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Geri 2

Name

Summary

Geri 2 was a minor thegn whose two manors in Shropshire were together assessed at 6 hides and worth £2.

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 Shropshire	Phil. ref. 4,3,18	Vill Acton Pigott	DB Spelling Gheri	Holder 1066 Geri 'of Albrighton'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Roger, earl	1086 Subtenant Reynold de Bailleul	Fiscal Value 3.00	1066 Value 1.00	1086 Value 0.67	Confidence A	Map
Shire Shropshire	Phil. ref. 4,3,71	Vill Albrighton	DB Spelling Gheri	Holder 1066 Geri 'of Albrighton'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Roger, earl	1086 Subtenant Reynold de Bailleul	Fiscal Value 3.00	1066 Value 1.00	1086 Value 1.50	Confidence A	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

The name Geri occurs only twice in DB, at places in Shropshire which were about 12 miles apart. The fact that both manors were held in 1086 by Earl Roger’s sheriff Reynold de Bailleul is not significant for identification, since Reynold had many manors in Shropshire and there is no evidence that Earl Roger constructed his fief on an antecessorial basis. Rather, the extreme rarity of the name and the proximity of two estates of middling size allow for the confident identification of Geri 2. Geri’s status is indicated by DB’s explicit record of his power of alienation at Acton Pigott, which ‘he could give and sell’ (dare et uendere potuit), the only time that precise formula was employed in the Shropshire folios.

At both places Geri was the only landowner. Albrighton lies 4 miles north of Shrewsbury and Acton Pigott 7½ miles south of the city, on the land rising out of the Severn valley into the south Shropshire hills. Geri is not explicitly called a thegn in either entry, but his 6 hides of land would conventionally give him thegnly status. The distance between the two manors seems manageable, since a thegn would surely have owned a horse to travel between them.

Albrighton is preferred here as the place from which to derive a byname for Geri, since it was marginally the larger of the two, having 5 ploughs at work in 1086 on land for 6, whereas Acton Pigott had only 2 ploughs at work.