Colwin 2

Colwin the reeve (Devon), fl. 1066x1086
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Colwin

Summary

Colwin 2 held three tiny estates in north-west Devon TRE with a total assessment of less than 3 virgates and with a value of 27s 6d. He prospered after the Conquest, however, and by 1086 was a king’s thegn and the reeve of the late Queen Eadgyth’s (Eadgyth 3) interests in Exeter, had retained two of his TRE estates and acquired a further nine as well as holding the royal estate of Lifton at farm; these estates only had a total assessment of just under 3¾ hides but had land for 59 ploughs and a value of £35 2s 6d, which the Exeter revenues brought to a total of over £47.

Profile

There are only three estates that DB records as being held TRE by someone with the extremely rare name Colwin, and all three lay in north-west Devon. Two of these, at Bexworthy and Culsworthy, were among the entries for eight estates held by the same man in 1086. The third was at Stockleigh, only 11¼ miles from Culsworthy, and despite the small size of the estates there cannot be reasonable doubt that all three were held by the same man.

Colwin 2 not only survived but clearly prospered after the Conquest. His are the first to be entered under the heading ‘Lands of the king’s thegns’ in the Devon section of DB, and as well as retaining his estates at Bexworthy and Culsworthy he had acquired a further six small estates in the same area and that he held directly from the king.

One of these TRW estates was at Woolfardisworthy in Hartland Hundred and the Exon geld accounts (Exon 65a2) records that Colwin the reeve (Coluinus propositus) had ½ virgate of demesne in that hundred. However, Exon Domesday (Exon 481b4) shows that Colwin had only 1 ferding demesne at Woolfardisworthy; the other ferding must be that recorded by Exon (fol. 376a3) for an estate about a mile away at Almiston and the only other estate in Hartland Hundred to be held by someone called Colwin in 1086, albeit as a subtenant of Odo FitzGamelin (Odo 12).

Two other estates were held by someone called Colwin in 1086, this time as a subtenant of Baldwin the sheriff (Baldwin 8, who had acquired the third of Colwin 2’s original TRE estates). One was at Woolleigh and next to a cluster of Colwin 2’s TRW estates while the other was at ‘Guscott’ (probably in Bratton Clovelly: see Thorn and Thorn 1985: 16,13 Notes), slightly further away but still only 12 miles from the nearest of Colwin 2’s estates.

Except for two to be considered shortly, the entries noted above are the only ones in DB associated with someone called Colwin, whether TRE or in 1086, and it seems beyond doubt that all refer to the same man who, by 1086, was both a king’s thegn and a reeve. His TRW estates were held either in-chief or from two other lords and TRE had been held by at least seven different people including himself, yet all lay within 20 miles of each other and usually much less. His TRW fief was therefore clearly a geographical one based on and developed from his original TRE estates.

The other two references to someone called Colwin in DB or its satellites both connect him with Queen Eadgyth (Eadgyth 3), who died in 1075. The first relates to Exeter, where two-thirds of the city’s revenues in 1086 were assigned to Colwin ‘from the administrations of Queen Eadgyth’ and presumably referred to her former property and interests in Exeter (the other one-third of the revenues went to Baldwin the sheriff). Although it is not clear if Colwin was fulfilling this role during the queen’s lifetime or was only appointed to it at some point after her death, it does sounds very much like the role of a reeve and, together with the shared and extremely rare name, strongly suggests that we are again dealing with Colwin 2 here.

The second reference is in Exon (93a2), where a detail omitted from DB notes that in 1086 a Colwin was holding the royal estate of Lifton ‘at farm’, and this estate too had been held by Queen Eadgyth TRE. Given that all the other references in DB and its satellites considered above appear to relate to Colwin 2 it would be perverse not to accept the same probability here. Lifton was a large estate in west Devon with land for 25 ploughs (although assessed for only 3½ virgates) and historically was associated with the administration of royal estates in Cornwall (S 1507; Keynes and Lapidge 1983: 175, 317 n18, 321 n56). It is a moot point as to whether Colwin acquired the farm of it to augment his nearby estates in north-west Devon or whether he received those estates because he was fulfilling some administrative function with regard to Lifton.

There are three other contemporary references to someone called Colwin who was active in the areas of Exeter and north-west Devon and so almost certainly referring to Colwin 2 (Pelteret 1990: 104-5, 115-16). All three are manumissions and in all three it is Colwin who was the lord of the person being manumitted. One of these manumissions was witnessed by Colwin’s son Godwine, but there is no evidence that he inherited any of Colwin’s estates; although not too much weight can be put on this, it strengthens the impression that Colwin held his TRW estates (and perhaps his TRE estates before this) as a consequence of some official role rather than in his own right.

Bibliography


Keynes and Lapidge 1983: Alfred the Great. Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources, ed. and trans. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge (London, 1983)

Pelteret 1990: D. A. E. Pelteret, Catalogue of English Post-Conquest Vernacular Documents (Woodbridge, 1990)

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

Stafford 1997: P. Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford, 1997)

Thorn and Thorn 1985: Domesday Book 9: Devon, ed. C. Thorn and F. Thorn (Chichester, 1985)