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Rotlesc 2

Name

Summary

Rotlesc 2 was a housecarl who held a large manor in north Gloucestershire TRE assessed at 11 hides; its TRE value is unknown. Rotlesc held this manor under his lord, King Edward (Edward 15).

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 Gloucestershire	Phil. ref. 1,59	Vill Beckford	DB Spelling Rotlesc	Holder 1066 Rotlesc the housecarl	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William, king	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 8.00	1066 Value 15.00	1086 Value 15.00	Confidence B	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Rotlesc 2 was the only person of that name recorded by DB as holding land in either TRE or 1086; indeed, his name is not otherwise recorded and both its correct form and derivation are obscure (von Feilitzen 1937: 350). Nevertheless, it is very likely that he was of foreign and probably Scandinavian origin because DB refers to him as a housecarl, a term that had a predominantly racial connotation by the mid-eleventh century if not before (Hooper 1985: 174-5).

Rotlesc 2’s substantial manor was at Beckford, by the Carrant Brook and below Bredon Hill in north Gloucestershire; the manor was probably associated with a minster that had fallen into royal hands earlier in the eleventh century (Bassett 1998: 21-2). After the Conquest, 3 hides of the Beckford manor were granted away while a manor of 8 hides at Ashton-under-Hill, 1¾ miles to the north-west, was added, resulting in a combined estate of 16 hides. DB gives no TRE or 1086 values for either Beckford or Ashton, noting only that Roger 7 d’Ivry put them at farm for £30; a twelfth-century survey (Moore 1982: Appendix EvL) confirms that this figure applied to the combined estate of 16 hides. It does not seem possible to suggest a TRE value for Rotlesc’s manor on the basis of this evidence.

Both Ashton and part of Beckford were transferred to Worcestershire in modern times.

Bibliography

Bassett 1998: S. R. Bassett, The Origins of the Parishes of the Deerhurst Area, Deerhurst Lecture 1997 (Deerhurst, 1998)

Hooper 1985: N. Hooper, ‘The housecarls in England in the eleventh century’, Anglo-Norman Studies 7 (1985)

Moore 1982: J. S. Moore, Domesday Book 15: Gloucestershire (Chichester, 1982)

von Feilitzen 1937: O. von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book (Uppsala, 1937)