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Thorsten 50

Name

Summary

Thorsten 50 was a landowner in Holderness whose land was probably assessed at 6 carucates.

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
Shire Yorkshire	Phil. ref. CE43	Vill Sproatley	DB Spelling Turstane	Holder 1066 Thorsten 'of Sproatley'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Drew de la Beuvrière	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 6.00	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence D	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

One of the outstanding matters of tenure brought to the attention of the jurors of Holderness during the Domesday survey was the status of Drogo de la Beuvrière’s manor of Sproatley, in the middle of the broad low peninsula between the Humber and the North Sea. The men of Holderness testified that 6 carucates there ‘which was Thorsten’s’ (quæ fuit Turstane) had been among the estates that William Malet owned until the Danes captured him (during the invasion of 1071) (Yorks. CE:43). This statement is difficult to reconcile with what else was recorded of Sproatley in DB. Thorsten’s 6 carucates seems to represent the whole of Sproatley, both as recorded in the Yorkshire Summary and as described in Drogo’s chapter. Those entries indicate that the vill was divided into six holdings TRE: three manors (total 4 carucates) held by Basing, Forni, and Thor (Yorks. 14E:52; SE:Hol26), 1 carucate of sokeland attached to Earl Tosti’s (Tosti 2) manor of Burstwick (Yorks. 14E:1; SE:Hol3), 5 bovates of sokeland attached to Earl Morcar’s (Morcar 3) manor of Withernsea (Yorks. 14E:4; SE:Hol8), and 1 bovate of the archbishop of York which appears only in the Summary and not in the archbishop’s own return (Yorks. SE:Th13).

One possibility is that Thorsten’s 6 carucates were additional to the 6 carucates demonstrably in other hands in 1066. This is the most plausible explanation even though it implies a gap in the Summary. Although the later parish seems a little too small (under 1,400 acres in the mid nineteenth century) to have been assessed at 12 carucates, it was perhaps once more extensive, since land in Sproatley bought to extend the grounds of Burton Constable Hall in the early modern period seems afterwards to have been regarded as part of Burton’s home parish of Swine. Moreover the main manorial holding in Sproatley was described as ‘6 or 7’ carucates in the thirteenth century, when there were other holdings besides: 1 carucate of the Preston family, 1 carucate of the Sutton family, and ½ carucate of Bridlington priory (VCH Yorks. ER, VII, 99–100).

A second, less attractive, possibility is that in 1086 the men of Holderness reported the total carucage of Sproatley, of which Thorsten had in fact held only part, perhaps one or both pieces of sokeland.

Sproatley was only some 15 miles from Ulrome, up the coast towards Flamborough, where (another?) Thorsten had c. 1 carucate in 1066. They have been treated here as two individuals, since there is nothing else to connect the two holdings, but conceivably they were one and the same man.

Bibliography

VCH Yorks. ER, VII: The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of the County of York, East Riding, VII, ed. G. H. R. Kent (London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research, 2002)