Ealhhere 22

Ealhhere ‘of Harcourt’ (Salop.), fl. 1086
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Ealhhere
Ealhhere 21
Ealhhere 23

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Subtenant in 1086

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
Shropshire 4,27,35 Harcourt Alcher Alweard 'of Harcourt' - Roger, earl Ealhhere 'of North Mundham' 1.00 0.35 0.60 B Map
Sussex 11,41 North Mundham Alcher Countess Gytha, wife of Earl Godwine Godwine, earl Roger, earl Ealhhere 'of North Mundham' 9.00 8.00 8.00 E Map
Totals

Sub-subtenant in 1086

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
Shropshire 4,3,4 Great Wytheford Alcher Wilgrip 'of Church Eaton' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 1.25 0.70 1.00 C Map
Shropshire 4,3,4 Great Wytheford Alcher Sten 'of Great Wytheford' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 1.25 0.70 1.00 C Map
Shropshire 4,3,60 Aston Eyre Alcherus Saxi 'of Aston Eyre' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 2.00 0.75 1.50 B Map
Shropshire 4,3,65 Middleton Scriven Alcherus Eadric the wild - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 1.00 0.33 0.70 C Map
Shropshire 4,3,71 Albrighton Alcher Geri 'of Albrighton' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 3.00 1.00 1.50 C Map
Totals

Profile

Summary

Ealhhere 22 was a subtenant or sub-subtenant of Earl Roger (Roger 4) at several estates in Shropshire and one in Sussex that had a combined assessment of 15½ hides and a value of £14 6s in 1086.  He seems to have prospered after the Conquest in the service of Roger and his sheriffs Warin and then Reynold.  The modern name of one of Ealhhere’s estates, Aston Eyre, includes a manorial suffix from the Fitz Aer (or Fitz Ayer) family to whom Ealhhere’s Shropshire estates descended and from whom that family’s name is supposedly derived (Page 1908: 297; Thorn and Thorn 1986: Notes to 4,3,60; 4,3,65; 4,27,35; Lewis 1990: 18-19), although Gelling (1990: 24-5) expresses reservations on this latter point.

The Shropshire shrievalty (and perhaps also that of Earl Roger’s rape in Sussex) was firmly under the control of Earl Roger and became a hereditary position, and it is likely that the early Norman sheriffs had deputies who actually did the work (Green 1990: 71, 80; Thorn and Thorn 1986: Notes to Ch4,3).  It may be that Ealhhere 22 was one such deputy, because for three of his five Shropshire estates his median lord was Reynold and on another (given by Ealhhere to Shrewsbury Abbey, perhaps before 1086) his median lord had been Reynold’s predecessor Warin; the fifth he held directly from Earl Roger and became a serjeanty of the Fitz Aers, which could indicate that Ealhhere had held a similar office (Rees 1975: 31-40 no.35; Thorn and Thorn 1986: Ch4 Notes; 4,3,71 Notes; 4,27,35 Notes).

A man called Ealhhere was also the TRW subtenant of Earl Roger at an estate at North Mundham in Sussex.  Although this was more than 140 miles from Ealhhere 22’s estates in Shropshire it is worth noting that Reynold also held land from Earl Roger in Sussex and that his estates at Somerley and North Stoke lay only 4 and 11 miles respectively from North Mundham.  Despite the distance between Ealhhere 22’s Shropshire and Sussex estates and the absence of evidence to link the descent of North Mundham with the Fitz Aer family, the coincidence of someone with the unusual name holding land from the same tenant-in-chief and with his median lord nearby just tips the balance of probability in favour of this being the same person, as Williams (1995: 91) also concluded.

Although North Mundham was the largest of Ealhhere 22’s estates and that at Aston Eyre preserves the name of his descendants, the estate at Harcourt was the only one in Shropshire that Ealhhere held directly from Earl Roger (rather than through one of his sheriffs) and was the one associated with the family’s serjeanty, for which reasons it is here adopted as Ealhhere’s toponymic byname.

It is conceivable that Ealhhere 22 was the same as Ealhhere 21, the TRE holder of a tiny manor less than 6½ miles from the nearest of Ealhhere 22’s TRW ones; but the lack of any tenurial association between Ealhhere 21’s manor and Ealhhere 22 or his descendants renders it more probable that the two men were entirely separate.  It is also possible that Ealhhere 22 was the same as Ealhhere 23, a TRW subtenant of Henry 6 de Ferrers with estates on the Staffordshire-Derbyshire border; but again a lack of tenurial or other supporting evidence renders it more likely than not that they were different people.  There is no reason to consider Ealhhere 22 in connection with any other person of that name.

Bibliography


Gelling 1990: M. Gelling, The Place-Names of Shropshire. Part One: The Major Names of Shropshire (Nottingham, 1990)

Green 1990: J. A. Green, English Sheriffs to 1154 (London, 1990)

Lewis 1990: C. P. Lewis, ‘An introduction to the Shropshire Domesday’, The Shropshire Domesday (London, 1990), pp. 1-27

Page 1908: The Victoria County History of Shropshire, Vol. 1, ed. W. Page (London, 1908)

Rees 1975: The Cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey, ed. U. Rees, 2 vols (Aberystwyth, 1975)

Thorn and Thorn 1986: Domesday Book 25: Shropshire, ed. C. Thorn and F. Thorn (Chichester, 1986)

Williams 1995: A. Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 1995)