Richard fitz Gilbert
Norman lord in England
Richard fitz Gilbert (before 1035–c. 1090), 1st feudal baron of Clare in Suffolk, was a Norman lord who participated in the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and was styled "de Bienfaite", "de Clare", and of "Tonbridge" from his holdings.
Biography
Richard was the son of Gilbert, Count of Brionne in Normandy (Fitz was a variant spelling of the Norman filz, French fils, signifying "son of") and Gunnor d'Aunou. Gilbert was a guardian of the young duke William and when Gilbert was killed by Ralph de Wacy in 1040, his two older sons Richard and Gilbert fled to Flanders. On his later return to Normandy, Richard was rewarded with the lordship of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. In 1066, Richard came into England with his kinsman William the Conqueror, and received from him great advancement in honour and possessions.
The Dictionary of National Biography and other sources are vague and sometimes contradictory about when the name de Clare came into common usage, but what we do know is that Richard fitz Gilbert (of Tonbridge), the earliest identifiable progenitor of the family, is once referred to as Richard of Clare in the Suffolk return of the Domesday Book.
Rewards
Richard appears in the Domesday Book as the owner of 176 manors or townships, which had been awarded him by William the Conqueror for his support and participation in the Norman Conquest of 1066. More than ninety of these properties were in Suffolk, including his castle at Clare. Others were in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Devon, Essex, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, and Wiltshire.
According to the Genealogia of Tintern Abbey, Richard received Tonbridge in Kent by means of exchange with Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, in turn, received Richard’s holdings in Brionne in Normandy.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Richard fitz Gilbert” is norman lord in England. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Richard, fitz and Gilbert, not as a finished interpretation.
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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 Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1382281. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1035, 1090, 1066 and 1040.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard fitz Gilbert” 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.