Reuer 2

Reuer ‘of Bullinghope’ (Herefs.), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Reuer

Summary

Reuer 2 was a small landowner close to Hereford, whose two manors were assessed at around 2½ hides and worth almost £3. He may well have been connected with the shrieval administration of Herefordshire.

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
Herefordshire 21,6 Bullinghope Reuer Reuer 'of Bullinghope' - Ansfrid de Cormeilles - 2.00 2.50 2.50 A Map
Herefordshire 22,8 Litley Reuer Reuer 'of Bullinghope' - Durand of Gloucester Widard 'of Rochford' 0.50 0.38 0.25 A Map
Totals

Profile

Bullinghope (or Bullingham: both place-names were in use in 2011) is on the south bank of the Wye immediately across from Hereford. It was a sizeable vill in Domesday, assessed at 6 hides, and with 10½ ploughteams, two valuable mills, and woodland of unknown extent which was taken into the royal forest between 1066 and 1086. Bullinghope must have stretched from the river frontage south along the lower slopes of Dinedor Hill as far as the boundary with the Welsh territory of Archenfield. The high value of the mills (44s. in 1086) is unsurprising, with an urban population so close at hand.

Bullinghope was divided into three exactly equal manors in 1066 and 1086, each of 2 hides worth 50s. and with a third share of the two mills, worth 14s. 8d. (one of the entries mistakenly refers to a third of one mill) (Herefs. 10:19; 21:6; 25:2). The three parts of the vill had different numbers of ploughs, villans, bordars, and slaves in 1086, so must have been distinct on the ground; the way the mills were recorded suggests they were worked as a single concern, their revenue divided three ways. All this points to Bullinghope’s having some underlying unity. The three manors were held in 1066 by Reuer, Alnoth from John the sheriffPASE no (Elnod tenuit de Johanne uicecomite), and Edwin. DB’s record of dependent tenures like Alnoth’s from John the sheriff is always patchy (though less so in Herefordshire than in some shires), and we cannot be sure that Reuer’s and Edwin’s tenures were not also dependent.

Litley was on the north bank immediately downstream from Hereford, opposite Bullinghope. It was a small place in an area otherwise belonging to the bishop of Hereford’s manor of Tupsley (Herefs. 2:34).

The scribe of DB initially assigned Litley’s ownership TRE to Reuer alone, writing Reuer tenuit., then adding ‘and Alwine as 2 manors’ (7 Aluuinus pro .ii. M), with a particularly large and bold Tironian nota (7) drawn through the full stop after tenuit, and leaving the verb in the singular. This might be taken as suggesting something unusual about the tenure of Litley in 1066; or it might have been merely a slip in copying which the scribe noticed and corrected immediately.

There is much to do with sheriffs here. The Alwine whose name was added at Litley was almost certainly the sheriff of that name, Alwine (Lewis 1985:101–2), and William I gave Litley first to Roger de Pîtres, sheriff of Gloucester, and then to Roger’s brother and successor as sheriff, Durand of Gloucester. Reuer and sheriff Alwine both had an interest in Litley, either as holders of separate estates, or (plausibly, given the way in which Alwine’s name was added) as tenant and lord.

One third of Bullinghope was explicitly held by a tenant of John the sheriff. Given the underlying unity of the vill, it is conceivable that John the sheriff had some larger interest in the place, perhaps as lord also of Reuer and Edwin, holders of the other two thirds.

It is not easy to see how John the sheriff and Alwine the sheriff related to one another: either John was not sheriff of Herefordshire, or we are dealing with John as sheriff and Alwine as undersheriff (or even vice versa).

Reuer’s name might well be Welsh, but it carries a curious echo of the Old English word for a reeve (gerēfa), and Reuer’s possible connections with the sheriffs (shire reeves) of Herefordshire might bear some speculation. Although ‘reeve’ was normally spelled out as gerēfa in late Old English texts, rēfa appears occasionally without the prefix ge– and may already have been the normal spoken form, as later. Furthermore, Old English had a class of substantives derived from other substantives by adding the suffix –ere to create the sense ‘a man who has to do with the thing denoted by the primary word’, like bōcere, ‘scholar, scribe, writer’, from bōc, ‘book’ or hafocere, hawker’, from hafoc, ‘hawk’ (OED, s.v. –er, suffix1). Most words in –ere designated people by their occupation. Might there have been a word *rēfere for someone connected with the office of reeve? Or a nickname for someone associated with the (shire)reeve of Hereford?

Bibliography


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