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Esbern 16

Name

Summary

Esbern 16 was a small landowner near Lincoln with two estates assessed at a fraction over 1½ carucates and worth 25 shillings.

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. 26,10	Vill Cammeringham	DB Spelling Sbern	Holder 1066 Esbern 'of Faldingworth'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Colswein 'of Lincoln'	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 1.13	1066 Value 0.75	1086 Value 1.00	Confidence C	Map
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 26,3	Vill Faldingworth	DB Spelling Sberne	Holder 1066 Esbern 'of Faldingworth'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Colswein 'of Lincoln'	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 0.50	1066 Value 0.50	1086 Value 0.27	Confidence C	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Esbern 16 had two small holdings 5 miles apart, on either side of Ermine Street just north of Lincoln. They both passed to the Englishman Colswein. Esbern held alone and jointly with three others, none of whom occurs in association with an Esbern anywhere else. It is improbable that Esbern 16 was identical with any of the other Lincolnshire Esberns.

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.