Here 2

Here ‘of Herston’ (Dors.), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Here

Summary

Here 2 had two thirds of a hide in south-east Dorset 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
Dorset 47,12 Herston Her Here 'of Herston' - Roger Arundel - 0.67 0.50 0.50 C Map
Totals

Profile

Here 2’s estate was at Herston, above the cliffs of the Isle of Purbeck in south-east Dorset, and the place-name provides a key clue to his identity. Von Feilitzen (1937: 248) was reluctant to identify the DB form Her with an Old English name Here because it omits the final vowel, even though elsewhere (ibid.: 70-2) he noted that the element here was often an exception to the general rule in this regard; instead, he preferred a derivation from Old Norse Hiorr. Yet the place-name Herston, first recorded in DB as Her(e)stune, shows a persistent OE genitival inflection throughout its medieval spellings and thus strongly suggests that it derives from OE Heres-tūn ‘Here’s estate’ (Mills 1977: 55). Despite von Feilitzen’s objections, therefore, it seems perverse not to identify the TRE holder with the man from whom the DB place-name derived and to regard his name as OE Here (cf. Thorn and Thorn 1983: DB 47,12 Notes).

Although Here 2’s estate was very small it seems that he had the power of alienation over it, because the Exon (52a2) entry notes that he ‘could go to whichever lord he wished’ and this implies that he was not a dependent tenant.

There was another tiny holding at Herston, comprising 1 virgate held by Godfrey scutularius (Scullion) in 1086 and by his father TRE, when it gelded for 1 virgate and 4 acres. Unfortunately the name of Godfrey’s father is not given and the entry is both incomplete in DB and missing from the surviving sections of Exon. Nevertheless, the holding was called Herstune in DB and so was sufficiently closely associated with Here 2 to be named from him by 1086, while the assessments for the two holdings come close to making up a single hide. It is possible, therefore, that there was a tenurial or familial connection between Here 2 and Godfrey’s father, or even that they were the same person.

Bibliography


Mills 1977: A. D. Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part I (Cambridge, 1977)

Thorn and Thorn 1983: Domesday Book 7: Dorset, ed. C. Thorn and F. Thorn (Chichester, 1983)

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