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Eadræd 39

Name

Summary

Eadræd 39 was a minor thegn who held a small estate in south-east Somerset TRE assessed at 1 hide and with a value of £2.

Profile

Eadræd 39’s small TRE estate was one of several at Marston Magna, where the road between Yeovil and Queen Camel crosses a tributary of the river Yeo in south-east Somerset, that had passed to Robert 9, count of Mortain, by 1086.  DB does not name the TRE holders, referring to them only as ‘four thegns’, but the corresponding Exon entry (278b3) names them as Leofrun 11, Eadræd, Sæweard and Sæweard’s mother.

Exon also records the hideage that each held TRE (namely 3 hides for Leofrun, 1 hide for Eadræd and 1 hide shared by Sæweard and his mother) and notes that they had held in parage.  However, an entry in TO (523a5) provides the further detail that the 2 hides ‘which two thegns held in parage TRE’ had been added to the land held by Leofrun.  Land held ‘in parage’ was usually impartible land held between co-heirs and so the TO entry implies that there was a familial link between Eadræd and Sæweard and his mother, although the wording need not indicate a similar relationship with Leofrun.

Marston Magna is only 23 miles from Bishopstrow in south-west Wiltshire, where Eadræd 38 held 7 hides TRE.  Given the large 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.

Marston Magna is also about 26 miles away from the TRE estate of Eadræd 40 in west Somerset; but both estates were fairly small and passed to different post-Conquest successors, so here too it is unlikely that they were held by the same person.