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Cniht 5

Name

Summary

Cniht 5 was the TRE holder of three small estates in Devon with a total assessment of just over 2½ hides and with a probable value of 27s 6d.

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 Devon	Phil. ref. 16,125	Vill Whitestone	DB Spelling Chenistre	Holder 1066 Cniht 'of Herstanhaia'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Baldwin the sheriff	1086 Subtenant Bernard No-Napa	Fiscal Value 0.50	1066 Value 0.25	1086 Value 0.50	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 16,126	Vill Maidencombe	DB Spelling Chenistre	Holder 1066 Cniht 'of Herstanhaia'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Baldwin the sheriff	1086 Subtenant Bernard No-Napa	Fiscal Value 0.53	1066 Value 0.13	1086 Value 0.25	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 25,28	Vill Herstanhaia	DB Spelling Canistre	Holder 1066 Cniht 'of Herstanhaia'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Goscelm of Exeter	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 1.50	1066 Value 1.00	1086 Value 1.00	Confidence A	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Cniht was an extremely rare name and the three TRE estates attributed to this name – at Whitestone, Maidencombe and Herstanhaia in central Devon – were of roughly the same size (between ½ hide and 1½ hides each) and lay between only 10 and 20 miles from each other, so it is very probable that all were held by the same person, Cniht 5, despite them passing to two different TRW successors.

Cniht 5’s largest estate was that of 1½ hides at Herstanhaia, an as-yet-unidentified place apparently lying in Cliston Hundred and perhaps in the area of Sprydon and Ashclyst. DB and Exon (398a1) indicate that Cniht ‘could go to whichever lord he wished’, which implies that he had the power of alienation over this land; there is no indication as to whether he had similar freedom with regard to his other two estates.

The smaller two of Cniht 5’s estates had passed to Sheriff Baldwin’s subtenant Bernard sine napa by 1086 whereas that at Herstanhaia had passed to Goscelm of Exeter, described as Goscelm the canon in TR (67a2) and probably distinct from the Goscelm to whose estates this entry is appended in DB (Thorn and Thorn 1985: 25,28 Notes). If this Goscelm who held Herstanhaie in 1086 was a canon of the small collegiate church of St Mary that Baldwin founded in Exeter Castle, and which held land in Cliston Hundred, then the difference between Cniht 5’s TRW successors may be more apparent than real.

Bibliography

Thorn and Thorn 1985: Domesday Book 9: Devon, ed. C. Thorn and F. Thorn (Chichester 1985).