< See previous profile Discussion of the name See next profile >
Haghni 3 was a small landowner whose single manor on the north Norfolk coast was assessed at 2 carucates and worth £4 in 1066. In 1086 he was a king’s reeve, perhaps in charge of a hundred, and held as tenant-in-chief a scatter of nine small holdings assessed at around 3 carucates and worth under £4, while his son Ralph had two manors, one in his father’s hundred and the other adjoining his TRE manor on the coast.
Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB
List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB
Holder 1066
Shire
Phil. ref.
Vill
Holder 1066 DB Spelling
Holder 1066
Lord 1066
Tenant-in-Chief 1086
1086
subtenant
Fiscal value
1066
value
1086 value
Holder 1066 ID conf.
Show on map
Norfolk
6,2
Weybourne
Haganus
Haghni 'of Weybourne'
-
Hugh, earl
Ranulph de Mesnilwarin
2.00
4.00
7.00
C
Map
Total
2.00
4.00
7.00
Tenant-in-Chief 1086 demesne estates (no subtenants)
Shire
Phil. ref.
Vill
TIC DB Spelling
Holder 1066
Lord 1066
Tenant-in-Chief 1086
1086
subtenant
Fiscal value
1066
value
1086 value
TIC ID conf.
Show on map
Norfolk
56,1
Bintree
Hago/Hagonus
10 sokemen
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.83
1.00
1.00
D
Map
Norfolk
56,2
Guist
Hago/Hagonus
2 villans
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.83
1.00
1.00
D
Map
Norfolk
56,3
Wood Norton
Hago/Hagonus
5 sokemen
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.42
0.50
0.50
D
Map
Norfolk
56,4
Guestwick
Hago/Hagonus
2 sokemen
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.42
0.50
0.50
D
Map
Norfolk
56,5
Weston Longville
Hago/Hagonus
1 sokeman
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.13
0.10
0.10
D
Map
Norfolk
56,6
Sparham
Hago/Hagonus
1 free man
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.25
0.20
0.20
D
Map
Norfolk
56,7
Tyby
Hago/Hagonus
1 free man
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.13
0.15
0.15
D
Map
Norfolk
56,8
Salle
Hago/Hagonus
1 sokeman
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.08
0.10
0.10
D
Map
Norfolk
56,9
Thurning
Hago/Hagonus
1 sokeman
-
Haghni the king's reeve
-
0.08
0.10
0.10
D
Map
Total
3.17
3.65
3.65
Haghni 3 held only one manor in 1066, Weybourne on the north Norfolk coast, assessed at 2 carucates. His home farm had two ploughteams, small areas of woodland and meadow, demesne livestock numbering 8 cattle, 26 pigs, 60 sheep, and 47 goats, and two mills. The manor dominated the vill: the only residents outside the manor were a handful of free men commended to Earl Harold (Harold 3) (Norf. 66:97). The manor passed to Earl Hugh in 1086, from whom it was held by Ranulph de Mesnilwarin. There is nothing to connect this Haghni with the king’s thegn who had a cluster of manors in Forehoe hundred some 25 miles to the south (Haghni 2) or with the Haghni who had a manor 35 miles away in west Norfolk (Haghni 4). The distance between the three groups would not on its own tell decisively against their identity, but the succession was different in each case.
There is also good evidence that the Haghni who held Weybourne survived in 1086, though it does not come from Weybourne itself. The neighbouring vill to the west was Kelling, in other hands in 1066 but at the time of DB one of the two manors belonging to the minor tenant-in-chief Ralph son of Haghni (Ralph 55) (Norf. 57:1). Ralph’s father was clearly the king’s reeve of that name whose fief immediately preceded his in LDB: not only is there the name and the arrangement of fiefs in DB, but in 1086 the king’s reeve Haghni had a sokeman at Salle, the location of Ralph son of Haghni’s’s only other manor besides Kelling (Norf. 57:3). These circumstances suggest that the king’s reeve of 1086 was identical with the TRE holder of Weybourne, only about 10 miles away.
Haghni’s fief in 1086 had a very unusual configuration. It consisted of nine small parcels of land, none larger than 100 acres and totalling only about 3 carucates, dispersed across nine vills in Eynesford hundred. He had no demesne at any of them, but simply took the rents from the 33 peasants who occupied the land, mainly sokemen with a few free men, villans, and bordars. This suggests that Haghni’s office was the reeveship of the hundred. If so, he will presumably have had oversight of the king’s estates there: Eynesford included a very large royal manor at Foulsham (the soke centre for the hundred), smaller manors at Salle and Thurning, and some other minor properties (Norf. 1:52–54, 185–187). If he was the hundred reeve, it was likely through him that his son Ralph acquired a holding at Salle.
Haghni looks on the surface to have exchanged a single manor TRE for a reeveship under William I which was accompanied by property of roughly the same value. But the structure of information in DB is such that it would not tell us if he had both interests at both dates. Haghni may well have already been reeve of Eynesford hundred in 1066 without personally holding any land there. And if he retained an interest at Weybourne as Ranulph’s tenant in 1086, DB would not tell us. An unrecorded early sub-subtenancy may be suggested by later evidence, since Ranulph’s descendants the Mesnilwarins had two thirds of a knight’s fee in Weybourne and a local family named from the vill the other third (Blomefield 1805–10: IX, 446–50).
Haghni’s choice of name for his son might be considered here. Ralph can only have been named after the wealthy and well connected East Anglian landowner Ralph the staller (Ralph 2), perhaps because the latter stood as his godfather. Haghni may have moved in the same circles as Ralph the staller even if he was no more than a minor manorial lord, but it is arguably more likely if he held office as a king’s reeve before as well as after the Conquest.
Bibliography
Blomefield 1805–10: Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, continued by Charles Parkin, 2nd edn, 11 vols (London, 1805–10)
© 2016 King's College London