Gauti 6

Gauti ‘of Chediston’ (Suff.), fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Gauti
Gauti 5
Gauti 8

Summary

Gauti 6 was the TRE holder of 15 acres in north-east Suffolk that had a value of 2s; he was a free man and was almost certainly commended to Eadric of Laxfield (Eadric 113).

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
Suffolk 7,15 Chediston Couta Gauti 'of Chediston' Eadric of Laxfield Roger Bigod - 0.13 0.10 0.10 A Map
Totals

Profile

Gauti 6 was a free man with a tiny TRE holding of 15 acres at Chediston, near Halesworth in north-east Suffolk, that was valued at 2s. By 1086 this holding had passed to Roger Bigod (Roger 6), who alternated with Robert Malet (Robert 36) as the sheriff of Suffolk on several occasions between 1071 and 1106 (Green 1990: 76). Although the entry in Little Domesday Book records only that ‘Robert Malet’s antecessor’ had commendation over Gauti 6 TRE, this almost certainly refers to the antecessor of Robert’s father William 6 (Rumble 1986: Notes to 7,15), namely Eadric 82 of Laxfield (Laxfield is only just over 5 miles from Chediston).

The tiny TRE holding of Gauti 6 lay less than 15 miles from the even smaller holding shared by Gauti 5 and Eskil at Moulton St Michael in south Norfolk. Despite the small size of the two holdings they seem close enough for it to be possible that they were held by the same person, especially when one considers the extreme rarity of the name Gauti. However, if Gauti 5 and Eskil were holding their land TRE as well as in 1086 (as seems probable) then they were in the lordship of Aski the Priest and, in turn, of Abbot Ælfwald 74 of Hulme, whereas Gauti 6 was part of a different TRE lordship and did not apparently survive through until 1086. Furthermore, although the TRW holder of Gauti 6’s land at Chediston, Roger Bigod (Roger 6), was also the TRW tenant-in-chief for all the other lands that freemen and sokemen had held in Moulton St Michael TRE, the fact that Gauti 5 and Eskil were the exceptions to this and held their 2½ acres from King William (William 1) strengthens the suspicion that Gauti 5 and Gauti 6 were different people.

It also seems highly unlikely that Gauti 6 can be the same person as Gouti 1, who along with Earl Harold (Harold 3), Bishop Stigand (Stigand 1) and others was among the Norfolk witnesses to the will of Thurstan 9 in c.1044 (S 1531; Whitelock 1930: 80-5 no.31, 192-7). Not only does it seem improbable that a such a very small-scale landholder would feature amongst such high-status witnesses but it is also unlikely that Gauti 6 would occur in the Norfolk rather than the Suffolk part of the witness-list (cf. Rumble 1986: Notes to 3,56; contra von Feilitzen 1937: 258 n.4).

It is perhaps just possible that Gauti 6 was the same person as Gauti 4. This identification would be based mainly on the extreme rarity of the name Gauti and the fact that one of Gauti 4’s TRE estates lay at Nettlestead TRE, about 24 miles from Chediston. Against this identification, however, is that Gauti 4’s lord was Harold 3 not Eadric 82 and that none of Gauti 4’s estates were anywhere near as small as that of Gauti 6. None of these points either for or against the identification are conclusive, but the balance of probability seems just to favour the conclusion that Gauti 6 and Gauti 4 were different people.

Bibliography


O. von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book (Uppsala, 1937), p. 258 n.4.

Green 1990: J. A. Green, English Sheriffs to 1154 (London, 1990)

Rumble 1986: Domesday Book 34: Suffolk, ed. A. Rumble (Chichester, 1986)

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

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)

Whitelock 1930: Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930)