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Merfyn 2

Name

Summary

Merfyn 2 was a Welsh landowner in Archenfield, annexed to Herefordshire in the earlier 1060s. No value was given for the manor in 1066 but it was worth 30s. in 1086.

Profile

The Welsh name Merfyn occurs only once in DB, as the holder of one of the ‘vills or lands’ (villæ vel terræ) in Archenfield (Ergyng in Welsh), a culturally and linguistically Welsh territory which probably came definitively under English rule only with Earl Harold’s defeat of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn in 1062–3 (Lewis 1985: 158–62).

The estate in question was Baysham, now a village sitting at the neck of a great loop in the river Wye (the eastern boundary of Archenfield) and named from the low-lying land enclosed by the loop (OE hamm) (PN Herefs. 179). With 2 demesne and 7 tenants’ ploughs in 1086, Baysham must have been somewhat larger than the loop alone.

Bibliography

Lewis 1985: CPL, ‘English and Norman government and lordship in the Welsh borders, 1039–1087’ (Oxford University D.Phil. thesis, 1985)

PN Herefs.: Bruce Coplestone-Crow, Herefordshire Place-Names, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 214 (1989)