Helghi 3

Helghi ‘of Worth’ (Suss.)
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Helghi
Helghi 2

Summary

Helghi 3 was a small landowner with three small and scattered manors in Sussex, altogether 2¾ hides worth 73s.

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 10,65 Worth Helghi Helghi 'of Worth' Edward, king Robert, count of Mortain Ralph 'the man of Robert, count of Mortain (in Sussex)' 1.25 2.50 2.50 D Map
Sussex 11,116 Boxgrove Helghinus Helghi 'of Worth' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 0.50 0.15 0.05 B Map
Sussex 11,46 Somerley Helghi Helghi 'of Worth' Edward, king Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 1.00 1.00 1.00 B Map
Totals

Profile

The Helghi who appears as a TRE landowner in Sussex is clearly distinct from his namesake far away in Nottinghamshire, but whether there was only one Sussex Helghi is finely balanced.

The largest of the three manors in question was Worth, in the High Weald 6 or 7 miles north-east of Lewes. It had the low assessment of 1¼ hides but included land for as many as six ploughs and was valued at 50s. Nearly 50 miles away to the west were two smaller manors, 1 hide at Somerley on the Manhood peninsula 5 miles south-west of Chichester, and ½ hide in Boxgrove hundred, located at an unnamed place somewhere between the coastal plain immediately east of Chichester and the highest reaches of the South Downs north of the city.

The distance between Worth and Somerley makes identifying their holders as the same person somewhat problematic, but no more so than having two small Sussex landowners with the same unusual Danish forename. The answer may perhaps be that Helghi owned other land, at places where DB does not supply a name but either gives no information about TRE tenure or, more frequently, gives the holders only as a certain number of men, free men, thegns, or the like. In light of that possibility it seems better to identify a single Sussex Helghi.

There were some features of his known estates which deserve attention. At Worth, he held from King Edward with full power to alienate the land. Worth, its larger neighbour Little Horsted (Suss. 10:66), and an unnamed virgate (Suss. 10:64) were the only components of the hundred of Framfield, an enclave surrounded by the archbishop of Canterbury’s great estate of South Malling (Anderson 1939: 98; Leslie and Short 1999: map 20). Somerley was held by Helghi from King Edward ‘as an alod’ (in alodium), arguably much the same thing as holding with full power to sell. The vill of Somerley included the meeting-place of what was later the bishop of Chichester’s manor of Manhood, covering the whole of the peninsula south of Chichester between the marine inlets of Chichester Harbour and Pagham Harbour; in DB, however, there were two hundreds (perhaps, strictly speaking, two half-hundreds), Somerley covering the bishop’s manors in the eastern three quarters of the peninsula, and Wittering covering the non-episcopal manors in the western quarter (VCH Suss. IV, 198; Anderson 1939: 72–4). Helghi’s ownership of the meeting-place might be taken to suggest that he had some role in local administration. It may therefore be significant that Earl Roger installed as his tenant on both of Helghi’s manors that fell within his rape a Reynold who has been plausibly identified with Reynold de Bailleul, the earl’s sheriff in Shropshire (Mason 1960: 246–7).

Bibliography


Anderson 1939: O. S. Anderson, The English Hundred-Names: The South-Eastern Counties (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1939)

Leslie and Short 1999: An Historical Atlas of Sussex, ed. Kim Leslie and Brian Short with maps by Susan Rowland (Chichester: Phillimore, 1999)

Mason 1960: J. F. A. Mason, ‘The officers and clerks of the Norman earls of Shropshire’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society, 56 (1957–60), 244–57

VCH Suss. IV: The Victoria History of the Counties of England: The Victoria History of the County of Sussex, IV, ed. L. F. Salzman (London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research, 1937)