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Ælfhelm 37

Name

Summary

Ælfhelm 37 had an estate in north Hampshire TRE assessed at 3 hides and with a value of 100s, and which he held under King Edward’s (Edward 15) lordship; it is possible that he was a royal official.

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 Hampshire	Phil. ref. 69,48	Vill Steventon	DB Spelling Elfelmus	Holder 1066 Ælfhelm 'of Steventon'	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Alsige the chamberlain	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 5.00	1066 Value 5.00	1086 Value 4.00	Confidence D	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Ælfhelm 37’s estate was either the only one or the larger of two at Steventon, among the hills of the North Downs in north Hampshire.  Although assessed at 3 hides both TRE and in 1086 DB notes that there were reckoned to be 5 hides there, which suggests an instance of beneficial hidation.  An earlier history for the estate is also hinted at by part of a ninth- or tenth-century decorated cross-shaft discovered near the medieval manor-house (Page 1911: 171-4; Kendrick 1938: 21), while local parochial geography suggests that it had been part of a royal manor and minster based on Overton or Whitchurch (Hase 1988: 48 & n33; Kain and Oliver 2001: 14/59, 14/62, 14/94).

In any event, Ælfhelm held Steventon under King Edward (Edward 15) TRE and it is likely that he was a dependent tenant.  By 1086 his estate had passed to Alsige, a king’s thegn described in DB as burchenistus and berchenistrus; the term is unclear but appears to refer to a rôle such as valet or chamberlain (Munby 1982: DB 69,28 Notes).  Since the following entry in DB refers to a small estate that was perhaps another part of Steventon and was held both TRE and in 1086 by another king’s thegn, Godwine ‘the falconer’, it is reasonable to suggest that Ælhelm 37 had also held his land by dint of some royal service.

It is possible that Ælfhelm 37 was the same man as Ælfhelm 28, whose TRE estate of 5 hides in east Oxfordshire lay about 30 miles from Steventon and so was close enough for the two estates to have been held by the same person.  The possibility cannot be ruled out; but there is no other evidence to associate the estates or their pre- or post-Conquest holders, the name Ælfhelm was fairly common and it remains more likely than not that Ælfhelm 37 and Ælfhelm 28 were different people.

Bibliography

Hase 1988: P. H. Hase, ‘The mother churches of Hampshire’, in J. Blair, ed., Minsters and Parish Churches: The Local Church in Transition 950-1200 (Oxford, 1988), pp. 45-66, at p. 48 & n. 33.

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

Kendrick 1938: T. D. Kendrick, Anglo-Saxon Art to A.D. 900 (London, 1938)

Munby 1982: J. Munby, ed., Domesday Book 4: Hampshire (Chichester, 1982)

Page 1911: W. Page, ed., A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 4 (London, 1911)