Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

Bigod.' Amid the varying opinions of so many high authorities, I dare not speak in anywise with confidence ; but, judging from these very entries which are found at an early period, I cannot but think Dean Trench and Mr. Wedgwood wrong in their conjecture that the word arose from the ' beguines ' — i.e. the Franciscans. With Mr. Taylor' I am firmly convinced it is ethnic, and that as such it was familiarly applied to the Normans I am equally satisfied. In proof of its national character, Mr. Taylor quotes a passage from the romance of Gerard of Roussillon

Bigot, e Provencal e Rouergues,

E Bascle, e Gasco, e Bordales.

The popular story ascribes its origin to the fondness for oaths so peculiar to the Anglo-Norman character, and in this particular instance to the exclamation 'by-God.' 2 My own impression is that the origin of the word has yet to be found. With regard to surnames, however, I may say that we have at this day 'Bigots' in our directories as well as in everything else, and it is highly probable that our Bagots are but a corruption of the same.

Turning westward, such names as 'Michael de Spaigne,' or 'Arnold de Espaigne,' tell us at once

1 Vide Words and Places, p. 436.

2 Camden says: '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 ' '— ' '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."'

LOCAL SURNAMES.

who were the forefathers of our Spains ' and' Espins;'' while 'John le Moor' suggests to us at least the possibility that English heathlands did not enjoy the entire monopoly in the production of this familiar cognomen.The intensive 'Blackamoor,' a mere compound of ' black' and ' moor,' seems to have early existed. A 'Beatrice Blackamour' and a 'William Blackamore' occur in a London Register of 1417 — (Riley's ' London,' p. 647). Nor is Italy void of examples. The sturdy old republic of Genoa has supplied us with ' Janeway 'and 'Jannaway,'2' Genese ' and 'Jayne' or 'Jeane.' Chaucer alludes to the Genoese coin the Jane.' An old poem, too, speaking of Brabant as a general mart, says

Englysshe and Frensh, Lumbardes, Januayes,

Cathalones, theder they take their wayes.

The 'Libel on English Policy' has the word in a similar dress.

The Janueys comyne in sondre wyses,

Into this Londe wyth dyverse merchaundysses,

In grete karrekes arrayde withouten lack,

Wyth clothes of golde, silke, and pepir black.

Hall, in his Chronicles, speaking of the Duke of Clarence ravaging the French coast in Henry IV.'s reign, says, ' in his retournyng he encountred with two greate Carickes of Jeane laden with ryche marchandise.' (f. xxiv.)

1 'John Spaynard' is found in the Cal. Rot. Patentium; but the name is now obsolete, I imagine. 'Peter Ispanier' occurs in Clutter-buck's Hertford (vol. i. Index).

2 Hence we find Skelton speaking in one of his poems of 'That gentyll Jorge the Januay.'