Eadstan 24

Eadstan ‘of Chicheley’ (Bucks.), fl. c.1010-1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Eadstan
Eadstan 25

Summary

Eadstan 24 was a thegn with two manors in north-east Buckinghamshire TRE assessed at 5 hides and with a probable value of about £4 4s.  He was commended to Æthelnoth Cild (Æthelnoth 69), had a dependent tenant on another Buckinghamshire manor, and was the father of Leofwine 70.

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
Buckinghamshire 17,22 Tyringham Estanus Eadstan 'of Chicheley' - William fitzAnsculf Acard 'the man of William fitzAnsculf' 2.00 2.21 1.66 C Map
Buckinghamshire 17,25 Chicheley Edestanus Eadstan 'of Chicheley' Æthelnoth Cild William fitzAnsculf Andrew 'of Chicheley' 3.00 2.00 2.00 B Map
Totals

Profile

Eadstan 24’s largest manor was one of three manors at Chicheley, in a small tributary valley of the River Ouse in north-east Buckinghamshire.  DB states that Eadstan was the man of ‘Alnoth the Kentishman’, identifiable as Æthelnoth Cild (Æthelnoth 69) (Clarke 1994: 237-8; Williams 1997: 46).  The relationship was probably one of commendation, because DB also notes that Eadstan ‘could sell’ and implies that he had the power of alienation over his land rather than being a dependent tenant.

The manor at Chicheley passed to William fitzAnsculf (William 43) after the Conquest, as did another manor only 3 miles away at Tyringham (the hamm being a loop of the River Ouse) that had been held TRE by five thegns, one of whom was called Estanus.  The DB form Estan(us) can represent the name Æthelstan or Eadstan (von Feilitzen 1937: 182); and, given the close proximity of the two manors and that both passed to the same successor, it is probable that the Estanus who held 2 hides at Tyringham TRE was the same as Eadstan 24, who is thereby also identified as a thegn.

By contrast, Palmer et al. (2002: DB Bucks. 17,25 Notes; Essex 18,43 Notes) saw the TRE holders of Chicheley and Tyringham as different men and instead argued that Eadstan 24 was the same man as Æthelstan (Adstanus in DB), who held a manor in Essex TRE.  However, this argument presumes that the form Adstanus represents Eadstan and that this name was rare, while the suggested link by succession from Æthelnoth (not recorded as holding land in Essex TRE) to Bishop Odo 3 (not explicitly associated with Chicheley) is in this instance tenuous.  These uncertainties render the evidence insufficient to overcome the main problem, which is that the two manors were 75 miles apart, and the identification must be rejected.

However, Palmer et al. (2007: DB Bucks. 4,43 Notes) also identified the Estanus who held Tyringham TRE with three other instances of the DB form Estan(us) recorded in the midlands, and these need to be reconsidered in connection with Eadstan 24.  The first possibility, that he was the same as the Æstan who held a tiny estate about 16 miles away in Northamptonshire, cannot be sustained on present evidence because there is no obvious connection between the estates or their successors and the names Æthelstan and Eadstan were both fairly common.  Rather more promising is the Estan whose dependent tenant Alwine held small manor at Brickhill, about 9 miles to the south of Chicheley and on the River Lovat (or Ouzel), another tributary of the Ouse.  Again there is no certain link between the successors (unless an association with Bishop Odo is accepted), but this is perhaps not so crucial with regard to TRE lordship.  What just tips the balance of probability in favour of identifying this Estan with Eadstan 24 is that one of ten thegns holding land TRE at Woughton, also on the River Lovat and part-way between Brickhill and Chicheley, was the man of Leuuin filius Estan (probably the same as the witness of S 1228 in 1042x1049 identified as Leofwine 70 son of Æstan 1 in the PASE corpus).  Despite all the provisos given above, therefore, to have the form Estan(us) occurring three times within 3 and 9 miles of the occurrence of Eadstan, and all along the same river system, seems to push coincidence too far.

If this identification of Eadstan 24 with Leofwine 70’s father is correct, then the fact that Leofwine was witnessing charters in his own right in the 1040s implies that Eadstan was born in or before c.1010 and would have been in at least his late fifties by the time of the Conquest.

Eadstan 24’s lands lay about 90 miles from the property of any other person of that name TRE and, with the exception of the instances discussed above, there is no reason to consider him in connection with anyone else.

Bibliography


Clarke 1994: Peter A. Clarke, The English Nobility under Edward the Confessor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)

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

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

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)

Williams 1997: A. Williams, ‘A West-Country magnate of the eleventh century: the family, estates and patronage of Beorhtric son of Ælfgar’, in Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: the Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century, ed. in K. S. B. Keats-Rohan (Woodbridge, 1997)