Dunheved family
in thirteenth century Devonshire
Niall C.E.J. O’Brien
During the thirteen century a family by the name of Dunheved lived in Devonshire.
Their relationship with other people called Dunheved is as yet unknown. These
other families include the Dunheved family of Dunheved near Mells in Somerset
and that of John de Dunheved in Warwickshire and a barber in the Diocese of
Winchester.[1] This
article will attempt to add something to the story of a family that was of the
landed class but below the tenants in chief of the king class and thus one or
two steps away from the bulk of surviving medieval documents.
Geoffrey de Dunheved
The first of these Devon people was Geoffrey de Dunheved. In the 19th
year of Henry III (1234-1235) Geoffrey de Dunheved and his wife Margery gave
the king five marks for having a writ to have an action heard in the Somerset assizes before
the itinerant justices. The action was against Henry Beaumont, Tollanus of
Coryton and certain others concerning a tenement in Ashwater.[2] Ashwater
is a village and civil parish situated in eastern Devonshire about ten miles
from the Cornish border.
But the writ that he got was written incorrectly and he had to get it
replace. Yet beauracy was slow and Geoffrey missed the assizes in Somerset and so got the action changed to the Devon assizes.[3]
The result of the action is unknown but Geoffrey’s day in court didn’t put him
off the judicial system.
In 1238 he was back in court – well – he was supposed to be back in
court. It was the first day of the crown pleas of the Devon
eyre which was held at Black Torrington in 1238. Geoffrey de Dunheved was due
to appear in a case but didn’t turn up. For this offence he was declared at
mercy of fine or prosecution for not attending. At the next sitting his legal
team informed the court that Geoffrey’s absence was due to his having gone on
pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostella.[4]
By July 1239 Geoffrey had returned from his pilgrimage and was back in
court. This time he paid five marks for a writ so that twelve jurors could hear
an action concerning a tenement in Vaglefield (in Cookbury, Devon ).[5]
After all these courts cases the whole judicial system went to Geoffrey’s head
such that in the 24th year of Henry III (1239-1240) Geoffrey was
charged 40s for bringing a false claim.[6]
With all these court cases it would be nice to find some members of the
Dunheved family in the medieval documents known as Feet of Fines, which usually record land transactions but no
members can be found and the only Dunheved is the place of that name near
Launceston.[7]
A few years later, in 1242, we learn that Geoffrey de Dunheved, with
William Avenell, held two fees in Ashwater of the honour of Barnstaple .[8] In
the Domesday Book Ashwater was held by Alwin in 1066 and by the Bishop of
Coutances 1086 where there was land for 20 ploughs and it paid tax for one
hide. In 1066 and 1086 the manor was worth £7 10s.[9]
The Tracy family later acquired the manor and held it in the thirteenth century
from whom it was rented by Geoffrey de Dunheved. William Avenell held a half
knight’s fee at Suideleg of Henry de Tracy at the time of William’s death in 37
Henry III (1252-3) and was succeeded by his heir, Matthew de Forneaus.[10]
Walter de Dunheved
After 1242 the records stay silent about Geoffrey. It would appear that
Geoffrey left family by his wife Margery as many decades later Sir Walter de
Dunheved held an interest in the same Ashwater.
Sir Walter de Dunheved was patron of the parish of Ashwater in the
diocese of Exeter. In 1270/1 and in 1280 Sir Walter de Dunheved presented rectors
to the parish, William de Esse and Nicholas de Gatecumbe, respectively.[11] The
church of St. Peter at Ashwater is of thirteenth century date but has within a
Norman font of Cornish design.
It is said that it was Walter de Dunheved who began the change of name
of Ashwater from the old name of Esse which was a common name elsewhere to
Essewater from which it evolved over the centuries to become by 1758 the name
of Ashwater.[12]
The final years
It appears that sometime after 1280 and before 1303 the Dunheved family
died out. In 1303 Reginald de Bevill and Peter de Donysland held Ashwater
according to the tax poll of that year.[13] In
1326 Eleanor, wife of Philip de Columbraiis, was given one fee in Ashwater,
held by Robert de Carindon (worth £10) as the sister and co-heir of William,
son of William Martin.[14]
In 1345 Roger Carminow held Ashwater manor and his descendants held the manor
until 1443 when Thomas Carninow left it to his daughter and her husband, Sir
Thomas Carew.[15]
The Devonshire lay subsidy of 1332 makes no mention of anybody in Devon
by the name of Dunheved by that time.[16] As
the Dunheved family didn’t hold their estates directly from the king the
avoided mention in the various volumes of the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem which possibly was of no big
deal to the Dunheved family but which means that modern historians can’t trace
their birth, deaths and estates like what can be done for other medieval
families. Thus a family that was important enough in the thirteenth century to
hold a manor and the advowson of a parish church faded into the dark side of
history and the sometimes described ‘static’ medieval period changed form and
shape.
Bibliography
Bennett, J.A.
(ed.), Report on the Manuscripts of Wells
Cathedral (London, 1885)
Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward 1, 1281-1292
Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward II, 1317-1321
Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward
II, 1323-1327
Dryburgh, P.
& Hartland, B. (eds.), Calendar of
the fine rolls of the reign of Henry III (National Archives & Boydell
Press, London, 2009)
Hingeston-Randolph, Rev. F.C. (ed.), The
Registers of Walter Bronescombe and Peter Quivil, bishops of Exeter
(London, George Bell & Sons, 1889)
Reichel, Rev. O.J. (ed.), Devon
Feet of Fines, Volume 1, Richard 1-Henry III, 1196-1272 (Devon &
Cornwall Record Society, 1912)
Reichel, Rev. O.J., Prideaux, F.B. & Tapley-Soper, H. (eds.), Devon Feet of Fines, Volume II, 1 Edward
1-43 Edward III, 1272-1369 (Devon & Cornwall Record Society, 1939)
Sharp, J.E.E.S. (ed.), Calendar of
Inquisitions Post Mortem, Vol. 1, Henry III (Liechtenstein, 1973)
Sharp, J.E.E.S. (ed.), Calendar of
Inquisitions Post Mortem, Vol. II, Edward 1 (Liechtenstein, 1973)
Summerson, H. (ed.), Crown Pleas
of the Devon Eyre of 1238 (Devon & Cornwall Record Society, New Series,
Vol. 28, 1985)
Thorn, C. &
F. (eds.), Domesday Book, 9, Devon, part
one (Chichester, 1985)
===========
End of post
===========
[1] Bennett, J.A. (ed.), Report
on the Manuscripts of Wells Cathedral (London, 1885), pp. 207, 293, 294,
295; Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward 1, 1281-1292,
p. 104; Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward
II, 1317-1321, p. 74; Sharp, J.E.E.S.
(ed.), Calendar of Inquisitions Post
Mortem, Vol. II, Edward 1 (Liechtenstein, 1973), nos. 306 (p. 177), 593 (p.
352), 640 (p. 395)
[2] Dryburgh, P. & Hartland, B. (eds.), Calendar of the fine rolls of the reign of Henry III (National
Archives & Boydell Press, London
[3] Dryburgh & Hartland (eds.), Calendar
of the fine rolls of the reign of Henry III, no. 19/484
[4] Summerson, H. (ed.), Crown Pleas of the Devon Eyre of 1238
(Devon & Cornwall Record Society, New Series, Vol. 28, 1985), no. 269, seen
on 24th May 2013
[5] Dryburgh & Hartland (eds.), Calendar
of the fine rolls of the reign of Henry III, no. 23/285
[6] Dryburgh & Hartland (eds.), Calendar
of the fine rolls of the reign of Henry III, no. 24/67
[7] Reichel, Rev. O.J.
(ed.), Devon Feet of Fines, Volume 1,
Richard 1-Henry III, 1196-1272 (Devon & Cornwall Record Society, 1912);
Reichel, Rev. O.J., Prideaux, F.B. & Tapley-Soper, H. (eds.), Devon Feet of Fines, Volume II, 1 Edward
1-43 Edward III, 1272-1369 (Devon & Cornwall Record Society, 1939)
[8] Summerson (ed.), Crown pleas of the Devonshire Eyre of 1238,
no. 269 from the Testa de Nevil Tax Roll
[10] Sharp, J.E.E.S. (ed.),
Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem,
Vol. 1, Henry III (Liechtenstein, 1973), no. 278
[11] Hingeston-Randolph,
Rev. F.C. (ed.), The Registers of Walter
Bronescombe and Peter Quivil, bishops of Exeter (London, George Bell &
Sons, 1889), pp. 71, 109 and fols. 47, 97
[16] Erskine, A. (ed.), The Devonshire Lay Subsidy of 1332
(Devon & Cornwall Record Society, New Series, Vol. 14, 1969)
No comments:
Post a Comment