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Thorsten 55

Name

Summary

Two free men on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manors of Great Barton and Pakenham in 1086 were called respectively Godwig son of Thorsten and Ælfwig son of Thorsten.

Profile

Two free men on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manors of Great Barton and Pakenham in 1086 were called respectively Godwig son of Thorsten and Ælfwig son of Thorsten (FBB: 26–7). 5 acres was not a common size for a holding on either manor (there were only three others at Barton and one at Pakenham), and the two men’s names shared a common final element, so perhaps the two were brothers. Barton and Pakenham manors lay adjoining, so it is not difficult to imagine that their father Thorsten, dead by 1086, had divided his land between them. If that supposition is correct, the Thorsten still holding land at Great Barton in 1086 has to be someone else (Thorsten 56).

Bibliography

FBB: ‘The Feudal Book of Baldwin, abbot of Bury St. Edmunds, 1065–1098, contained in the Black Book of the abbey, MS. Mm. iv. 19, fols. 124–43b. (Cambridge University Library)’, in Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, ed. D. C. Douglas, British Academy Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales, 8 (London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1932), 1–44

Thorsten 56: Thorsten son of Godwine betere, free peasant at Great Barton (Suff.) (fl. 1086)

Summary

Thorsten betere son of Godwine (Turstan Goduini filius betere) was a free peasant with 3½ acres on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manor of Great Barton in 1086 (FBB: 26). He is not likely to have been identical with Thorsten, father of the Godwig and Ælfwig who each held 5 acres in Barton and neighbouring Pakenham respectively, since that Thorsten (Thorsten 55) was presumably dead by 1086. One would like Thorsten son of Godwine’s byname betere to be the noun bēatere, ‘the flogger’, rather than the anodyne comparative adjective betera, ‘better’.

Thorsten 57: Thorsten free peasant at Rougham (Suff.) (fl. 1086)

Summary

Thorsten (Turstan) was a free peasant with 4 acres on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manor of Rougham in 1086 (FBB: 29).

Thorsten 58: Thorsten free peasant at Hesset (Suff.) (fl. 1086)

Summary

Thorsten (Turstan) was a free peasant with 1 acre on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manor of Hesset in 1086 (FBB: 30).

Thorsten 59: Thorsten priest at Fornham St Genevieve (Suff.) (fl. 1086)

Summary

Thorsten the priest (Turstanus presbiter) held 15 acres on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manor of Fornham St Genevieve in 1086, listed at the head of the Feudal Book entry for the manor (FBB: 36). He was probably not one of the six unnamed free men mentioned in the DB entry for Fornham (Suff. 14:53), who seem to be fully accounted for by the six holdings which follow Thorsten’s in the Feudal Book (the last of which was held jointly by two men), and thus was almost certainly the priest of the parish church. The church is listed among the appurtenances of the abbot’s manor in DB, endowed with 14 acres of free land in alms (de .xiiii. acris  libere terræ pro elemosina). The discrepancy of 1 acre between the priest’s free holding in the Feudal Book and the church’s 14 acres of glebe is DB can be ignored, since small slippages were common in Domesday figures. The church already had its dedication to the Parisian St Genevieve (Farmer 1992: 195–6), since by 1086 the saint’s name had already been added as an affix to the name of the village both in DB, where one letter was miscopied to produce Genonefæ forham, and in the Feudal Book, under the correct form (Ad) Genoueue Fornham. This unusual choice of a dedication can be pinned on the abbot of Bury since 1065, Baldwin, who had been a monk of Saint-Denis in Paris before coming to England as Edward the Confessor’s doctor (ODNB).

Bibliography

David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)

On-line Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Thorsten 60: Thorsten ‘pennyman’, free peasant at Troston (Suff.) (fl. 1086)

Summary

Thorsten (Turstan) was a free peasant with ½ acre on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manor of Troston in 1086 (FBB: 37). A namesake with ½ acre on the same manor may have been someone else (they are here identified by the made-up bynames ‘pennyman’ and ‘halfpennyman’ because the rents were different), but because they were not given bynames in the text it is conceivable that there was only one Thorsten with two holdings.

Thorsten 61: Thorsten ‘halfpennyman’, free peasant at Troston (Suff.) (fl. 1086)

Summary

Thorsten (Turstan) was a free peasant with ½ acre on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manor of Troston in 1086 (FBB: 37). A namesake with ½ acre on the same manor may have been someone else (they are here identified by the made-up bynames ‘pennyman’ and ‘halfpennyman’ because the rents were different), but because they were not given bynames in the text it is conceivable that there was only one Thorsten with two holdings.

Thorsten 62: Thorsten clerk at Hepworth (Suff.) (fl. 1086)

Summary

Thorsten the clerk (Turstanus clericus) held 5 acres on the abbot of Bury St Edmunds’ manor of Hepworth in 1086, listed among the other free men in the Feudal Book entry for the manor (FBB: 40). His relationship (if any) with the church mentioned in the LDB entry for Hepworth is not known (Suff. 14:78).