Vitalis 7

Vitalis ‘of Fittleton’ (Wiltshire), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Vitalis
Vitalis 6
Vitalis 8

Summary

Vitalis 7 held substantial estates in Wiltshire and Somerset and a smaller one in Hampshire TRE.

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
Hampshire 23,3 South Charford Phitelet Vitalis 'of Fittleton' Edward, king Hugh de Port William de Chernet 0.63 0.75 0.50 D Map
Somerset 33,2 Horethorne Vitel Vitalis 'of Fittleton' - Robert fitzGerald - 10.00 18.00 0.00 C Map
Wiltshire 42,10 Ebbesborne Wake Fitheus Vitalis 'of Fittleton' - Robert fitzGerald Robert 'the man of Robert fitzGerald' 7.00 6.00 7.00 C Map
Wiltshire 42,2 Fosbury Vitel Vitalis 'of Fittleton' - Robert fitzGerald Rayner 'of Fittleton' 10.00 5.00 5.00 C Map
Wiltshire 42,8 Fittleton Vitel Vitalis 'of Fittleton' - Robert fitzGerald Rayner 'of Fittleton' 10.00 12.00 12.00 B Map
Totals

Profile

Vitalis was the TRE holder of three large estates in Wiltshire and another in Somerset, none more than about 20 miles from its nearest neighbour and all passing to Robert fitzGerald (Robert 57) after the Conquest. This relative proximity of estates of a similar size, the rarity of the name Vitalis in pre-Conquest England and the succession to a single Norman lord provide a strong prima facie case for regarding the TRE holder as one man, Vitalis 7.

Three of Vitalis 7’s estates were each assessed for 10 hides, of which one was at Fittleton in the valley of the River Avon as it cuts across Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. The place-name Fittleton is first recorded in DB (as Viteletone) and the obvious assumption would be that the name derived from that of its TRE holder. However, later forms and a nearby boundary-point in a tenth-century charter point to a derivation from Old English Fitelan-tūn ‘Fitela’s estate’ (S 427; von Feilitzen 1937: 405 n.7; Gover et al. 1939: 330; Watts 2004: 232). The coincidence of the names Fitela and Vitalis therefore appears to be just that.

Two other of Vitails 7’s estates were also in Wiltshire, one of 10 hides at Fosbury on the chalk downs in the east of the county and the other at Ebbesborne Wake on the River Ebble to the south of Salisbury Plain. The assessment of the second of these is uncertain because after the Conquest Vitalis’s manor was combined with one held TRE by Alweard and DB records only the combined totals of 14 hides and a TRE value of £12. Since there is nothing in the later history of the manor to suggest otherwise its TRE components are taken here to have been of equal size, with each man holding 7 hides, but this is speculative.

The fourth of Vitalis 7’s large estates was assessed for 10 hides but cannot be located precisely. It lay in Somerset but was not named in DB, which also lacks hundredal headings here; but the IG (80a3) shows that the estate was in Milborne (later Horethorne) Hundred in the south-east of the county. A suggestion that it corresponded to part of Charlton Horethorn seems to have been accepted (Eyton 1880: I 177-8; Currie et al. 1999: 84-8), and this identification has been adopted here.

In addition to these four large estates it is possible that a fifth and much smaller one was also held by Vitalis 7 TRE. A tiny manor of 2½ virgates at South Charford on the River Avon, 11 miles from Ebbesborne Wake and just over the border into Hamphire, had been held from King Edward (Edward 15) ‘in alod’ by one Vitalis TRE. A dispute over its ownership in 1086 is recorded in DB, from which it is clear that Vitalis had been in the king’s commendation but held his land with the power of alienation (Baxter 2007: 230-1). Neither of the tenants-in-chief disputing ownership in 1086 was Robert fitzGerald and the estate was far smaller than the others attributed to Vitalis 7; nevertheless, the name was rare enough and the estate close enough to others held by him for the balance of probability to be just in favour of regarding Vitalis 7 as the TRE holder of this small manor also.

Vitalis 7 was clearly a substantial local magnate in southern England before the Conquest. The only other man called Vitalis to hold land in southern England TRE was Vitalis 8, whose estates were nearly 50 miles from and much smaller than those of Vitalis 7 and passed to a different tenant-in-chief after the Conquest; furthermore, Vitalis 8 was still alive in the 1090s. There is no clear evidence to suggest that Vitalis 7 was still alive in 1086; and, although two of the estates then held by Vitalis 10 were very close to Vitalis 7’s former estate in Horethorne Hundred, the name occurs more frequently after the Conquest and here too the estates had passed to a different tenant-in-chief. There is, therefore, no reason to consider Vitalis 7 in connection with any other TRE or TRW man of that name.

Bibliography


Baxter 2007: S. Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2007)

Currie et al. 1999: A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 7: Bruton, Horethorne and Norton Ferris Hundreds, ed. C. R. J. Currie, R. W. Dunning, A. P. Baggs and M. C. Siraut (London, 1999)

Eyton 1880: R. W. Eyton, Domesday Studies: An Analysis and Digest of the Somerset Survey, 2 vols (London and Bristol, 1880)

Gover et al.: J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Wiltshire (Cambridge, 1939)

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

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)

Watts 2004: The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, ed. V. Watts (Cambridge, 2004)