Thorsten 10

Thorsten thegn of King Edward, fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Thorsten
Thorsten 32

Summary

Thorsten 10 was a king’s thegn and housecarl with six manors scattered between the Thames and south Staffordshire, together assessed at 25 hides and worth £18. He had earlier given a small manor in Middlesex to Westminster abbey.

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
Gloucestershire 48,3 Naunton Turstan Thorsten, thegn of King Edward - Osbern fitzRichard Roger d'Oilly 5.00 3.00 3.00 D Map
Gloucestershire 53,8 Icomb Proper Turstan Thorsten, thegn of King Edward - Durand of Gloucester Walter 'the man of Durand of Gloucester' 2.00 1.50 2.00 D Map
Gloucestershire 56,1 Great Barrington Turstan Thorsten, thegn of King Edward - Walter fitzRoger - 4.00 4.00 4.00 D Map
Middlesex 19,1 Cranford Turstinus Thorsten, thegn of King Edward Edward, king William fitzAnsculf Hugh 'the man of William fitzAnsculf' 5.00 5.00 3.00 D Map
Staffordshire 12,18 Ettingshall Turstan Thorsten, thegn of King Edward - William fitzAnsculf Robert 'the man of William fitzAnsculf' 2.00 1.50 1.50 C Map
Staffordshire 12,8 Wombourn Turstinus Thorsten, thegn of King Edward - William fitzAnsculf Ralph 'the man of William fitzAnsculf' 7.00 3.00 3.00 C Map
Totals

Profile

Three groups of medium-sized manors held by Thorsten can be associated with varying degrees of confidence with a housecarl of that name who is named elsewhere as a donor to Westminster abbey. The document in question is a writ to the shire court of Middlesex, datable between 1044 and 1051, by which the king gave notice that the monks of Westminster were to have the land at Chalkhill given to them by ‘my housecarl Thorsten’ (Turstanus min huskarll) (S 1121). The writ is clearly authentic, and Chalkhill, in Kingsbury parish, can be traced in the abbey’s possession until the thirteenth century (VCH Mdx V, 61). It corresponds in DB with Westminster’s 2½-hide manor of Kingsbury, in the hands TRE of the king’s thegn Alwine horne, who held it in pledge from ‘a certain man’ of the abbey (de quodam homine Sancti Petri) (Mdx 4:11). Edward’s housecarl Thorsten and Edward’s thegn Thorsten were very probably identical because of the association of both with Middlesex. All housecarls were the king’s thegns, though not all king’s thegns were housecarls.

The king’s thegn Thorsten still owned a second Middlesex manor in 1066 at Cranford, some 10 miles south-west of Chalkhill on the gravels and clays of west Middlesex. Cranford commanded, indeed was named from, what was perhaps already an important crossing of the river Crane on a main road west from London (VCH Mdx III, 177–8). It was exactly the sort of estate which the king was likely to give to one of his housecarls.

In 1086 Cranford was the only Middlesex manor of the important baron William fitzAnsculf, whose main seat was at Dudley (Worcs.). His compact castlery around Dudley included two sizeable manors in south Staffordshire which had belonged TRE to a Thorsten who is thus likely to have been the housecarl of that name: Wombourn in the valley of the upper Stour and Ettingshall on higher land 5 miles to the east. Thorsten held both manors with sake and soke, that is, as bookland granted presumably by the king, strengthening the identification. Others have drawn the same conclusion (VCH Mdx, III, 179).

Thorsten 10 also can be identified, though rather less confidently, as the holder of a group of three closely-set manors at the edge of the Cotswolds in east Gloucestershire. They were Naunton, high in the valley of the Windrush, Great Barrington 10 miles down the valley, and an estate at Icomb which corresponds with the later manor of Icomb Proper, 5 or 6 miles east of Naunton and north of the Barringtons. At Barrington Thorsten had one of two manors whose resources were recorded together in 1086; the others he held solo.

The spellings of the personal name in these six entries do not help much with identification: the holder was Turstan in Gloucestershire and once in Staffordshire, and the Normanized spelling Turstinus at the other Staffordshire manor and in Middlesex.

The Middlesex king’s thegn and the Staffordshire tenant with sake and soke were probably the housecarl Thorsten 10; the Gloucestershire lands more likely than not belonged to him too. The latter were just about half way between Middlesex and south Staffordshire. They did not pass to fitzAnsculf (who did not receive land in Gloucestershire) and indeed were split up among three tenants-in-chief.

The six manors discussed here were all within the same range of sizes, and the landholding pattern as a whole looks suitable for a housecarl who would have spent most of his time in attendance on the king or carrying out duties away from home.

Bibliography


S: P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968), revised by S. Kelly, R. Rushforth et al., The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, published online through Kemble: The Anglo-Saxon Charters Website, currently at http://www.esawyer.org.uk/about/index.html

VCH Mdx, III: The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of the County of Middlesex, III, ed. Susan Reynolds (London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research, 1962)

VCH Mdx, V: The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of Middlesex, V, ed. T. F. T. Baker (London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research, 1976)