Toli 2

Toli sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Toli
Toli 4

Summary

Toli 2 was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk under Edward the Confessor. His only holding in 1066 was a single carucate (worth £1) which he had retained as a tenant after giving it to Bury St Edmunds abbey; he also had nine commended men who between them had some 2½ carucates. Toli may well have ceased to be sheriff and retired to the abbey in 1065 or 1066.

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
Norfolk 14,35 Broome Toli Toli, sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds Frodo brother of Abbot Baldwin 1.00 1.00 1.00 - Map
Totals

Lord 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
Norfolk 1,229 Mundham Tohli 1 free man 'of Mundham I' Toli the sheriff William, king William de Noyers 0.07 0.00 0.00 - Map
Norfolk 47,4 Langhale Tohli 1 free man Toli the sheriff Isaac - 1.00 0.35 0.50 - Map
Suffolk 4,15 Middleton Toli Asmoth 'of Wrabbatun' Toli the sheriff Hugh, earl Roger Bigod 0.03 0.03 0.03 B Map
Suffolk 51,1 Creeting St Peter Tholi 1 free man Toli the sheriff Walter de Saint-Valery - 0.09 0.15 0.15 - Map
Suffolk 6,106 Fordley Toli Osfrith the man of Toli Toli the sheriff Robert Malet - 0.06 0.00 0.00 - Map
Suffolk 7,29 Opituna Toli Bondi 'of Opituna' Toli the sheriff Roger Bigod - 0.50 0.80 0.80 - Map
Suffolk 7,31 Middleton Toli Leofric the deacon Toli the sheriff Roger Bigod - 0.03 0.05 0.05 - Map
Suffolk 7,36 Darsham Toli 1 free man Toli the sheriff Roger Bigod Ansketil the priest 'of Darsham' 0.14 0.13 0.13 - Map
Suffolk 7,67 Coddenham Tolius Wighulf 'antecessor of Roger Bigod' Toli the sheriff Roger Bigod Warenger 'of Hedingham' 0.63 1.80 1.80 - Map
Totals

Profile



The identification of Toli 2 has to start with the non-Domesday evidence. Three authentic writs of Edward the Confessor in favour of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds include Toli among the addressees, in the position where we expect the name of the sheriff, that is, after the bishop and earl, and before ‘all the thegns’ of the shire to which the writ was sent. The writs in question were for Suffolk and Norfolk (S 1080), East Anglia (S 1083), and Suffolk alone (S 1084). Two date from or soon after the appointment of Baldwin as abbot of Bury in summer 1065 (Heads: 32), the other has outside dating limits of 1051–7 (Baxter 2007: 43–6). All this suggests that Toli was a long-serving sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and indeed Toli the sheriff appears under that designation in DB for both shires. Although there is no telling whether he served continuously, no other sheriff of East Anglia is known between the outside limits of 1051 and 1066 (Green 1990: 60, 76). There is one other East Anglian writ addressed to Toli which may be authentic (S 1078) and two which are certainly spurious (S 1070 and 1109): they do not extend our knowledge of Toli’s career.

Toli had dealings as sheriff with the royal manor of Thorney (Suff.) some time during Edward’s reign (Suff. 31:53; cf. 1:1). His only landholding in 1066 was Broome (19), on the Norfolk bank of the Waveney across from Archbishop Stigand’s important manor of Bungay (Suff.). He had given 1 carucate there to Bury abbey at some earlier date, continuing to hold it TRE as the abbey’s tenant ‘by a farm of 2 days’ (per firmam .II. dierum), an obscure phrase which ought to mean that he rendered enough produce to support the monks for that period of time. Broome was a small manor, not even the largest in the vill, and it seems unlikely that it was capable of that level of output while also supporting a resident lord. DB says that it ‘always’ had a demesne plough, 4 acres of meadow, a horse, and five sokemen of 5 acres [each?] with half a plough; this looks like a single farm with a few tenants attached.

Otherwise Toli the sheriff is so named in DB only as the lord by commendation of a handful of free men (and one free women), some living a few miles from Broome, others up to 30 miles away in mid Suffolk (18, 29, 32, 35, 37). The Toli (not called sheriff) who was lord of a few other free men in the immediate vicinity of those holdings (33–34 and 36 near 32 and 35; 39 near 37) must surely also have been the sheriff. All told, only nine people were commended to Toli, each holding a small parcel of land between 1 carucate and just 3 acres. They occur in three clusters, one near Toli’s monastic tenancy at Broome, a second in east Suffolk in the hinterland of the great royal town of Dunwich, and the third in mid Suffolk a few miles from the royal manor of Thorney where Toli had official business. They are not spread widely across Toli’s sheriffdom, and at several places other free men had chosen different lords. Indeed at Middleton, where Asmoth was commended to the sheriff, her son Beorhtmær was the man of Robert Malet’s reeve Beorhtmær (Suff. 4:15).

A heavily burdened small farm at Broome and nine commended men do not make a landed estate which looks remotely shrieval. The best inference to draw from all this is that Toli retired to the monastery at Bury in the last months of Edward’s reign or after Harold became king.

Toli the sheriff is not to be identified with Toli 4, a landowner at the other end of Norfolk from Broome, with a distinct Norman successor who did not lay claim to any of the sheriff’s commended men. Nor is he to be identified with Toli 5, a Suffolk free man commended to Robert fitzWimarc, impossible for a sheriff who was first and last the king’s man (Morris 1927: 37–8).

Bibliography


Baxter 2007: Stephen Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)

Green 1990: Judith A. Green, English Sheriffs to 1154, Public Record Office Handbooks 24 (London: HMSO, 1990)

Heads: The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, 940–1216, ed. David Knowles, C. N. L. Brooke, and Vera C. M. London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972)

Morris 1927: William Alfred Morris, The Medieval English Sheriff to 1300 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1927)

S: P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968), revised by S. Kelly, R. Rushforth et al., The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, published online through Kemble: The Anglo-Saxon Charters Website, currently at http://www.esawyer.org.uk/about/index.html