Origin of the Name Bishop
The
Bishop family history was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. The name Bishop is usually of Anglo-Norman descent spreading to Ireland, Scotland and Wales in early times and is found in many mediaeval manuscripts in these countries. Examples of such are a John le Bissup, Oxford, a William Bisscop, Norfolk, and a Henry Biscop, Lincolnshire, who were all recorded in the 'Hundred Rolls', England, in the year 1273.
In Ireland this name and its variants were introduced into Ulster Province by settlers who arrived from England and Scotland, especially during the seventeenth century. It was the 'Plantations of Ireland' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that marked the end of Gaelic supremacy in Ireland. While the influx of settlers in the wake of the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century resulted in a full integration into Irish society of the new arrivals, the same never occurred with the Ulster Planters who maintained their own distinct identity.
Bishop is also an anglicized form of the native Gaelic Mac an Easpuig and Mac Giolla Easpug septs that were located in County Tyrone and in Counties Down and Donegal respectively.
The Bishop coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Bishop descendants.