Sigref 2

Sigref ‘of Croome’ (Worcs.), fl. 1066
Male
CPL
4 of 5

Name

Sigref

Summary

Sigref 2 was a thegn of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester who held a single 5-hide manor in south Worcestershire on lease from his lord. When he died after 1066 the bishop allowed his daughter to inherit the lease, and married her to another of his thegns, Siward, with the proviso that Siward should support Sigref’s widow as well as performing the services due to the bishop.

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
Worcestershire 2,33 Croome Sirof Sigref 'of Croome d'Abitot' Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester Siward 'of Croome' 5.00 2.00 2.00 A Map
Totals

Profile

The name Sigref occurs only once in DB, and with circumstantial detail which provides a nice anecdote about the terms of tenure on Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester’s estates. Sigref held the 5 hides of Croome d’Abitot from the bishop of Worcester TRE, and when he died ‘the bishop gave his daughter with the land to a certain thegn of his (cuidam suo militi), who was both to provide for the mother and to serve the bishop’. That incoming thegn may well have been the Siward who held Croome from the bishop in 1086.

The history of this holding at Croome can be traced back over almost a century before Sigref’s time, since it was the 5 hides at Croome leased by Bishop Oswald (Oswald 8) to his faithful thegn Cynehelm (Cynehelm 3) in 969 for a term of three lives (S 1322). The identity of the Croome of the lease with Croome d’Abitot (rather than Earl’s Croome or Hill Croome) has not been accepted by all the topographers who have tried to solve the boundary clause, but is demonstrated by the fact that the lease mentions ’12 acres of meadow in the new meadow’, exactly the quantity of meadow in DB’s account of Croome d’Abitot. The hidages and areas of meadow do not match either of the other two Croome estates as recorded in DB (Worcs. 2:32, 34).

The nineteenth-century boundaries of Croome d’Abitot show that the manor was cut out of the surrounding Worcester estate of Severn Stoke (Kain and Oliver 2001: nos. 40/172, 174), perhaps for the first time when it was leased in 969. In 1086 its revenues from Siward were managed as part of the bishop’s manor of Ripple.

Sigref’s tenth-century predecessor Cynehelm had the lease of a second manor, at Upton on Severn, in 962, also for three lives (S 1300). Upton was in the bishop’s own hands in 1066 without any tenant (Worcs. 2:31). The difference in tenurial history between the two manors indicates that the three-life term set in the 960s had ended, and they had reverted to the bishop, as both leases in fact specified.

Bibliography


Kain and Oliver 2001: Roger J. P. Kain and Richard R. Oliver, Historic Parishes of England & Wales: An Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata (Colchester: History Data Service, 2001)

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