her in two manors, which she held as ' Eddeda de regina Eddeva,' and as ' Eddeva uxor Vlwardi,' and also succeeding in one her husband ' Vlwardus homo Eddid reginas,' the assessment of these three manors being 23½ hides. Lastly, we find the above ' Alsi ' holding three estates, all of which he seems to have received with Wulfward's daughter from Queen Edith. As these were assessed at 10 hides, we have now connected Wulfward and his wife with more than 60 hides in this county alone.[1]
The only other Englishman who contrived to retain after the Conquest a good estate was Leofwine ' of Nuneham ' (de NeiveAam), whose lands, in five places, were assessed at 1 6 hides, and for whose history we must turn to the cartulary of Abingdon Abbey. We there read that this Leofwine sold his inheritance at Nuneham (Courtenay), Oxfordshire, to the abbot of Abingdon, [2] the necessary leave for this transfer being obtained from the Bishop of Bayeux, then regent, as the king was absent in Normandy. William, according to the abbey's story, repudiated this transaction when Odo fell into disgrace, and, seizing the land, bestowed it on one of his followers. Of all this, however, Domesday tells us nothing; it merely records that Nuneham was held by Richard de Curci at the time of the Survey and had been held by 'Hacon.'
The group of thegns with whose lands the survey of the county closes calls for no special notice. Of their estates the only one of some value was that which had been Queen Edith's and which Godric 'cratel' had secured. A few of these Englishmen had retained the small holdings, which were theirs before the Conquest, fragments which enable us to grasp the wholesale spoliation of their countrymen. Others again retained them indeed, but only as oppressed tenants of a grasping Norman lord. Such was Æthelric who, at Marsh Gibbon, held his manor at farm, * graviter et miserabiliter '; it is one of the most graphic touches that the Survey contains.
Domesday is somewhat careless of the names of those who were great landowners when Edward sat upon the throne, and even when they are rightly given, they do not tell us much. Here and there, however, we can identify a magnate either by his peculiar name or by some distinctive suffix. Borret, Borgret, or Burgered was a great Northamptonshire thegn, father of Eadwine, whose lands, here as elsewhere, were obtained by the Bishop of Coutances. ' Alnod ' of Kent (chentiscus), as he is styled in Buckinghamshire he was, in Northants, of ' Canterbury ' had preceded the Bishop of Bayeux at Chetwode and Tingewick, and was probably the Alnod ' cilt ' who had preceded him at Westbury, for the * Alnod ' who had been so great a man in Kent and at Canterbury itself was ' Alnod cilt ' (or ' cild '). Of Edmar ' atule '
- ↑ A curious entry under Buckingham itself records that the Bishop of Coutances had there three burgesses which ' Wlwardus filius (sic) Eddeve ' had held. It is clear that this was Wulfward White, but whether ' filius Eddeve ' is correct or an error of the Domesday scribe it is difficult to say.
- ↑ 'alius nobilium, Leowinus, quandam villam, Niweham, de suo patrimonio trans flumen Tamisiae e regione monasterii Abbendoniae sitam ipsi abbati, pretio accepto, distraxit ' (Chron. Monasterii de Abingdon [Rolls Series] ii. 9). Nuneham lies almost opposite Abingdon on the Thames.
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