Godhere 12

Godhere ‘of Ulehams’ (Essex), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Godhere
Godhere 13

Summary

Godhere 12 was a free man holding two little manors in Essex TRE assessed at 22/3 hides and with a value of 100s.

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 4,17 Ulehams Goderus Godhere 'of Ulehams' - Maurice, bishop of London Hugh de Bernières 2.17 3.00 2.00 B Map
Essex 66,2 Shalford Godere Godhere 'of Ulehams' - William the deacon - 0.50 2.00 2.50 D Map
Totals

Profile

Godhere 12’s largest manor was one of slightly more than 2 hides at Ulehams (now Uleham’s Hall) on the southern edge of the Dengie peninsula and by what were then the tidal marshes of the River Crouch in east Essex.  Although the details of his manor given in DB are not entirely clear it seems that it engaged on a mix of arable and sheep-farming, with three ploughs for the former (of which two were on the demesne) and the latter presumably exploiting the marshland grazing.  Godhere’s workforce was provided by a peasant population of three villans and three bordars and their households, augmented by four slaves.

There were two more tiny manors held TRE by a free man with the unusual name Godhere, and it is difficult to decide if one or both of them should be assigned to Godhere 12.  The first was one of ½ hide at Shalford, by a crossing of the River Pant in north Essex and just over 20 miles from Ulehams.  This is close enough, given their size, for the two manors to have been held by the same person.  At first sight there is a difficulty in pressing the identification because Godhere 12’s successor at Ulehams by 1086 was Bishop Maurice of London (Maurice 5), whereas the successor at Shalford was William the deacon.  However, it is probable that William was in fact the nephew of Maurice’s predecessor and that the two were involved in subsequent transfers of land (Round, in Doubleday and Page 1903: 418; Keats-Rohan 1999: 482).  Taking the evidence together, therefore, it is more likely than not that the Godhere who held Shalford TRE was Godhere 12.

The evidence relating to the other manor is less compelling.  The little manor comprised either 68 or 80 acres (the DB and IE figures disagree) at Tuddenham, lying across the valley of the River Finn in Suffolk and more than 30 miles away from either Ulehams or Shalford.  Again there was a different successor by 1086, although since neither Maurice nor William held land in Suffolk in 1086 this is hardly a conclusive criterion.  Much the same can be said of the fact that the Godhere who held Tuddenham TRE was in the commendation of Ely Abbey, because Godhere 12’s commended lord at Ulehams and Tuddenham is unknown.  In the end the decision rests mainly on the balance between the distance of Tuddenham from Godhere 12’s manors, which may be too great for them to have been held by the same person given the relatively small size of the manors, and the fact that the name Godhere is unusual, albeit perhaps less so in East Anglia and the surrounding region than elsewhere.  On that balance, the probability is just in favour of regarding Godhere 12 and the TRE holder at Tuddenham as different people.

Bibliography


Doubleday and Page 1903: A History of Essex: Volume I, ed. H. A. Doubleday and W. Page (London, 1903)

Keats-Rohan 1999: K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166: I: Domesday Book (Woodbridge, 1999)