Leofweard 10

Leofweard ‘of North Benfleet’ (Essex), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Leofweard
Leofweard 9
Leofweard 11

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
Essex 1,14 North Benfleet Leuardus Leofweard 'of North Benfleet' - William, king Theodric Pointel 1.00 1.00 1.00 A Map
Totals

Profile

Leofweard 10 was a small landowner in south Essex whose single manor of 1 hide was worth 20 shillings.

The smallest of four holdings in the 18-hide vill of Benfleet in south Essex (Essex 1:1, 14; 6:1; 24:13) was 1 hide which belonged in 1066 to Leofweard, a free man unlikely to be identical with any of his namesakes elsewhere in the country. Benfleet later comprised two parishes, North Benfleet and South Benfleet, which did not quite adjoin and both of which included detached pastures on Canvey Island in the Thames estuary (Round 1903: facing p. 369). Leofweard’s holding has been identified from later evidence as lying in North Benfleet (Powell 1990: 11).

In 1066 Leofweard had 1 plough with a bordar, pasture for 40 sheep and a fishery. Since the main part of North Benfleet was set back from the Thames-side marshes, the sheep pasture and fishery suggest that Leofweard’s farm was on Canvey Island. The rest of North Benfleet belonged to Earl Harold, but there is no explicit connection between Leofweard and the earl.

Bibliography


Powell 1990: W. Raymond Powell, Essex in Domesday Book: Introduction & Gazetteer, Essex Record Office Publication 103 (Chelmsford: Essex Record Office, 1990)

Round 1903: J. Horace Round, ‘Introduction to the Essex Domesday’, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: The Victoria History of the County of Essex, I, ed. William Page (Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1903), 333–425