Ordgar 14

Ordgar sheriff of Cambridgeshire, fl. 1066
Male
SDB
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Name

Ordgar
Ordgar 15

Summary

Ordgar the sheriff is attributed 4 estates in Cambridge and 3 in Essex which were assessed at about 13 hides and worth £27 TRE; he was also the lord of two minor Cambridgeshire landholders. The fact that he is only accorded that title in the Cambridgeshire folios suggests that he held office in that shire.

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
Cambridgeshire 12,1 Sawston Orgar Ordgar, sheriff of Cambridgeshire Harold, earl Robert, count of Mortain unnamed abbot of Grestain 2.00 6.00 6.00 D Map
Cambridgeshire 22,6 Chippenham Orgarus Ordgar, sheriff of Cambridgeshire Edward, king Geoffrey de Mandeville - 3.00 3.60 6.00 A Map
Cambridgeshire 28,1 Isleham Orgarus Ordgar, sheriff of Cambridgeshire Edward, king Hugh de Port - 1.67 3.00 2.00 A Map
Cambridgeshire 32,5 Harston Orgar Ordgar, sheriff of Cambridgeshire Harold, earl Picot of Cambridge - 4.00 5.33 4.27 D Map
Essex 13,2 Horseham Hall Orgarus Ordgar, sheriff of Cambridgeshire - Gausbert, abbot of Battle - 1.00 2.00 2.00 D Map
Essex 56,1 Radwinter Orgarus Ordgar, sheriff of Cambridgeshire - Frodo brother of Abbot Baldwin Ælfgar 'of Radwinter' 0.25 0.50 0.50 D Map
Essex 56,1 Radwinter Orgarus Ordgar, sheriff of Cambridgeshire - Frodo brother of Abbot Baldwin - 1.25 7.50 14.50 D Map
Totals

Lord 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
Cambridgeshire 14,21 Harston Orgarus 1 priest Ordgar Alan, count Odo the chamberlain 0.25 0.27 0.18 C Map
Cambridgeshire 14,75 Dullingham - Alstan 'of Dullingham' Ordgar Alan, count - 0.58 0.61 0.00 C Map
Totals

Profile

The entries for Chippenham and Isleham both describe Ordgar as ‘King Edward’s sheriff’, and the fact that these estates were in Cambridgeshire suggests that he held office in that shire. Radwinter and Horseham Hall, both in Essex, lay close to the north east border of Cambridgeshire and, although they passed to different successors, they are similar in size and are located within 4 miles of each other; it is therefore very probable that they were held by the same individual. Ordgar is said to have held ‘under’ (sub) Earl Harold at Sawston and ‘from’ (de) Earl Harold at Harston, but enjoyed the power to alienate both estates. These formulae were probably intended to convey the fact that Ordgar was commended to Earl Harold but did not hold the estates in question from him in dependent tenure (Baxter 2007: 225–36).

It is possible that Ordgar the man of King Edward and Ordgar the man of Earl Harold were different individuals. Chippenham, Isleham, Radwinter and Horseham Hall passed to four different lords by 1086. Here it is worth noting that a will datable 1043 x 1045 was witnessed ‘in Cambridgeshire’ by two men named Ordgar, Ordger and oþer Ordger (S 1531): this demonstrates that two men of this name were active in Cambridgeshire early in King Edward’s reign. However, various considerations commend the view that all four estates were held by the same individual. The two estates specifically attributed to Ordgar the sheriff were worth more than £6 in total TRE: an individual with this level of income could have held estates elsewhere in the shire. The distance between Isleham and Harston was about 20 miles, a manageable distance for a lord of this substance. Although it was unusual for men to have more than one lord, it is known that some of King Edward’s sheriffs held land from, were closely connected with, and may even have been commended to other lords, including earls (Williams 1989; Baxter 2007: 245−50, 252−57). It is also necessary to hold open the possibility that Ordgar was the man of Edward and then Harold in turn, not simultaneously, for Ordgar could have commended himself to Harold when he became king: the Domesday commissioners were in theory intended to collect information relating to the day on which King Edward was alive and dead, but in practice their cut-off dates proved more elastic, especially with respect to pre-Conquest earls (cf. Theodric 6). Finally, although the four Cambridgeshire estates passed to four different successors, there is a connection between them, for all four of them were senior-ranking officials or sheriffs in William’s regime. For these reasons, the balance of probability tips slightly in favour of identifying Ordgar the sheriff with the Ordgar who held two estates in south-Cambridgeshire. The three estates attributed to Ordgar in Essex TRE also passed to different lords; however, since they were similar in size and were closely located to the south Cambridgeshire group, it is more likely than not that they held by the same Ordgar.

The Cambridgeshire Domesday identifies Ordgar as the lord of two men: a priest in Harston, and a sokeman in Dullingham, who is anonymous in Great Domesday but named as Alstan in ICC (p. 18). The priest in Harston held in the same vill as one of Ordgar’s demesne estate, but Alstan of Dullingham’s holding lay several miles away from both sets of Ordgar’s holdings in Cambridgeshire, and this suggests that he was a man of some importance across the shire, and therefore strengthens the case for identifying the Cambridgeshire Ordgars as one person.

The entry for Chippenham in Cambridgeshire is particularly illuminating, and worth setting out in full:

Chippenham was assessed at 10 hides TRE, but a certain sheriff reduced them to 5 hides by permission of the same king because its farm was a burden on him, and now it is assessed at 5 hides. There is land for 17 ploughs. Geoffrey holds it from the king. In demesne are 3 hides, and there are 3 ploughs. There 19 villans with 13 bordars who have 14 ploughs. There are 6 slaves, meadow for 3 ploughs, [and] pasture for the livestock of the vill. From the fishery, 1,500 eels. In all it is worth £20; when received, £16; TRE £12. Ordgar, King Edward’s sheriff, who was afterwards the man of Esger the staller, held this manor. 5 hides of this land were in King Edward’s farm, and 2 sokemen had 2 hides from the king and could give their land to whom they would, and yet each one provided 18s 8d or 1 horse in the king’s service, and paid their forfeitures in Fordham. Ordgar the sheriff himself had 3 hides if this land, and could give them to whom he would. Ordgar put this land in pledge for 7 marks of gold and 2 ounces, as Geoffrey's men say, but the men of the hundred have seen neither any writ nor any messenger of King Edward concerning it, nor do they produce any testimony (GDB 197b (Cambridgeshire 22,6)).

This entry demonstrates that Ordgar negotiated a reduction in the hidage of Chippenham: a clear case of ‘beneficial hidation’. It also reveals that he was commended to Esger the Staller ‘afterwards’ – presumably after King Edward’s death. Esger is thought to have been involved in resistance to the Normans in the immediate aftermath of the battle of Hastings (Barlow 1999: 40−2), so this does not preclude the possibility that Ordgar was commended to King Harold II during his reign, and then to Esger. The entry further reveals that Ordgar held 3 hides of the estate himself, but farmed the remainder; it therefore furnishes a clear example of a parcel of royal demesne being broken off to reward a royal official (cf. Baxter and Blair 2006). To judge from the assertion that Ordgar put this land in pledge for 7 marks of gold and 2 ounces, and that the survey expected to see a writ of King Edward as evidence of this, Ordgar paid King Edward an appreciable sum for this privilege.

Ordgar can possibly be identified in three other sources besides Domesday Book. First, it is possible that Ordgar the sheriff was Ordgar 9, one of the two men named Ordger who witnessed ‘in Cambridgeshire’ the will of Thurstan, datable 1045 (S 1531 (Whitelock 1930: 83, 196−7)). The witnesses of this document include the names of some powerful individuals in the eastern counties, including Harold, then earl of East Anglia, Stigand, then bishop of Elmham, the abbots of Ely and Ramsey and Ælfgar, son of Earl Leofric. This pattern of witnesses makes it likely that Ordgar was an influential figure in Cambridgeshire, and this strengthens the case for identifying him with our Ordgar the sheriff. Second, Ordgar the sheriff may have been identical with Ordgar 11 who, in an OE writ of King William datable 1066 x 1070, is said to have administered the soke of eight and a half hundreds in Suffolk on behalf of Queen Emma at an unknown date before her death in 1052 (Bates 1998: no. 38). Third, it has been suggested that Ordgar the sheriff may have been the man of that name who, according to Ely tradition, joined a group of outlaws and rebels based at Ely in 1070–71 (Lewis 2004). The Ely tradition, which is transmitted through the Liber Eliensis and the Gesta Herewardi, records that Earl Edwin, Earl Morcar, ‘Thosti et duo procores Orgarus et Turchitellus, illustres viri’ were among those who joined Hereweard ‘the Wake’ there before King William besieged the isle of Ely in 1071 (Blake 1962: 179; Hardy 1888–89: 379). The Gesta Herewardi further asserts that, when a group of monks decided to surrender to William during the siege, a monk of Ely named Alwine son of Ordgar (Alwinus filius Orgar) escaped from the abbey to inform Hereweard of this, and to persuade the rebels not to burn Ely in revenge (Hardy 1888: 391). These are late texts, but the identification remains attractive: the interpretation of the Domesday evidence set out above is certainly consistent with the fact that he is described as a procer (a substantial thegn) in the Liber Eliensis.

Bibliography


Barlow 1999: The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens, ed. and trans. F. Barlow (Oxford, 1999)

Bates 1998: Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I (1066–1087), ed. D. Bates (Oxford, 1998)

Baxter and Blair 2006: S. Baxter and J. Blair, ‘Land Tenure and Royal Patronage in the Early English Kingdom: a Model and a Case Study’, Anglo-Norman Studies 28 (2006), 19–46

Blake 1962: Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake, Camden Society 3rd series (1962)

Hardy 1888–89: Lestorie des Engles Solum La Translacion Maistre Geffrei Gaimar, ed. T. D. Hardy, Rolls Series 91, 2 vols (London, 1888–89)

Lewis 2004: C. P. Lewis, ‘Ordgar (fl. 1066)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)

S: P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968), revised by S. Kelly, R. Rushforth et al., The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, published online through Kemble: The Anglo-Saxon Charters Website, currently at http://www.esawyer.org.uk/about/index.html

Whitelock 1930: Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. and trans. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930)

Williams 1989: A. Williams, ‘A Vicecomital Family in Pre-Conquest Warwickshire’, ANS 11 (1989), 279–295