Brunlocc 2

Brunlocc ‘of Wickham’ (Suffolk), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Brunlocc
Brunlocc 3

Summary

Brunlocc 2 was one of two men who shared a holding in north Suffolk TRE assessed at only 5½ acres; the TRE value is unknown but it was worth 10d in 1086. Both men were in the commendation of Burgheard, son of Earl Ælfgar (Burgheard 6).

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire Phil. ref. Vill DB Spelling Holder 1066 Lord 1066 Tenant-in-Chief 1086 1086 Subtenant Fiscal Value 1066 Value 1086 Value Conf. Show on Map
Suffolk 14,152 Wickham Skeith Brunloc Brunlocc 'of Wickham' Burgheard, son of Earl Ælfgar Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds Ordgar the abbot's reeve 0.02 0.02 0.02 B Map
Totals

Profile

Brunlocc 2 is identified because this is the only record in DB of someone called Brunlocc as a pre-Conquest landholder, his holding was small and the only other bearer of the name recorded in DB was a post-Conquest burgess in Colchester, nearly 30 miles away.

Brunlocc 2 was one of two free men who shared a holding among numerous similarly small estates at Wickham Skeith in north Suffolk, although it is not clear if this particular holding lay in the Dove valley or on the higher ground to the south. The man he shared these scant 5½ acres with was Hereweard and it is likely that the two men worked the estate together rather than it being divided between them. It may be that there was a familial connection between the two men, but in the absence of supporting evidence it is unwise to push such speculation further.

Both men were in the commendation of Burgheard of Mendlesham, whom Baxter has identified with Burgheard 6, the son of Earl Ælfgar (Ælfgar 46; Baxter 2008: 275-7, 286). Burgheard son of Earl Ælfgar died in 1061, so if Baxter is correct then Brunlocc and Hereweard must have been commended to Burgheard before this date, although this need not imply that they also already held their land at Wickham by that time.

While that offers an argument for extending Brunlocc’s and Hereweard’s floreat by several years before the Conquest, the wording of the DB entry offers some grounds for extending it after the Conquest as well. The entry occurs in the fief of Bury St Edmunds Abbey and states that in 1086 the men were held by Ordgar 25, the abbot’s reeve, because his predecessor as reeve had appropriated them to the abbey. It may be that the scribe’s tersely ambiguous phrase means that two (unnamed) free men held the land in 1086 as successors to Brunlocc and Hereweard; but a case could be made for interpreting the entry to mean that the TRE holders, Brunlocc and Hereweard, were still working their small patch of land in 1086, albeit now as subtenants of the abbot of Bury St Edmunds. In either case, the implication is that Brunlocc and Hereweard were not tenants of the abbey TRE, perhaps emphasizing their status as ‘free men’.

Bibliography


Baxter 2008: S. Baxter, ‘The death of Burgheard son of Ælfgar and its context’, in Frankland: The Franks and the World of the Early Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Dame Jinty Nelson, ed. P. Fouracre and D. Ganz (Manchester, 2008), 266-86