Earnwulf 8

Earnwulf ‘of Harlton’ (Cambs.), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Earnwulf
Earnwulf 7
Earnwulf 9

Summary

Earnwulf 8 was the commended lord of a sokeman on an estate in south-west Cambridgeshire TRE but is not recorded as holding land in his own right and may have been dead by the time of the Conquest.

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

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

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 17,4 Harlton - 1 sokeman, man of Earnwulf Earnwulf Walter Giffard Walter fitzAubrey 0.13 0.25 0.22 D Map
Totals

Profile

Earnwulf 8 occurs only in an entry in ICC (p. 74) that gives more detail than the corresponding DB entry and notes that one of five sokemen on an estate at Harlton, in south-west Cambridgeshire, was ‘his man’.  Since all five sokemen ‘could sell’ and thus were not in dependent tenure, Earnwulf was presumably this man’s lord by commendation; the other four were men of Aki, the main landholder TRE.  Earnulf’s man held ½ virgate of the total of 2 virgates held by the sokemen, who were also responsible for providing watchmen when required.  

Yet although Earnwulf 8 was the lord of this one sokeman he apparently held no other lordships nor even any land in his own right.  DB records no other person of that name in association with land in Cambridgeshire TRE and the nearest was the small manor of Earnwulf 5 more than 25 miles away and with whom there is no obvious connection.  Perhaps the simplest explanation, therefore, is that Earnwulf 8 was a local landholder who had died before the Conquest but who, for some reason and as with some of the estates of Earl Godwine (Godwine 51) (d. 1053) in DB, was recorded by ICC with regard to this particular entry.  

Bibliography


ICC: Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis subjicitur Inquisitio Eliensis, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton (London, 1876)