Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth CenturiesRound, John Horace
History
Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Round, John Horace
Domesday book; Feudalism -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- History -- Norman period, 1066-1154; Normans -- Great Britain
Let us now turn from the Herefordshire colony, planted, I think, not
so much by King Edward as by his Earl Ralph, just as Earl William
(Fitz Osbern) planted a fresh one after the Conquest.
Among the Normans allowed to remain, on the triumph of Godwine's
party in 1052, Florence mentions 'Ælfredum regis stratorem'. On him Mr
Freeman thus comments:
Several Ælfreds occur in Domesday as great landowners, Ælfred
of Marlborough (Osbern's nephew) and Ælfred of Spain, but it
is not easy to identify their possessions with any holder of
the name in Edward's time. The names Ælfred and Edward and the
female name Eadgyth seem to have been the only English names
adopted by the Normans. The two former would naturally be
given to godsons or dependants of the two Althelings while in
Normandy [_i.e._ after 1013].[24]
An appendix, in the first volume, devoted to Ælfred the giant--who
appears in Normandy, _circ._ 1030--claims that Ælfred is a name so
purely English that the presumption in favour of the English birth of
any one bearing it 'in this generation is extremely strong',[25]
and that it was only adopted by 'a later generation of Normans'. Mr
Freeman seems to have been unaware that in Britanny the name of
Alfred enjoyed peculiar favour. I find it there as early as the
ninth century,[26] while I have noted in a single cartulary seventeen
examples between 1000 and 1150. Among these are 'Alfridus frater
Jutheli' (_ante_ 1008) and Juthel, son of Alfred (1037). Now, at the
Conquest, 'Judhael, who from his chief seat took the name of Judhael
of Totnes, became the owner', in Mr Freeman's words, 'of a vast estate
in Devonshire, and extended his possessions into the proper Cornwall
also'. But we know from charters that this Judhael was the son of an
Alfred, and was succeeded by another Alfred, who joined Baldwin of
Redvers at Exeter in 1136.[27] In the same county, as Mr Freeman
reminds us, we have another Breton tenant-in-chief, 'Alvredus Brito'.
In all this I am working up to the suggestion that the well-known
Alfred of Lincoln was not, as Mr Freeman holds, an Englishman,[28] but
a Breton. We have not only the overwhelming presumption against any
considerable tenant-in-chief being of English origin, but the fact
that his lands were new grants. When we add to this fact that his
heir (whether son or brother) bore the distinctively Breton name of
Alan,[29] we may safely conclude that Alfred was not only a foreigner
but a Breton. But the strange thing is that we do not stop there;
we have a Jool (or Johol) of Lincoln, who died in 1051[30] after
bestowing on Ramsey Abbey its Lincolnshire fief.[31] Thus we have an
Alfred and a Juhel 'of Lincoln', as we have an Alfred and a Juhel
'of Totnes'; and in Juhel of Lincoln we must have a Breton settled in
England under the Confessor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account