Evroul d’Ouche. He therefore shaped his narrative to glorify the branch of the family that participated in the founding of the monastery. What follows is Orderic’s account reconstructed from the scattered passages in his Ecclesiastical History of the Normans.

Giroie, the founder of the family, settled in borderlands between Normandy and Maine ca. 1025. He was a soldier and companion-in-arms to the Lord of Bellême, a powerful noble. From a promised marriage to an heiress, Giroie was able to supplant the family of a landowner named Helgo and take control of Montreuil and Echauffour, twenty kilometers to the south, and build a castle on the latter.From a second marriage came seven sons and four daughters (see below). The naming pattern (Williams and Roberts) reflects connections with the ducal house of Normandy.

selections from Orderic Vitalis, The ecclesiastical history of England and Normandy. Translated, with notes, and the introd. of Guizot, by Thomas Forester. London, H. G. Bohn, 1853-56. New York, AMS Press 1968 

Book 2, chapter 2

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p. 390

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Book III. Chapter 5

p.425

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Book 3. Chapter 9

p. 450-1

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