Eadræd 43

Eadræd priest ‘of Sparsholt’ (Berks.), fl. 1066x1086
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Eadræd
Eadræd 42

Summary

Eadræd 43 was a priest in west Berkshire TRE who held a church with 1 hide that did not pay geld; he retained this church in 1086, when the value was 20s and the manor with which it was associated was in the king’s hands.

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
Berkshire 1,10 Sparsholt Edred Eadræd the priest, 'of Sparsholt' - William, king Eadræd the priest 1.00 1.00 1.00 B Map
Totals

Subtenant in 1086

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
Berkshire 1,10 Sparsholt Edred Eadræd the priest, 'of Sparsholt' - William, king Eadræd the priest 1.00 1.00 1.00 A Map
Totals

Bibliography


Eadræd 43 was a priest who both TRE and in 1086 held a church at Sparsholt, where the Icknield Way runs along the escarpment of the Berkshire Downs overlooking the Vale of White Horse.  DB records that this church had 1 hide that did not pay geld, an endowment big enough to suggest that it was of superior status and perhaps originated as a minster church (Blair 1985: 106, 108, 112-13).

The manor with which Eadræd’s church was associated in 1086 was the largest located at Sparsholt and was held by King William (William 1), of whom Eadræd was presumably then a subtenant.  However, this manor had been created from three pre-Conquest manors held by free men and there is no indication in DB as to which, if any, of these the church was associated with TRE.  Indeed, Sparsholt seems to have originated as a large royal estate that began to fragment from the tenth century onwards and parts of which were held or disputed by Abingdon Abbey and the king TRE (Gelling 1976: 677-9; Kelly 2001: 390-4), so it may be that the church had been retained in royal hands during this time and for that reason was associated with the king’s manor after the Conquest.  If so, then Eadræd may have been one of those priests or clerks to whom former minsters were granted to support them while serving the king (Blair 1985: 124).

In either case, in 1086 Eadræd seems to have been running a mixed agriculture on the church’s hide, with one plough on the arable, 4 acres of meadow and the rest of the land presumably the hill pasture that is a feature of the Downs.  That the estate was predominantly pastoral is suggested by the fact that there was only one dependent peasant household, that of a cottar, recorded as its population in DB.