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Bisi 3

Name

Summary

Bisi 3 was a thegn with four manors in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire TRE assessed at 25 hides with a value of £27; his lord was King Edward (Edward 15) and he himself was the commended lord of a small landholder, Grimbold.

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 Berkshire	Phil. ref. 33,8	Vill Eaton	DB Spelling Bosi	Holder 1066 Bisi 'of Calverton'	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Miles Crispin	1086 Subtenant Alfred nephew of Wigot	Fiscal Value 5.00	1066 Value 3.00	1086 Value 3.50	Confidence C	Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 23,32	Vill Stantonbury	DB Spelling Bisi	Holder 1066 Bisi 'of Calverton'	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Miles Crispin	1086 Subtenant Ralph 'the man of Miles Crispin'	Fiscal Value 5.00	1066 Value 6.00	1086 Value 6.00	Confidence C	Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 26,8	Vill Calverton	DB Spelling -	Holder 1066 Bisi 'of Calverton'	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Hugh de Bolbec	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 8.00	1066 Value 9.60	1086 Value 8.00	Confidence C	Map
Shire Oxfordshire	Phil. ref. 35,19	Vill Upper Heyford	DB Spelling Besi	Holder 1066 Bisi 'of Calverton'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Miles Crispin	1086 Subtenant Ralph 'the man of Miles Crispin'	Fiscal Value 5.00	1066 Value 6.00	1086 Value 6.00	Confidence C	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

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
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 17,21	Vill Great Linford	DB Spelling Bisi	Holder 1066 Grimbald 'of Great Linford'	Lord 1066 Bisi	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William fitzAnsculf	1086 Subtenant Robert 'the man of William fitzAnsculf'	Fiscal Value 0.25	1066 Value 0.10	1086 Value 0.10	Confidence C	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Bisi 3’s largest manor was one of two at Calverton, by the River Ouse in north Buckinghamshire and probably including part of Stony Stratford where Watling Street crosses the river (Page 1927: 308).  In the DB entry for Calverton, Bisi is described as a thegn of King Edward while the holder of the other, smaller TRE manor was an unnamed man of the queen’s; both estates passed to Hugh de Bolbec (Hugh 30) after the Conquest.

Another Buckinghamshire manor held TRE by a king’s thegn called Bisi was at Stantonbury, 4 miles north-east of Calverton and also beside the River Ouse; and, given the extreme rarity of the name Bisi and the close proximity of the two estates, it is probable that both were held TRE by the same man, Bisi 3, even though the manor at Stantonbury passed to a different post-Conquest tenant-in-chief, Miles Crispin (Miles 1).

Similarly, the Bisi whose man Grimbold had a tiny TRE holding at Great Linford, less than a mile east of Stony Stratford, is also probably the same person even though this estate passed to yet another successor after the Conquest.

Nevertheless, two further manors, each of 5 hides and both held by Miles Crispin in 1086, are also likely to have been held by Bisi 3 before the Conquest.  One manor was at Upper Heyford, named from a crossing of the River Cherwell in north Oxfordshire and 20½ miles from Calverton, which a man called Besi in DB ‘held freely’ TRE.  The other was at Eaton, by the River Thames in north Berkshire, 14 miles to the south of Upper Heyford and where a man of King Edward’s called Bosi in DB was the TRE holder.

As Palmer et al. (2002: DB Bucks. 17,21 Notes) pointed out, it is highly unlikely that Miles Crispin should acquire manors – none more than 24 miles from one of the others – in three adjacent shires held TRE by three men each with a very similar but different and extremely rare name.  It is far more likely that the DB spellings represent variant or erroneous forms of a single name (see ‘The name’, above); it is also worth noting that each form occurs in only one of the three shires and that these shires were also in three different circuits.  Although Palmer et al. chose to adopt the name ‘Besi of Calverton’ for this TRE holder, the majority of DB spellings point to Bisi being the correct form and that is the name adopted here.

The DB entries for Calverton, Stantonbury and Eaton indicate that Bisi 3’s lord was King Edward; the precise nature of that lordship is unclear in two instances but the entry for Stantonbury states that Bisi ‘could sell’, which indicates that here at least Bisi had power of alienation and was likely to have been in the king’s commendation rather than a dependent tenant.  Similarly, Grimbold ‘could sell’ his land at Great Linford, implying that he was commended to Bisi.

Palmer et al. (2002: DB Rut. 2,13) appear to identify Bisi 3 with Besi 2, the TRE holder of a small manor in Rutland, in the text but to argue against this in the notes.  The latter interpretation is more likely because the manor in question lay more than 40 miles from the nearest held by Bisi 3.  There is no reason to consider Bisi 3 in connection with any other estate or person.

Bibliography

Page 1927: A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 4, ed. W. Page (London, 1927)

Palmer et al. 2002: J. Palmer, F. Thorn and C. Thorn, and N. Hodgson, Electronic Edition of Domesday Book: Translation, Databases and Scholarly Commentary, 1086, 2nd edn (2002), currently published online by the UK Data Service https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue?sn=5694