Fader 2

Fader ‘of Lexham’ (Norf.), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Fader
Fader 3

Summary

Fader 2 was a king’s thegn with two manors in north-west Norfolk assessed at 6½ carucates and worth £4 10s.

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
Norfolk 20,2 Great Bircham Fradre Fader 'of Lexham', king's thegn Edward, king Ralph de Beaufour - 3.00 2.50 1.00 E Map
Norfolk 20,8 Lexham Fader Fader 'of Lexham', king's thegn - Ralph de Beaufour Richard de Saint-Clair 3.50 2.00 3.00 E Map
Norfolk 20,8 Lexham - Fader 'of Lexham', king's thegn - Ralph de Beaufour Richard de Saint-Clair 0.25 0.07 0.07 E Map
Totals

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
Norfolk 20,2 Great Bircham - 2 free men Fader Ralph de Beaufour - 0.02 0.00 0.00 E Map
Norfolk 20,8 Lexham - 6 sokemen Fader Ralph de Beaufour Richard de Saint-Clair 0.50 0.00 0.00 E Map
Totals

Profile

The four occurrences of the name Fader in Norfolk can, on balance, be resolved into two individuals. They fall into two geographical pairs which passed after the Conquest to different Normans: two manors in north-west Norfolk to Ralph de Beaufour, two in south Norfolk to William d’Écouis. They were only 20-30 miles apart but the succession argues that we are concerned with two different TRE holders. An apparent overlap of tenure between the Normans (which might have involved manors first acquired by one being handed to the other) can be ruled out as illusory. A subtenant called Odar certainly held from both fiefs in 1086, in one place as a successor of Fader (Norf. 19:13, 27, 31, 40; 20:4, 9, 26, 28), and elsewhere in circumstances which seem to involve both Normans: one of Odar’s tenancies from William d’Écouis was at Thurlton, on the marshes of the lower Waveney in east Norfolk, where he held 45 acres which had belonged TRE to eight free men ‘over whom the antecessor of Ralph de Beaufour had only the commendation’ (de quibus antecessor Radulfi de bolla fago habuit commendationem tantum). In fact several others among the small free men who farmed at Thurlton TRE had also been commended to Ralph’s antecessor but did not pass under the lordship of William d’Écouis and Odar (Norf. 1:241; 4:57; 9:110; 19:40; 31:19; 50:13; 65:16).

The most decisive factor in distinguishing Ralph de Beaufour’s predecessor Fader from William d’Écouis’s of the same name is the diplomatic of the relevant entries in LDB. At Great Bircham, Ralph’s Fader was specifically a ‘thegn of King Edward’ and simply ‘held’ his land (tenuit Fradre teinus regis E. .iii. carucatas terre). At Banham, William’s Fader in contrast was designated a ‘free man’ and ‘held . . . as a manor’ (tenuit Fader liber homo .ii. carucatas terre pro manerio). The different formulae have been shown to reflect LDB’s distinction between king’s thegns and free men (Roffe 2000: 27–30, 42). Even so, the other manor held by William’s predecessor has the simple ‘held’ formula (tenuit Fader) which in other circumstances denoted a king’s thegn rather than a free man. There is, of course, also the theoretical possibility of error in any of these formulae, omitting a phrase or including one by mistake. As a result, it is only marginally more likely than not that Fader 2 and Fader 3 were different people.

Fader 2 was explicitly identified as a king’s thegn at Great Bircham in north-west Norfolk, a large vill some 8 miles inland from the Wash and the North Sea. His was one of two large holdings there, the other being held under Archbishop Stigand by Thor; one of the smaller estates was held by Beorn ‘under King Edward’ (Norf. 19:9). Fader’s manor passed after the Conquest to the East Anglian baron Ralph de Beaufour, probably a close kinsman of the William de Beaufour who became bishop of Thetford in 1086 (Keats-Rohan 1999: 330; Johnson 1906: 20; Cowdrey 2004.

Ralph de Beaufour also succeeded Fader at Lexham, only 10 miles distant in west-central Norfolk. East and West Lexham were later separate vills and parishes on the river Nar, divided by a rather straight boundary (Kain and Oliver 2001: nos. 25/276–7), but the two Domesday manors do not necessarily correspond with later arrangements (Norf. 8:63; 20:8).

Fader 2’s manors were roughly the same size, but the details of their resources TRE suggest that he lived at Lexham. In all he had four demesne ploughs, his villans and bordars another four and his six sokemen one; his demesne livestock, all at Lexham, comprised a horse, 7 cattle, 24 pigs, and 80 sheep, with 2 beehives besides. He also had a mill and fishery on the Nar at Lexham; a quarter share of a saltworks listed with Lexham’s appurtenances must have been located on the shores of the Wash some miles away. Lexham was in a tightly defined area of upland western Norfolk where many other manors also had distant salt-works (Darby 1952: 134–6; Keen 1988). Whether Fader controlled the church in his part of the Lexhams is not certain. The church and glebe of 30 acres belonged to Ralph de Beaufour in 1086, but were listed separately from Fader’s TRE holding.

Bibliography


Cowdrey 2004: H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘William (fl. 1085–1091)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Darby 1952: H. C. Darby, The Domesday Geography of Eastern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952)

Johnson 1906: Charles Johnson, ‘Introduction to the Norfolk Domesday’, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: The Victoria History of the County of Norfolk, II, ed. William Page (London: Archibald Constable, 1906), 1–37

Kain and Oliver 2001: Roger J. P. Kain and Richard R. Oliver, Historic Parishes of England & Wales: An Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata (Colchester: History Data Service, 2001)

Keats-Rohan 1999: K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066–1166, I: Domesday Book (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999)

Keen 1989: Laurence Keen, ‘Coastal salt production in Norman England’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 11: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1988 (1989), 133–79

ODNB: On-line Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Roffe 2000: David Roffe, ‘Introduction’, Little Domesday Book: Norfolk, ed. Ann Williams and G. H. Martin (London: Alecto Historical Editions, 2001), 9–43