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Ælfhild 16

Name

Summary

Ælfhild 16’s husband held a tiny estate in Wiltshire TRE that was assessed at 1 virgate and valued at 3s and which she herself was holding in 1086, by which time she was regarded as a king’s thegn.

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Tenant-in-Chief 1086 demesne estates (no subtenants)

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 Wiltshire	Phil. ref. 67,87	Vill Hartham	DB Spelling Alfildis	Holder 1066 unnamed husband of Ælfhild	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Ælfhild, king's thegn	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 0.25	1066 Value 0.15	1086 Value 0.15	Confidence C	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

It is unfortunate that we do not know the name of Ælfhild 16’s husband because it means that we cannot be certain that he did not also hold one of the other parts of Hartham or lands elsewhere TRE.  Nevertheless, the fact that DB does not mention him by name but only by reference to his wife’s TRW tenure of their tiny estate in north-west Wiltshire suggests that he was not a significant landholder even in local terms.  

Ælfhild 16’s estate was listed in the DB section for Wiltshire headed ‘The land of Oda and other king’s thegns’, which may represent an honorific sometimes used for land-holding widows rather than indicating that her husband was of thegnly status.  DB records no slaves or dependent peasants to work on her tiny farm’s mix of arable land and meadow in 1086.

The only other estate to be held in 1086 by a woman called Ælfhild (Ælfhild 12) was also very small and lay on the south-western edge of Exmoor, more than 70 miles from Hartham.  It seems very unlikely that two such tiny estates so far apart could have been held by the same person, particularly since Ælfhild 12 already held her estate TRE and there is no indication of her then having a living husband.  Taken together, these factors render it almost certain that Hartham was Ælfhild 16’s only estate and that she cannot be identified with any other woman of that name recorded either TRE or TRW in DB.