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Swetmann 11

Name

Summary

Swetmann 11 held an estate in Bedfordshire TRE assessed at 1 hide and with a value of 30s; he was commended to Wulfmær of Eaton Socon (Wulfmær 53) but held his land with power of alienation.

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
Shire Bedfordshire	Phil. ref. 55,12	Vill Chicksands	DB Spelling Sueteman	Holder 1066 Swetmann 'of Chicksands'	Lord 1066 Wulfmær of Eaton Socon	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Azeline wife of Ralph Taillebois	1086 Subtenant Walter the monk	Fiscal Value 1.00	1066 Value 1.50	1086 Value 1.00	Confidence C	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Swetmann 11 is identified mainly by the great distance between his estate and any other held TRE by someone else with the same name.

Swetmann 11’s estate was one of three at Chicksands, on a slight ridge between the Gull Brook and the River Flit, a tributary of the River Ivel, in Bedfordshire. His was the only one of the three at which a mill was recorded in DB (albeit in 1086 not necessarily TRE), which is most likely to have been by the Flit near the later weir and suggests that Swetmann’s estate lay nearby.

DB states that Swetmann was the man of Wulfmær of Eaton Socon (Wulfmær 53) of Eaton, a wealthy local thegn, but also that Swetmann could give his land to whom he wished. This implies that he had power of alienation over his land rather than being a dependent tenant, and this therefore suggests that Wulfmær was his lord by commendation.

There seems no reason to connect Swetmann 11 with the other small landholders at Chicksands, nor is there anything to associate him with other TRE landholders of that name, who had different lords and whose estates were more than 70 miles away and passed to different post-Conquest holders.