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Heca 4

Name

Summary

Heca 4 was the sheriff of Devon at the time of the Conquest and held seven estates in south Devon TRE, with a combined assessment of 12 hides and a total value of £16 10s.

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. 17,32	Vill Loddiswell	DB Spelling Heche	Holder 1066 Heca, sheriff of Devon	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Judhael of Totnes	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 2.00	1066 Value 5.00	1086 Value 5.00	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 17,38	Vill West Portlemouth	DB Spelling Heche	Holder 1066 Heca, sheriff of Devon	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Judhael of Totnes	1086 Subtenant Fulk 'of Portlemouth'	Fiscal Value 1.00	1066 Value 2.00	1086 Value 0.50	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 17,49	Vill Charleton	DB Spelling Heche	Holder 1066 Heca, sheriff of Devon	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Judhael of Totnes	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 5.00	1066 Value 5.00	1086 Value 5.00	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 17,64	Vill Ringmore	DB Spelling Heche	Holder 1066 Heca, sheriff of Devon	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Judhael of Totnes	1086 Subtenant Ralph de La Pommeraye	Fiscal Value 1.50	1066 Value 1.50	1086 Value 1.50	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 17,69	Vill Eggbuckland	DB Spelling Heche	Holder 1066 Heca, sheriff of Devon	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Judhael of Totnes	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 1.50	1066 Value 2.50	1086 Value 2.50	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 17,95	Vill Langdon	DB Spelling Heche	Holder 1066 Heca, sheriff of Devon	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Judhael of Totnes	1086 Subtenant Waldin	Fiscal Value 0.50	1066 Value 0.50	1086 Value 0.50	Confidence B	Map
Shire Devon	Phil. ref. 21,18	Vill Goosewell	DB Spelling Heche	Holder 1066 Heca, sheriff of Devon	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William de Poilley	1086 Subtenant Robert 'the man of William de Poilley'	Fiscal Value 0.50	1066 Value 0.25	1086 Value 0.25	Confidence B	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

There are only seven estates in DB whose TRE holder was called Heca, and all are located within a 19-mile stretch of south Devon close to its coast or estuaries. Given the extreme rarity of the name Heca, the sizes of the estates involved, their relatively close grouping and the size of the overall holding that they would represent, it is almost certain that all of these estates were held TRE by the same man, Heca 4.

In the Exon entry (322b1) relating to the estate at West Portlemouth, Heca is described as vicecomes; the obvious conclusion is that he was sheriff of Devon at the time of the Conquest, although there is no independent confirmation of this (Green 1990: 35).

It is highly likely that Heca gave his name to one of his estates, the first element of the modern place-name Eggbuckland (simply Bocheland in DB) being derived from Heca (Gover et al. 1931-2: 227; von Feilitzen 1937: 228 n.5).

Although the name Heca is extremely rare in pre-Conquest England, the initial Hec- is consistent throughout the DB and Exon spellings and this strongly suggests that the name is distinct from that of Haca 1 (another Devon landholder TRE with a couple of small estates some 40 miles from those of Heca 4), the DB and Exon spellings of whose name have an equally consistent initial Hac-.

Bibliography

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

Green 1990: J. A. Green, English Sheriffs to 1154, Public Record Office Handbooks, 24 (London, 1990)

von Feilitzen 1937: O. von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book (Uppsala, 1937)