Thorsten 32

Thorsten the red, ‘of Navestock’ (Essex), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Thorsten
Thorsten 10
Thorsten 33

Summary

Thorsten the red was a small landowner in south-west Essex with a single manor of 1 hide 40 acres worth 30s.

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 5,8 Navestock Turstinus Thorsten the red 'of Navestock' - Maurice, bishop of London unnamed canons of St Paul's, London 1.33 1.50 1.50 E Map
Totals

Profile

Thorsten the red (Turstinus ruffus) appears under that name once in DB, holding 1 hide 40 acres at Navestock in the Roding valley of south-west Essex. By 1086 the canons of St Paul’s cathedral in London had ‘annexed’ the manor (modo sanctus paulus inuasit) and held it with their other land in Navestock. The whole of Navestock had belonged to St Paul’s c. 1000, when it was among the cathedral estates which provided shipmen as part of the bishop’s service to the king. The estate then seems to have been dismembered and partially lost by the canons, though after the Conquest they had much success in recovering the losses, and in the twelfth century forged a charter in the name of King Edgar to improve their title (Kelly 2004: nos. 16, 25; Taylor 2004: 14–16). The canons said in 1086 that they held a larger part of Navestock by gift of King William (Essex 5:7), so that the verb inuasit used of Thorsten’s part strongly suggests that they had simply taken it from him or his heirs.

A near-namesake of Thorsten the red of Navestock, Turstinus rufus, was tenant in 1086 of land for 1 plough on Winchester cathedral’s manor of Chilcomb (Hants 3:1). The byname ‘the red’ (rufus or ruffus when given in Latin) was very common (Tengvik 1938: 330–1), and the great distance between Navestock and Chilcomb means that we can hardly be dealing with the same man. The spelling Turstinus on the Hampshire manor in any case tends to suggest a Norman rather than an Englishman, though is not conclusive on that point.

Navestock was only 10 miles from Parndon, held by a Thorsten who is here distinguished as Thorsten 33. The proximity of the two holdings does not, on balance, outweigh the fact that they were of very different sizes, Navestock being between four and five times the size of Parndon whether measured by tax assessment, ploughs, or value. It is marginally more likely that two Thorstens are involved, though not inconceivable that Thorsten the red of Navestock had a small outlying property.

Bibliography


Charters of St Paul’s, London, ed. S. E. Kelly, Anglo-Saxon Charters 10 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2004)

Taylor 2004: Pamela Taylor, ‘Foundation and endowment: St Paul’s and the English kingdoms, 604–1087’, St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London, 604–2004, ed. Derek Keene, Arthur Burns, and Andrew Saint (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 5–16

Tengvik 1938: Gösta Tengvik, Old English Bynames, Nomina Germanica 4 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1938)