Sigewulf 16

Sigewulf ‘of Playden’ (Suss.), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Sigewulf

Summary

Sigewulf was a small thegnly landowner in east Sussex with a single holding of 4 hides worth £6.

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
Sussex 9,109 Playden Siulfus Sigewulf 'of Playden' Edward, king Robert, count of Eu - 4.00 6.00 0.18 A Map
Totals

Profile

The name Sigewulf occurs only once in DB, as TRE holder of a manor at Playden, in the eastern corner of Sussex immediately north of the abbot of Fécamp’s borough and manor of Rye. The most common of the Sussex formulae describing pre-Conquest tenure, ‘. . . held from King Edward’, appears here, probably meaning only that Sigewulf was a thegn without tenurial or personal ties to other lords.

The later parish of Playden was rather small and the Domesday manor quite extensive, with land for 7 ploughs, as many as 11½ at work in 1086, and a sizeable population, 22 villans and 15 bordars in 1086. In the early modern period and as late as the nineteenth century the manor of Playden included copyhold tenements scattered along the two peninsulas of ‘upland’ stretching west from Rye, between the broad alluvial valleys of the Rother, Tillingham, and Brede, variously situated in the parishes of Peasmarsh, Beckley, Iden, and Brede (ESRO AMS 6454/46/7, 17, 21, 27, 32–3; DUN 26/18; NOR 13/70). Conversely, Playden parish itself historically included copyhold tenements attached to several other manors which were not Sigewulf’s in 1066 (ESRO AMS 4440; AMSLL 6692/1/2, note inside front cover; CKS U269/E341). Sigewulf’s manor of Playden is likely to have been no less scattered.

Bibliography


CKS: Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone

ESRO: East Sussex Record Office, Lewes