Walter Giffard
Lord Chancellor; Bishop of Bath; Archbishop of York
Walter Giffard (c. 1225 – April 1279) was Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York.
Family
Giffard was a son of Hugh Giffard of Boyton in Wiltshire, a royal justice, by Sibyl, a daughter and co-heiress of Walter de Cormeilles. He was born about 1225, and may have been the oldest son. Hugh and Sybil were entrusted with the care of the young Prince Edward in 1239. In 1256 Giffard and his mother received the king's licence to live in Boyton Castle. Giffard's brother was Bishop Godfrey Giffard, who was Bishop of Worcester and also Lord Chancellor of England; his sister Mabel was the Abbess of Shaftesbury Abbey. Walter was also a kinsman of William of Bitton I, who was Walter's Bath & Wells predecessor. The family was also related to Walter de Gray, who was Archbishop of York from 1215 to 1255.
Career
Giffard studied at Cambridge University and took his Master of Arts at Oxford University. While at university Adam Marsh wrote to another scholar praising Giffard's scholarly skills.
The public source identifies “Walter Giffard” as lord Chancellor; Bishop of Bath; Archbishop of York. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Walter, Giffard and Lord.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7964947. VIAF identifies the subject as 314790996. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1225, 1279, 1239 and 1256.
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This entry incorporates text from “Walter Giffard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.