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Ælfheah 75

Name

Summary

(Unknown Person) held a large estate in south Sussex and a smaller manor in south-east Surrey TRE, of which the larger was assessed for 10 hides with a value of £7 but the corresponding details for the smaller one are uncertain; he held both estates under King Edward 15’s lordship and had power of alienation over his largest estate.

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 Surrey	Phil. ref. 19,2	Vill Bletchingley	DB Spelling Ælfech	Holder 1066 Ælfheah 'of Newtimber'	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Richard fitzGilbert	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 3.33	1066 Value 4.33	1086 Value 9.99	Confidence D	Map
Shire Sussex	Phil. ref. 12,34	Vill Newtimber	DB Spelling Ælfech	Holder 1066 Ælfheah 'of Newtimber'	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William de Warenne	1086 Subtenant Ralph de Quesnay	Fiscal Value 10.00	1066 Value 7.00	1086 Value 8.00	Confidence B	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

(Unknown Person) held a large estate at Newtimber, straddling the hills, scarp and foot of the South Downs in south Sussex.  DB states that he held it of King Edward 15 but ‘could go where he wished’, showing that he was under the king’s lordship by commendation rather than dependent tenure.  Nevertheless, it is notable that the Newtimber estate had been held, forfeited and then recovered by a prominent thegn under two kings in the mid-tenth century (S 687; Kelly 2001: 351-5). 

The 10 hides held by (Unknown Person) at Newtimber represented a substantial estate and so the possibility that he held other land in the vicinity should be considered.  Only two such estates with TRE holders called Ælfheah in DB appear to be sufficiently close, each being about 23 miles from Newtimber whereas all the other estates were more than 70 miles distant.

Of the two estates the largest was at Bletchingly, on a ridge below the chalk downs of south-east Surrey, assessed for 10 hides and held TRE as three manors by three men, including Ælfheah, but combined into a single manor assessed at 3 hides in 1086.  All three men held of King Edward TRE, although the precise nature of the lordship is unclear as is the division of assessment between their manors.  Even so, it is reasonable suppose that Ælfheah, the first-named of the three men, had a moderate-sized manor here, which together with the relative proximity and the king’s lordship is amenable to identifying the TRE holder of Newtimber and part of Bletchingly as the same man.  In addition, a Roman road running across the Weald from London down to the coast also connected Bletchingley and Newtimber (Malden 1912: 253; Salzman 1940: 204; Margary 1973: no.150), thereby rendering travel between them that much easier.  Although the name Ælfheah was a common one, therefore, the accumulation of circumstantial evidence renders it more likely than not that the TRE holders of Newtimber and Bletchingley were one and the same man, (Unknown Person).

The same cannot be said for the other estate in relative proximity to Newtimber and held TRE by a man called Ælfheah.  It comprised a hide at Langney, by Pevensey harbour in east Sussex, and in this instance the only evidence to support an identification is the personal name and relative proximity to Newtimber.  While this cannot entirely be ruled out, the balance of probability is more in favour of regarding the TRE holders of Langney and Newtimber as different men.

Bibliography

Kelly 2001: S. E. Kelly, ed., Charters of Abingdon Abbey: Part 2, Anglo-Saxon Charters VIII (Oxford, 2001)

Malden 1912: H. E. Malden, ed., A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (London, 1912)

Margary 1973: I. D. Margary, Roman Roads in Britain, 3rd edn (London, 1973)

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

Salzman 1940: L. F. Salzman, ed., A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7: The Rape of Lewes (London, 1940)