The tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman Conquest
<p>This thesis is a study of landholders named in Domesday Book in 1066 and 1086 in Hampshire, from the wealthiest in the kingdom to families holding only a few acres of land. It pieces together and maps their landholding across the kingdom and the shire, exploring how and why they held land w...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2019
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| _version_ | 1797105633810448384 |
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| author | Blayney, K |
| author2 | Baxter, S |
| author_facet | Baxter, S Blayney, K |
| author_sort | Blayney, K |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>This thesis is a study of landholders named in Domesday Book in 1066 and 1086 in Hampshire, from the wealthiest in the kingdom to families holding only a few acres of land. It pieces together and maps their landholding across the kingdom and the shire, exploring how and why they held land where they did. It considers the structure of landed society, establishing clear, comparable measures of landed wealth to enable a quantitative comparison of landholding in 1066 and 1086. It explores the dynamics of the Conquest, the dispossession of the English, and the rationale behind and logistics of the land transfers, between the two dates.</p>
<p>It first evaluates royal landholding and the night’s farm estates. Winchester emerges as an important venue, on the edge of the royal heartlands, for royal assemblies and festival courts. To the west of Winchester, this research contends that there was an extensive pre-Conquest forest along the Hampshire-Wiltshire border, where Edward the Confessor enjoyed hunting. Known as the King’s Forest, its management provides an important comparison with the more extreme measures taken by William the Conqueror in the New Forest. </p>
<p>Subsequent chapters analyse secular landholding. It is argued here that, before 1066, leading thegns who attended royal assemblies constituted an itinerant elite who often held estates across the north of the shire. The distribution of their estates facilitated travel to Winchester and into the royal heartlands. In contrast, many local thegns, who held most of their estates in Hampshire, possessed estates on a north-south alignment through the shire, intersecting with the estates of the itinerant elite in the Hampshire Downs. By 1086, these pre-Conquest patterns of landholding had been almost entirely swept away. Hugh de Port, sheriff of Hampshire, acquired several of the downland estates but most of the wealthier Norman landholders now held just one or two estates close to Winchester, or on the coast en route to Normandy. The thesis also considers the status and role of female landholders, including Queen Edith and Wulfgifu Beteslau, and reconstructs the landholding and itinerary of Queen Matilda within the kingdom and the shire.</p>
<p>The final chapter investigates how and why ecclesiastical landholders saw an increase in their landed wealth between 1066 and 1086. In Hampshire, this came about not so much through the acquisition of new estates as through an increase in the value of existing demesne. It considers how this increase in value may have come about. </p>
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:50:09Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:fc4a3a6c-f9bb-4c3a-8b41-4fe8a42718df |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:50:09Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:fc4a3a6c-f9bb-4c3a-8b41-4fe8a42718df2022-03-27T13:19:36ZThe tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman ConquestThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:fc4a3a6c-f9bb-4c3a-8b41-4fe8a42718dfIsle of WightAnglo-SaxonNorman ConquestDomesday BookLandownersEnglandHampshireMedieval HistorySurveysEnglishHyrax Deposit2019Blayney, KBaxter, S<p>This thesis is a study of landholders named in Domesday Book in 1066 and 1086 in Hampshire, from the wealthiest in the kingdom to families holding only a few acres of land. It pieces together and maps their landholding across the kingdom and the shire, exploring how and why they held land where they did. It considers the structure of landed society, establishing clear, comparable measures of landed wealth to enable a quantitative comparison of landholding in 1066 and 1086. It explores the dynamics of the Conquest, the dispossession of the English, and the rationale behind and logistics of the land transfers, between the two dates.</p> <p>It first evaluates royal landholding and the night’s farm estates. Winchester emerges as an important venue, on the edge of the royal heartlands, for royal assemblies and festival courts. To the west of Winchester, this research contends that there was an extensive pre-Conquest forest along the Hampshire-Wiltshire border, where Edward the Confessor enjoyed hunting. Known as the King’s Forest, its management provides an important comparison with the more extreme measures taken by William the Conqueror in the New Forest. </p> <p>Subsequent chapters analyse secular landholding. It is argued here that, before 1066, leading thegns who attended royal assemblies constituted an itinerant elite who often held estates across the north of the shire. The distribution of their estates facilitated travel to Winchester and into the royal heartlands. In contrast, many local thegns, who held most of their estates in Hampshire, possessed estates on a north-south alignment through the shire, intersecting with the estates of the itinerant elite in the Hampshire Downs. By 1086, these pre-Conquest patterns of landholding had been almost entirely swept away. Hugh de Port, sheriff of Hampshire, acquired several of the downland estates but most of the wealthier Norman landholders now held just one or two estates close to Winchester, or on the coast en route to Normandy. The thesis also considers the status and role of female landholders, including Queen Edith and Wulfgifu Beteslau, and reconstructs the landholding and itinerary of Queen Matilda within the kingdom and the shire.</p> <p>The final chapter investigates how and why ecclesiastical landholders saw an increase in their landed wealth between 1066 and 1086. In Hampshire, this came about not so much through the acquisition of new estates as through an increase in the value of existing demesne. It considers how this increase in value may have come about. </p> |
| spellingShingle | Isle of Wight Anglo-Saxon Norman Conquest Domesday Book Landowners England Hampshire Medieval History Surveys Blayney, K The tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman Conquest |
| title | The tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman Conquest |
| title_full | The tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman Conquest |
| title_fullStr | The tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman Conquest |
| title_full_unstemmed | The tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman Conquest |
| title_short | The tenurial structure of Hampshire before and after the Norman Conquest |
| title_sort | tenurial structure of hampshire before and after the norman conquest |
| topic | Isle of Wight Anglo-Saxon Norman Conquest Domesday Book Landowners England Hampshire Medieval History Surveys |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT blayneyk thetenurialstructureofhampshirebeforeandafterthenormanconquest AT blayneyk tenurialstructureofhampshirebeforeandafterthenormanconquest |