Benkestok (noble family)

Benkestok (Benkestokk, Benchestoch et cetera) is one of the original noble families of Norway and one of the few to survive the Middle Ages. At the height of its power, the family ruled large estates in Båhuslen (today a part of Sweden), in Western Norway, in Northern Norway, and on the Faroe Islands, and on Shetland.

The family's progenitor is Tord Benkestok, who lived in Strand in Forshälla, Bohuslän, then a part of Norway. He was in the end of the 14th century mentioned in the Church Property Register by Øystein Aslaksson, Bishop of Oslo.

The family was married with members of other old families, among others Smør, Galte and Kane. The legendary ancestral father was Gaut at Ænes in Hardanger, born circa 1100. He was a lendmann (baron), and his son Jon Gautsson was a lendmann in the service of Magnus Erlingsson. The Benkestok family was allegedly the eighth generation descending patrilineally from Gaut.

Jon Tordsson Benkestok was the first known family member to move to Norway's largest and most important city at the time, Bergen. In a document of 1435, he was called Jon Þordasson Benkiastok when serving as a Judge of Peace.

Trond Tordsson Benkestok of Talgøy was in 1444 mentioned as he attended the Council of the Kingdom. On 4 December, he took part in a council meeting in Copenhagen, where a ruling by King Christopher on the right of Hanseatic merchants in Norway was confirmed. At the meeting, only twelve council members were present; five Lords of the Church and seven Lords of the Realm, of which Trond Benkestok was number six and with the title of knight. Trond, then in his late 20s, probably represented the Lord of Bohuslän, who was not present at the meeting. In 1472, he was still a knight and mentioned as a Judge of Peace at a court session in Trondheim concerning an inheritance.

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