Top of page Name Summary Distribution Map Property List Profile Bottom of page

Langfer 4

Name

Summary

Langfer 4 had a tiny holding in south Suffolk TRE assessed at 14 acres and with a 1086 value of 2s; he was a free man in the commendation of Halfdan.

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 Suffolk	Phil. ref. 32,2	Vill Westerfield	DB Spelling Langfere	Holder 1066 Langfer 'of Westerfield'	Lord 1066 Healfdene 'of Thorington'	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Geoffrey de Mandeville	1086 Subtenant William fitzSaxwalo de Bouville	Fiscal Value 0.12	1066 Value 0.10	1086 Value 0.10	Confidence E	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Langfer 4’s tiny holding was at Westerfield, an area of open land to the north of Ipswich in south Suffolk and a vill that was almost entirely divided into numerous tiny holdings held TRE singly or collectively by free men such as Langfer. Of these various men and holdings Langfer was the only man said to have been commended to Halfdan , and his was the only Westerfield holding to pass to Geoffrey de Mandeville (Geoffrey 5) after the Conquest. This succession could point to a connection between Langfer and Esger, Geoffrey’s antecessor for most of his Suffolk estates, although the entry is one of many for which DB notes that ‘the king and the earl’ have or had the soke.

It is possible that Langfer 4 was the same man as Langfer 5, the co-holder of another tiny Suffolk estate TRE, because the name was extremely rare and the estates lay only 11½ miles apart. On the other hand, the men were commended to different lords TRE and Langfer 5 was among a group of co-holders still on their land in 1086, under a tenant-in-chief with no interests in Westerfield. Given these differences and the tiny sizes of their holdings, the shared name is not sufficient to tip the balance of probability in favour of identifying Langfer 4 and Langfer 5 as the same person.