Oualet 2

Oualet ‘of Iping’ (Suss.), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Oualet

Summary

Oualet 2 was a small thegnly landowner in the Weald of western Sussex, whose single estate of 4 hides was worth £4.

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 14,2 Iping Oualet Oualet 'of Iping' Edward, king Ealdred 'of Iping' - 4.00 4.00 4.00 B Map
Totals

Profile

The inexplicable spelling Oualet occurs only once in DB, associated with an estate at Iping in western Sussex. The Domesday manor almost certainly corresponded with the later parish of Iping, which was separated ecclesiastically from its eastern neighbour Stedham only c. 1190 (VCH Suss. IV, 65). It consisted of a long narrow section of the Low Weald, only ½ mile wide on average but running 6 miles from the Hampshire boundary to a point just south of the river Rother. Anglo-Saxon settlement hereabouts had probably begun as pastures attached to head manors on the South Downs or the coastal plain, and some hides and lands within Iping manor retained their own names even in the early thirteenth century (VCH Suss. IV, 63–4). By 1066 Iping was fully manorialized and (if the resources reported in DB its pre-Conquest economic organization) rather heavily exploited by its lord: unusually, the largest group among the peasantry was the slaves (five out of nine households), and besides a mill on the Rother there was one of the handful of quarries recorded in DB (Darby 1977: 287). There were more slaves than was needed by the single demesne plough of 1086, so perhaps they were stonecutters or woodmen. Another sign of the development of Iping as a separate estate is that although there was no church, the ecclesiastical dues paid by the peasants (churchscot) belonged to the manor, that is, they had already been diverted from whatever mother church had originally served Iping, perhaps when the manor was first severed from a larger territory. It is worth noting that Oualet held directly under the king and not from Earl Godwine, who had been lord of Stedham (Suss. 11:10).

Bibliography


Darby 1977: H. C. Darby, Domesday England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977)

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)