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Ottar 10

Name

Summary

Ottar 10 had 1 ferling in west Devon TRE.

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. 15,53	Vill Wedrerige	DB Spelling Otre	Holder 1066 Ottar 'of Wedrerige'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Robert, count of Mortain	1086 Subtenant Reynold de Vautortes	Fiscal Value 0.06	1066 Value 0.15	1086 Value 0.15	Confidence D	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Ottar 10’s holding of 1 ferling probably lay in west Devon but its precise location is not known. The place-name given in DB is Wederige, although the form Wedreriga in Exon (222b1) and TO (505b5) may be more reliable (cf. Thorn and Thorn 1985: DB 16,42 Notes). The generic is almost certainly Old English hrycg ‘ridge’ but the qualifier remains uncertain; OE weðer ‘wether, castrated lamb’ is the most likely, which would give weðra-hrycg ‘ridge of the wethers’ and parallel Witheridge elsewhere in Devon (Gover et al. 1931-2: ii 376, 397-8). The order of entries in Exon points strongly to a location in Roborough Hundred, although the Thorns thought Plympton Hundred possible and noted the street-name Wheatridge in Plympton St Mary (Thorn and Thorn 1985: DB 15,53 Notes).

There is a further possible clue as to the location of Wedreriga, which is that the Exon entry notes that Ottar 10’s ferling was ‘now added to Ordwulf’s land’ (modo addita terrae Ordulfi). The only estate in Roborough Hundred that passed to the same subtenant of Robert, count of Mortain (Robert 9) as Wedreriga and was held by someone called Ordwulf TRE was one of 4 hides at Bere Ferrers, on the peninsula between the rivers Tavy and Tamar and incorporating landscape features described by OE hrycg (e.g. Gover et al. 1931-2: i 224). Furthermore, this was the estate recorded in the Exon entry immediately following that for Wedreriga. A location in Bere Ferrers has therefore been adopted here for mapping purposes.

The Exon entry (222b1) also notes that Ottar held his land pariter ‘evenly, in common’ (translated as ‘jointly’ in the Phillimore edition of DB), a term that in the south-west can apparently be used as a virtual equivalent to DB’s libere ‘freely’ or, like in paragio, indicate tenure between co-heirs (cf. Thorn and Thorn 1985: DB 1,15 Notes). 

Ottar 10’s holding was minute and probably more than 20 miles from the nearest estates of Ottar 8, which did not pass to Robert 9 after the Conquest. Although the personal name was rare, therefore, it is highly unlikely that Ottar 10 was the same person as Ottar 8.

Bibliography

Gover et al. 1931-2:J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Devon, 2 pts (Cambridge, 1931-2)

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