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Beorhtsige 44

Name

Summary

Beorhtsige 44 was a small landowner on the Suffolk-Essex border whose two manors of nearly 2 carucates were worth 30 shillings. He was declared an outlaw and dispossessed at an unspecified time after William became king.

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 Essex	Phil. ref. 24,65	Vill Foulton	DB Spelling Bricsius	Holder 1066 Beorhtsige 'of Boynton'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Swein of Essex	1086 Subtenant Odard 'of Foulton'	Fiscal Value 0.92	1066 Value 0.50	1086 Value 1.00	Confidence B	Map
Shire Suffolk	Phil. ref. 71,1	Vill Boynton	DB Spelling Brixius	Holder 1066 Beorhtsige 'of Boynton'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Robert of Stratford	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 1.00	1066 Value 1.00	1086 Value 1.00	Confidence B	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Two small manors on the borders of Suffolk and Essex were close enough to one another and far enough from other estates assigned to Beorhtsige for the identity of their holder to be probable, though the possibility that two men were involved cannot be dismissed altogether. Marginally the larger of the two was 1 carucate at Boynton, 3 miles inland on the Suffolk side of the lower Stour valley. Beorhtsige was here called a free man; his commendation was not stated but the soke of his holding, as of others at Boynton, belonged to Earl Harold’s nearby manor of East Bergholt. The Essex manor of Foulton was 12 or 13 miles down the estuary, hemmed in by marshes towards the end of the Harwich peninsula. Beorhtsige held 1 hide less 10 acres freely there. He farmed with a single plough at each manor, and the marshes of Foulton provided pasture for 100 sheep.

The entry for Foulton reports Beorhtsige’s fate: ‘when the king [William] came into this land he was outlawed, and R[obert fitzWimarc] received his land, and afterwards S[wein of Essex, Robert’s son] had it’. Outlawry presumably involved exile (as Williams 1995: 19), and the minor landowner Beorhtsige 44 can therefore be placed among the small number of men who are known for certain to have left England after resisting the Normans.

Bibliography

Williams 1995: Ann Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1995)