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Eadræd 38

Name

Summary

Eadræd 38 held a large estate in south-west Wiltshire TRE assessed at 7 hides and with a value of £7.

Profile

Eadræd 38’s substantial estate was at Bishopstrow, straddling the river Wylye and the edge of Salisbury Plain in south-west Wiltshire.  The configuration of local parish boundaries (Kain and Oliver 2001: 39/236-7) suggests that the estate originated as a grant from the royal manor of Warminster; but whether this occurred in Eadræd’s time or before is unknown, and the ‘bishop’ of the place-name seems associated with a legend about Aldhelm 3 rather than having a tenurial connotation (Gover et al. 1939: 151).

Bishopstrow is only 23 miles from Marston Magna in south-east Somerset, where Eadræd 39 was one of four thegns holding small estates in parage TRE.  Given the size of Eadræd 38’s estate this is close enough that the two estates could have been held by one and the same man.  However, Eadræd was a relatively common name and Bishopstrow and Marston passed to different successors, so without better evidence it must remain more likely than not that Eadræd 38 and Eadræd 39 were also different men.

Bibliography

Gover et al. 1939: J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Wiltshire (Cambridge, 1939), p. 151.

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)