Ordweald 3

Ordweald ‘of Chilbolton’ (Hants), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Ordweald
Ordweald 4

Summary

Ordweald 3 held estates in east Wiltshire and north-west Hampshire TRE assessed for a total of 6¾ hides; the combined TRE value is uncertain, but was £7 in 1086. He held his largest estate as a dependent tenant of the bishop and minster of Winchester and was possibly their reeve.

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 41,1 Chilbolton Orduuold Ordweald 'of Chilbolton' Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury Richard Estormi - 3.75 4.00 4.00 B Map
Wiltshire 67,65 Shalbourne Orduuoldus Ordweald 'of Chilbolton' - Wulfric Waula - 1.25 1.00 1.00 B Map
Wiltshire 68,7 Shalbourne Orduuoldus Ordweald 'of Chilbolton' - Richard Estormi - 1.75 2.00 2.00 B Map
Totals

Profile

Ordweald 3’s largest estate was one of 3¾ hides at Chilbolton, in the Test valley in north-west Hampshire, where TRE he held it as the dependent tenant (DB notes that ‘he could not go where he pleased’) of Stigand 1 as bishop of Winchester and acting as lord of the possessions of the Old Minster. After the Conquest this part of Chilbolton became alienated and passed to Richard Estormi (Richard 22) as the only Hampshire estate in his fief.

Prior to the Conquest, Chilbolton had long been an estate of the Old Minster at Winchester, perhaps originating as a grant of 10 hides to the minster by Æthelstan 18 in 934 (S 427). In DB the estate is entered in the fief of the monks of the bishop of Winchester, which notes that the bishop now holds only 5¾ hides, the remaining (by implication, 4¼) hides being held by Richard Sturmy; it also notes that these had been held ‘by a certain reeve [who] could not go where he pleased’ and who had held two of the hides by villan tenure. As Page (1908: 403-5) suggested, it is highly likely that this reeve and Ordweald 3 are one and the same person even though DB appears to give different hidages for their respective estates at Chilbolton.

DB also records two estates at Shalbourne in east Wiltshire as being held by an Ordweald TRE and one of which also passed to Richard Sturmy. Since Shalbourne lies only 15½ miles from Chilbolton, and given the extreme rarity of the name Ordweald and the association with Richard Sturmy, it is very probable that these Shalbourne estates were held TRE by Ordweald 3.

However, it does not seem likely that Ordweald 3 was the same person as Ordweald 4, even though both men held moderate estates TRE and shared the same extremely rare name, because the latter’s single estate in north Somerset lay more than 40 miles from Ordweald 3’s nearest estate and passed to a different successor than those of Ordweald 3; nevertheless, the possibility cannot be ruled out.

Bibliography


Page 1908: A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume III, ed. W. Page (London, 1908)

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