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Esbern 12

Name

Summary

Esbern 12 had two manors in north-east Lincolnshire, assessed at just under 6 carucates and worth £5.

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
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 14,3	Vill Holton le Clay	DB Spelling Esbern	Holder 1066 Esbern 'of Elkington'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Ivo Taillebois	1086 Subtenant Hermer 'of Holton le Clay'	Fiscal Value 1.00	1066 Value 2.00	1086 Value 2.00	Confidence E	Map
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 14,84	Vill Elkington	DB Spelling Esbern	Holder 1066 Esbern 'of Elkington'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Ivo Taillebois	1086 Subtenant Geoffrey 'the man of Ivo Taillebois'	Fiscal Value 4.00	1066 Value 3.00	1086 Value 6.00	Confidence E	Map
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 14,86	Vill Sloothby	DB Spelling -	Holder 1066 Esbern 'of Elkington'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Ivo Taillebois	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 0.88	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence E	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Lord 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
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 14,85	Vill Little Grimsby	DB Spelling Esbern	Holder 1066 -	Lord 1066 Esbern	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Ivo Taillebois	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 1.50	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence E	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Esbern 12 held two estates 8 miles apart which passed to the same successor, neither in association with any other holder. The distance between them makes it conceivable that two different Esberns were involved. The larger of the two manors, Elkington, included inland over 15 miles away and sokeland nearer at hand at Little Grimsby. Other sokeland at Little Grimsby belonged to Esbern 15, and the two Esberns may have been identical with one another and with Esbern 11 and Esbern 13, whose manors were close at hand.

General remarks applicable to Esbern 11–18. Estates ascribed to Esbern are especially thick on the ground in north Lincolnshire and present great difficulties in identification. Seventeen small or very small holdings were involved, with an average assessment of less than 1 carucate, and at their extremities situated 50 miles apart. It is inconceivable that they belonged to one man. It is also clear from the identifications of Esberns 7–10 that the name was common enough in the Danelaw for a multiplicity of Lincolnshire Esberns to be plausible.

These Lincolnshire estates were held by eight different successors in 1086. All eight had very scattered fiefs in Lincolnshire, none of which was constructed on a geographical basis, thus ruling out the possibility that the properties of a super-Esbern had been divided up for that reason.

We have judged it most likely that each of the tenants-in-chief succeeded to one distinct Esbern, but it is possible that there were fewer, especially in the 15-mile stretch of country between the Wolds and the mouth of the Humber, where the estates concerned clustered and overlapped most densely.