Ottar 9

Ottar ‘of Gretton’ (Salop.), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Ottar
Ottar 8
Ottar 10

Summary

Ottar 9 was one of two minor thegns holding two manors in Shropshire TRE that were together assessed at 2 hides with a value of 32s.

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
Shropshire 4,3,10 Gretton Otro Ottar 'of Gretton' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 0.50 0.40 0.13 B Map
Shropshire 4,3,10 Gretton Otro Ottar 'of Gretton' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 0.50 0.40 0.13 B Map
Totals

Profile

Ottar 9 was one of two men holding land at Gretton, on a moraine of clayey gravel (the place-name is from Old English *grēoten-tūn ‘gravelly estate’) above Ape Dale to the north-west of Wenlock Edge in Shropshire (Gelling and Foxall 1990: 139; Currie 1998: 52-3, 63). DB states that Ottar and Alric were thegns who held Gretton ‘as two manors’, a formula that here as elsewhere may indicate that such ‘combined manors’ were not entirely independent TRE but were instead held in dependent tenure from a lord unspecified in DB (Lewis 1990: 20-1). It is not known how the 2 hides recorded in DB were divided between the two manors TRE, which were waste when their post-Conquest successor received them.

Ottar was a rare name but Gretton was 120 miles or more from any other TRE estate attributed to someone of that name in DB and there is no reason to consider Ottar 9 in connection with anyone else.

Bibliography


Currie 1998: A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 10: Munslow Hundred (part), the Liberty and Borough of Wenlock, ed. C. R. J. Currie (Oxford, 1998)

Gelling and Foxall 1990: M. Gelling with H. D. G. Foxall, The Place-Names of Shropshire: Part One: The Major Names of Shropshire (Nottingham, 1990)

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