Paulinus 4

Paulinus ‘of Knowle’ (Som.), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Paulinus

Summary

Paulinus 4 was a small landowner in north Somerset with a single manor of 1 hide worth 5s. His name, very unusual for an eleventh-century Englishman, invites the speculation that he was a foreign clerk associated with the nearby royal minster church of Carhampton.

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
Somerset 25,26 Knowle Paulinus Paulinus 'of Knowle' - William de Moyon Roger 'the man of William de Moyon' 1.00 0.25 1.25 A Map
Totals

Profile

The Latin name Paulinus occurs only once in DB, as holder of a small estate at Knowle, in the narrow and steep-sided valley of the river Avill above Dunster, 3 miles inland from the coast of the Bristol Channel in north-west Somerset.

It is scarcely credible that an English landowner of 1066 would have the name Paulinus, and there is some tangential evidence that he may have been a cleric and perhaps not English.

There is nothing remarkable about the resources of the estate at Knowle as described in DB, but it may have been associated in some way with the royal manor of Carhampton, 3 miles away on the coast, since in the nineteenth century Knowle formed a detached part of Carhampton parish (Kain and Oliver 2001: nos. 32/237A–B).

Carhampton was an old royal manor, not hidated, free from geld, and instead contributing to the king’s revenue through the ancient system of the night’s farm (Som. 1:6; cf. 1:13; 30:2; 32:4). Its minster church, with the large endowment of 1½ hides, was held TRE by the king’s chaplain Peter (Som. 16:6), perhaps a Lotharingian, who transferred to the service of William the Conqueror in 1066 and was afterwards made bishop of Lichfield (Peter 9 + Peter 10 + Peter 16; Lewis 2011: 70). That opens a window for the speculation that Paulinus was another clerk associated with Carhampton church and perhaps, like Peter, of Continental origin. As such he may have been well placed to acquire a small landed interest of his own in the environs of Carhampton.

Bibliography


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)

Lewis 2011: CPL, ‘Communities, conflict and episcopal policy in the diocese of Lichfield, 1050–1150’, Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict in the Anglo-Norman World, ed. Paul Dalton, Charles Insley, and Louise J. Wilkinson (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), 61–76