1385–6, and was buried in Dunstable Priory Church, of which he was a benefactor. Loryng also founded a chantry in Chalgrave Church, and contributed to building the cloister at St. Albans. There is a miniature representing him in his robes as a knight of the Garter in Cotton. MS. Nero D. vii. f. 105 b; this is engraved in Strutt's ‘Dresses,’ vol. ii. plate cviii., and in Beltz's ‘Memorials of the Garter,’ p. 68. Loryng married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Ralph Beauple of Cnubeston, Devonshire, by whom he had two daughters. Isabel, the elder, married, first, William Coggan, and, secondly, Robert, lord Haryngton, and her tomb still exists in Porlock Church, Somerset. Margaret, Loryng's younger daughter, married Thomas Peyvre of Toddington, Bedfordshire. Through the former Loryng was an ancestor of the late Duke of Buckingham, and through the latter of the late Duke of Cleveland and the Earl of Sandwich. An alleged cousin and namesake of Loryng is introduced in Mr. A. Conan Doyle's novel ‘The White Company’ (1891).
[Froissart's Chronicles, ed. Luce for Soc. Hist. de la France; Fœdera, Record ed.; Ashmole's Order of the Garter, pp. 700–1; Beltz's Memorials of the Order of the Garter, pp. 65–9.]
LOSINGA, HERBERT de (1054?–1119), first bishop of Norwich and founder of the cathedral church, was probably born about 1054. Confusion with his predecessor in the see of Thetford, William Beaufeu [q. v.] , has led Weever, Godwin, and other antiquaries to give Losinga the christian name of William, as well as a long series of alternative designations (Galfridus, Galfagus, and Belfagus), which were borne by Beaufeu. Herbert was son of Robert of Losing, who became at a later date abbot of Winchester. He had an only brother, whose name began with ‘G’ (he is so addressed in one of Herbert's letters); his mother's name is unknown. The surname Losinga has been explained as equivalent to ‘Lotharingian,’ and this explanation seems the best yet adduced. Robert Losinga (d. 1095) [q. v.], probably a family connection, is described on his tomb as of Lotharingia, and Freeman always refers to Herbert as a Lotharingian. Another theory, which Freeman (William Rufus, ii. 568), seemed at one time inclined to accept, derives Losinga from ‘laudare,’ and makes it a characteristic epithet synonymous with ‘a flatterer’ (see De Rémusat, Anselme, p. 199; Nicholas Harpsfield). The chief objection to this theory is that the same surname was borne by Herbert's father. A third theory assumes that Herbert was of English birth, and connects ‘Losinga’ with the root of the name preserved in the Suffolk Hundreds, Loes, and Lothingland, and in Lowestoft, formerly Loestoft, which is itself in the Hundred of Lothingland. Herbert's native place is equally a matter of dispute; Giraldus Cambrensis gives it as Exmes ‘in pago Oximensi in Normannia’ (i.e. Exmes, department of the Orne); Bartholomew Cotton (Rolls Ser.) says ‘in pago Oxymensi,’ which Wharton wrongly transcribed ‘Oxoniensi;’ Pits has ‘Oxunensi,’ a very easy misreading of ‘Oximensi;’ Bale, himself a Suffolk man, gives ‘ex pago Oxunensi in Sudvolgia’ (i.e. the Suffolk Hundred of Hoxne); but Tanner (Bibliotheca Britannica, p. 486), declares in favour of ‘Oximensi.’ Herbert's early life conflicts at nearly all points with the theory of his Suffolk origin. His father, it is true, is said at one period to have held a manor in the Hundred of Hoxne. Herbert himself appears to have inherited property in Wykes, probably one of the hamlets of Ipswich, still called ‘Wykes Episcopi,’ and to have possessed other property at Syleham; but this property is very likely to have been part of the private estate of an Anglo-Saxon holder of the bishopric of Elmham; and Herbert is said to have received some land ‘non de episcopatu’ but ‘de patrimonio Almari episcopi,’ i.e. of Agelmarus, brother of Stigand, bishop of Elmham from 1047 to 1070.
Herbert was educated in the monastery at Fécamp in Normandy, and became a professed member of the Benedictine order (circ. 1075). He was elected prior of Fécamp, and in 1087–8 Herbert was invited by William Rufus to become abbot of Ramsey. There he ruled with skill and wisdom, soon enjoying other ecclesiastical preferment, and acting as ‘sewer’ (or server) in the royal household.
Upon the death in 1091 of William, bishop of Thetford, Herbert purchased the appointment of Ralph Flambard for either 1,900l. or 1,000l. Bartholomew Cotton attempts to excuse Losinga's simony by crediting him with an apostolic admonition. The see of Canterbury being vacant, Herbert's consecration was committed to Thomas, archbishop of York. When Herbert succeeded to the bishopric the annual revenue amounted to 396l. 6s. 8d. He obtained at the same time the office of abbot of the Winchester house of Hyde for his father, Robert, presumably by purchase (cf. Dugdale, Monasticon, iv. 1, 2). Herbert refers in one of his ‘Letters’ (xix.) to the death, in 1098, of his father, who was buried at Winchester.
The king had raised Herbert to his bishopric independently of the pope, but, oppressed by a sense of contrition for having
