Offprint from

Archeeologia Cantiana

Volume CXXXII
2012


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

BEKESBOURNE AND THE KING’S ESNECCA 1110-1445

Bekesbourne, just south of Canterbury, has two unusual claims to fame
in that it was a member of the Cinque Ports and also supplied one of
the king’s esneccas, his cross-Channel passenger ship.‘ The only other
place in England that supplied the kings esnecca was Southampton,
which is a large port with extensive cross—Channel shipping. How these
arrangements came about for a very small inland village nestling on the
banks of a stream, which nowadays only runs intermittently, is an intriguing
story. The transfer of the administration of the esnecca from generation to
generation also resulted in two court cases, one of which involved a divided
serjeanty and created a virtually unique legal precedent.

The first record, which conﬁrms the provision of the king’s ship, comes
in a court case of 1190 in which William de Bec produces a charter from
Henry II which says:

that this land (Bekesbourne) is held in serjeanty from the King for the
administration (and presumably provision) of the king’s esnecca by Hugh
de Bec (William’s father) and that Roger de Burnes, brother of Ilarria
who was the wife of Hugh de Bee, and Roger’s ancestors had held this
serjeanty in the reign of Henry I.2

In the search for Roger de Burnes and his ancestors the next record comes
from the Pipe Roll of Richard I in ll90 recording a payment for Eustace
de Burnes’ ship.3 So what is Eustace de Burnes and Roger’s ship? The
esnecca, as used after the Norman Conquest, is a long narrow, fast ship
for the transport of passengers and in modern terms the kings esnecca
can be compared to a royal yacht. It is said of Henry II that the King of
England had not one but three ships for his crossingsf‘ Eventually there
were four esneccas based at Southampton, Barﬂeur, Dieppe and Hastings,
and there may have been another berthed at Chester.5 The Southampton
esnecca was a large narrow ship of some 240 tons crewed by 64 men and
was used for the Kings frequent journeys from England to Normandy.
The size of the Southampton esnecca is conﬁrmed by the information
about the collection of ships by Richard I when about to embark on his
crusade:

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HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

He had taken into his service all the vessels, which the Cinque Ports could
produce, to the number of thirty-three. Six more had been obtained from
Shoreham and Southampton, and four by gift or hire from private persons;
the King commissioned for his own use a vessel called the Esnecca which
was much larger than the rest and carried a crew of sixty-one men.6

It is quite likely that the esnecca supplied by Bekesbourne was included in
the quota of Cinque Port ships and that this esnecca, berthed at Hastings,
was a smaller ship of 60 tons crewed by 21 men and a boy, which was
the normal size of ship for that period. Although it was perfectly capable
of travelling the eighty miles from Hastings to Dieppe, the king’s
preference was to use the larger ship for travel from Southampton to
Barﬂeur. However despite the differences in size both the Southampton
and Hastings ships were called an esnecca. A seal from Winchelsea shows
the likely conﬁguration of a ship ﬁtted out for the king’s travel, with a
small cabin for shelter (Fig. 1).

The provision of a ship for the kings crossing of the English Channel
commenced in the reign of William I, who used the services of Stephen Fitz
Airard, one of his sea captains in the transport ﬂeet to the Battle of Hastings.
Fitz Airard, who had connections with Southampton, supplied the esnecca
berthed at Southampton. On the death of Stephen Fitz Airard, sometime
between I110 and 1120, the service did not pass to his son as it is known
that by 1120 Henry I had made other arrangements.7The administration of
the Southampton esnecca passed to an Italian family based in Southampton
and from them to Nicholas de Sceau and on to Alan Trenchemer.8

 

Fig. 1 The Winchelsea seal. There is no known depiction of an esnecca and this
is probably the closest available likeness of the Bekesbourne vessel.

316


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

The other change in arrangements made by Henry I was the appointment
of Godwin Frenes to administer the king’s esnecca based at Hastings. Odo,
Bishop of Bayeux, had been in possession of Bekesbourne in 1086, the
time of the Domesday Book, but he was stripped of his lands and exiled in
1087. Bekesbourne was therefore vacant after this and could be allocated
to the supplier of a service to the king. Godwin Frenes was in possession of
Bekesbourne in 1120 and the gift of this tenure by the king was the reward
for supplying the kings esnecca at Hastings. It was a very handsome gift,
as the manor of Bekesbourne was just over 1,000 acres. The tenure was
held in serjeanty, the provision of a speciﬁed service to the king.

Godwin held the appointment for several years and when he died
c.1130, his eldest son Robert de Hastings, then in possession of Grange
(Gillingham) took over at Bekesbourne. He either held Grange as well as
Bekesbourne or more likely passed Grange over to his younger brother, as
there is a record of Grange being held in the de Hastings family for many
years. Manasser de Hastings is shown as holding Grange by the service
of ﬁnding a ship and 2 armed men for the ﬂeet of the Cinque Ports, during
the reign of Edward I. The tenant is also said to have owed the service of
an oar whenever the king sailed to Hastings.9 On the death of Matthew
de Hastings in 1276/7, his Inquisition Post Mortem shows him as holding
Grange as a limb of Hastings by service of ﬁnding an oar at the same port
when the king shall wish to cross the sea there. 10 Robert must have felt that
taking over Bekesbourne was a prestige appointment and this is reﬂected
in the change of his name from de Hastings to de Burne, derived from the
old name for Bekesbourne. However, the connection with Hastings for
both the de Burnes and the de Becs is maintained over many years. The
Grange branch of the family not only kept the Hastings name, from the
Inquisitions Post Mortem they also had property in and around Hastings
(see below), and their tenants supplied the guard at Hastings Castle.

If Eustace de Burnes is the operator of the Bekesbourne esnecca in
1190 how is he related to Roger de Burnes, named in the above charter?
Eustace de Burnes appears several times in the Cartulary of St Gregory,
Canterbury, and, in particular in charter 38, he is named as the son of
Robert de Burnes.“ Robert also has several entries in the cartulary
and in charter 35 he has the names of Robert de Burnes and Robert de
Hastings. In charter 36 Theobold, Archbishop of Canterbury, conﬁrms
his name as Robert de Hastings, son of ‘Godwini freni’. Freni seems to
be a descriptive word rather than a place name or surname, especially as
the Godwin is capitalised and the freni is not. The only Latin word close
to freni means a bit, bridle or brake which does not seem to be a suitable
description. In a list of landholders in Kent for 1120 there is an entry
for Godwinus Frenesena as holding 2 sulungs in Bekesbourne.” Colin
Flight has suggested that Godwinus Frenesena means the son of Godwin
of Frenes but he is unsure of this interpretation and it may simply mean

317


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

a Frenchman or as the latin sufﬁx ena means of or from, his name should
be rendered into English as Godwin from Frenes, a small commune in
Normandy. If this is the case Godwin therefore either came over with
William the Conqueror or was the son of one who did. His son is shown
as Robert de Hastings and not Robert freni or ﬁrenesena so he was most
likely born in England. In the same list of landholders, Robert de Hastings
is shown as holding one and a quarter sulungs in Grange. It is unlikely that
they were an English family as the Norman kings by the time of Domesday
trusted very few of the English to hold positions of authority and they had
to be skilled in seamanship to be entrusted with the life of the king on a
channel crossing. The link between Grange and Bekesbourne is vital to
understanding the start of the supply of the kings esnecca.

In the White & Black Books of the Cinque Ports there is an entry,
covering Grange, which reads:

Grange is a limb of Hastings as a result of a Hastings family migrating
and carrying one oar of one boat, a purely personal service.

As the family that held Grange in 1120 had the surname de Hastings we can
assume that this is the same family, and that Godwin held that manor, before
his son Robert, and before he held Bekesbourne. This personal service was
later translated into a requirement that Bekesbourne and Grange

will ﬁnd these ships (one each) on the summons of 40 days, armed and
in each ship, 20 men and the captain, and they must maintain this at their
own expense.”

The provision of the ships is the reason for both Grange and Bekesbourne
being Cinque Port limbs of Hastings, as these two ships would have
counted against Hastings’ allocated requirement to supply 21 ships.
Grange does not ever appear to have been involved in the supply of
the king’s esnecca. Nor indeed does Hastings, except that the esnecca
supplied by Bekesbourne was berthed there.

When Robert died, around 1145, the succession was not clear. The only
children we have a record of are Eustace and his younger brother Michael. ‘ 5
Michael went into the priesthood and was vicar of Bekesbourne from
1180 to 1182. Eustace did take over the administration of the esnecca,
which he held in 1190, but the court case, at which the charter of Henry
II is revealed, shows that both Roger de Burnes and Hugh de Bec had the
administration before 1190; therefore Eustace could not have succeeded
directly. As Hugh dc Bec succeeded Roger, it must have been Roger de
Burne who took over from Robert de Burne and Roger de Burne must
therefore be Robert’s son and Eustace de Burne’s elder brother, despite
not being mentioned in the cartulary of St Gregory’s Priory, Canterbury.
(See Fig. 2 showing the family tree.)

318


61$

Godwin de Frenes* 1110
b.1060 d.1 130

Helliard = Robert de Hastings (de Bumes)* 1130 --------- --[Grange branch of de Hastings family]
| b.1080 d.ll45

I I
Roger de Bumes* 1145 ——- Eustace de Burnes* 1170 ------- -- Michael de Bumes ---------- -- Ilarria = Hugh de Bec* l 160

b. 1120 d.1 160 = Godeholt b.l 145 d.1198 (Priest) b.1120 d.1 170
I
William de Aldinges = Avicia -—-- Eustace de Burnes* 1198 -—-- Richard —~~ Robert
b.1182 d.1246 Majority* 1203

I I
I
Nicholas de Bumes* 1246 -—— Richard de Bumes —-- Ralph de Burnes

I
William de Bec* 1198
b.1155 d.l227

l
William de Bec* 1227 —-- Richard de Bec* 1250

b.1220 d.1305 d.1305 b.1200 d.1250 b.1210 d.1260
I l
l 1. Denise Doge = William De Bec
| 2. Joan= b.1235 d.1274
James ——~«— Agnes

Richard — John ~ Thomas — Eustace

I
Bartholemew

[1363 Sold Bekesbourne to Walter Doget]

I
Mildred = (1) John Eveas of Murston
= (2) Lewis Clifford of Bobbing
*Received the serjecmtyfor the esnecca.
All dates are provisional.

Fig. 2 The de Burnes/de Bec family trees.

SEILON HOHVEISETH TVDIHOLSIH


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

When Roger died he left only a widow and the administration did not
pass, as would have been expected to Eustace, his brother, but passed out
of the de Burne family to Hugh de Bee. The only explanation for this must
have been that Eustace was too young to take over the administration,
which required an adult male in charge. The charter of Henry II makes
it clear that Hugh de Bee had married Roger’s sister, Ilarria, and was
therefore the closest adult male relative to take over the administration.
When Hugh de Bee married Ilarria it was stated that he had married an
heiress; presumably she had been left land by her father Robert. Hugh de
Bee almost certainly took over the manor of Bekesbourne for the duration
of his tenure and the charter makes clear that this tenure would pass to
his heirs.

However when Hugh de Bee died, his son William did not take over
the administration, and again it was probably because he was too young.
By this time Eustace de Burnes had come of age and reclaimed the
administration. There is no record of the administration being shared
between Eustace and William de Bee (when he came of age), and it is
unlikely as the Pipe Roll of Richard I refers to Eustace de Burnes’ ship,
and not to a shared ship.” William de Bee and Eustace had a difference of
opinion, which resulted in a court case in 1 190, for which fortunately there
are many details. It appears that Eustace gave the church at Bekesbourne
to the Priory of St Gregory, Canterbury, only to discover that Hugh de
Bee, Wil1iam’s father, had also given away the church, to a priory in
Hastings. Eustace contended that as his family had built the church and
funded it that it was his right to give it away. Eventually William agreed
on receiving a payment of 1005., and the priory in Hastings relinquished
its claim.”

Eustace had a son also called Eustace but when Eustace senior died,
probably in 1198, Eustace junior was still a child. Eustace’s affairs, until
he reached the age of majority, were in the hands of Robert of Turneham
(now know as Thurnham) a wealthy Kent landowner with extensive
maritime connections (commander of the English Fleet from 1191-1213)
and he arranged for Eustace to be awarded the serjeanty as listed in the
Tesla de Nevill for 1198:

(Eustace) son of Eustace de Burnes who is under age and in the wardship
of Robert de Turneham holds Burnes in serjeanty and it is worth £10. In
the hands of Robert de Tumeham for our Lord King.”

William de Bee (Beke) was also awarded his share in the serjeanty in the
same list of the Testa de Nevill:

William de Bee holds Burnes in serjeanty and it is worth £1 0 and he has to
ﬁnd one ship for the service of our Lord King and pays to the Lord King
three marks. 19

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HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

This is the point at which the divided serjeanty becomes the subject of a
court case which took place in 1201. These entries clearly show that the
serjeanty was for the provision by William de Bee (and not Eustace) of
one ship at the king’s service and that the land held in tenure, supposed
to support that supply, as a result of this serjeanty was divided into two
equal parts. The action was brought by William of Alding (Yalding)
husband of Avicia against William de Bec, claiming the whole land as
serjeanty on the grounds that Avicia was the eldest daughter (presumably
also the sister of Eustace, junior) the niece of Roger de Burnes and was
the eldest co—heir of the eldest co—heir, and that William de Bec, who held
the serjeanty was the representative of a junior co—heir. William obtained
the declaration below that land held in serjeanty could not be divided;
however the phrase used is partible and this may refer to the custom of
gavelkind and partible inheritance from which serjeanty was exempt.”

William (de Bec) is advised that his land is by serj eanty of the Lord King
and is non partible, and is conﬁrmed by charter of the Lord King Henry
father’s [i.e. Henry II] and in order to preserve this I give and concede to
Hugh de Bec administration of my snecca of Hastings of which Roger
de Burnes brother of Illaria wife of Hugh de Bec had and his ancestors
before him  and I order that the same Hugh de Bec as tenant and his
heirs administers the same with land and all appurtenances in peace
etc., as fully as did the ancestors of Roger in the time of King Henry my
grandfather.”

Although Avicia initially claimed the serjeanty as the eldest co—heir of
the eldest co—heir, on the grounds that Roger was her uncle and referred
to William as the younger co—heir, she did not succeed in her claim and
when she returned to the attack in 1203 by simply claiming a caracute
of land as her share she was again defeated. The result of the court case
created a legal precedent and it was used as almost the only example of
the fact that a serjeanty could not be divided even into the beginning of
the reign of Queen Victoria in 1837, concerning the serjeanty of the Lord
Great Chamberlain.”

The whole of this court case seems to hinge on the declaration that a
serjeanty could not be divided but this same serjeanty was in fact divided
between William de Bee and Eustace de Burne junior. One thing the court
case seems to make clear is that Eustace junior was not involved in the
case, probably because he was under age, and at this stage he did not have
any involvement in the administration of the kings esnecca. However
Eustace came of age in 1203 and the administration of the esnecca was
then shared between himself and William de Bec. This must have been an
amicable arrangement as the two tenure holders of the manor also held
land jointly outside the manor.”

The next entry in the Tesla de Nevill is in 1227, probably when William

321


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

senior died and was succeeded by his son, also William. This shows
William and Eustace jointly holding land worth £20 for the provision of
a ship on the summons with the men of Hastings. This seems to be the
normal service of a limb of the Cinque Ports in supplying a ship as part
of the quota of the head port, and not the provision of the kings ferry
service.“ This also accords with an ordinance issued by Henry III in 1229
which is quite clear:

an ordinance touching the service of shipping to be furnished by the
Cinque Ports. These are the ports of the King of England, having liberties
which other ports have not, that is to say, as more fully appeareth in the
charters thereof made: Hastings, to which pertains as members  Seaford,
Pevensea, Bulverhithe, Hydney, Iham, Beaksborne, Grench and Northye.
The services therof due to the Lord King, twenty one ships, and in every
ship twenty one men with one boy, which is called a gromet.”

The next entry relating to Bekesbourne in the Testa de Nevill for 1240/1
rectiﬁes this situation with a speciﬁc reference to the king’s ferry service
as a joint service between William and Eustace.“ Eustace was succeeded
by his son Nicholas in the 1240s although we can ﬁnd no entry for his
award of serj eanty, and William de Bec, who died childless, was followed
by his brother Richard de Bec about 1250 according to the following
entry from the Tesla de Nevill:

Sergeanty of Richard de Bee in Burnes for which is found to be responsible
to our Lord King of one ship for whatever passage is alienated in share.27

And a further entry for the same person:

Sergeanty of Richard de Bee for which is found to be responsible to our
Lord King of one ship for whatever passage is alienated in a small part.28

Why there were two entries for essentially the same service is not known,
especially as they are for the same year; it may possibly have been a
clerical error where the writer did not realise he had already made an
entry for Richard. The serj eanty of Richard is shown as shared, and this
is conﬁrmed by the following entry in the Patent Rolls, when Nicholas de
Burne and Richard de Bec go off together, presumably in their joint ship,
with the King on an expedition to Gascony in 1253:

Exemption of Nicholas de Burnes and Richard de Bek, because they hold
of the king in the liberty of his ports, by the service of ﬁnding one ship
for the king’s crossing, from being put on assizes, juries or recognitions,
and from being made coroner or escheator. Grant also to them that if their
heirs will defend (vendicare) before the king the said liberties, the king
will do them full justice in his court.29

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HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

The joint serj eanty continued until the death of Richard de Bec, probably
around 1260. His son William succeeded him but there is no record of
the serj eanty being awarded to him. Nicholas de Burnes’ son James
succeeded him but there is also no record of him claiming the serjeanty.
Richard de Bec’s award of the serj eanty in 1250 is the last record of such,
as serjeanties were in retreat during the reign of Edward I (1272—1307).30
However the obligations and privileges of the tenure continued and in
1276 we ﬁnd a record that ‘the tenant of Bekesborne, alias Levingsburn,
was bound to ﬁnd a ship called Baard for this purpose?“ When the two
halves of the manor passed from the de Burnes to the Dogets in 1363, and
from the de Becs to the Cobhams in the late thirteenth/early fourteenth
centuries, these privileges, and presumably obligations, were conﬁrmed
by a charter of the late fourteenth century from Richard II:

The king commands the treasurer and barons not to compel John of
Cobham, knight, Walter Doget and John Doget, tenants of the manor of
Bekesbourne and of 32 acres of land parcel of the same manor, purchased
by Walter Doget, deceased, which manor and lands are a limb of the port
of Hastings, to pay the tenth and ﬁfteenth or the moiety of the tenth and
ﬁfteenth, because they contribute to maintaining the ships.”

These obligations and privileges passed from owner to owner down the
years, and when Christchurch Priory, Canterbury was contemplating the
purchase of the manor, they made diligent enquiries as to what the ob1ig~
ations involved. In a letter from John Elham to William Molash the Priory
of Christchurch Priory, he refers to discussions with the Lord Cardinal
[Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester] about port tolls imposed for
Bekesbourne and about other matters.” These port tolls were presumably
the cost of providing a ship for the king, whether an actual ship or a mon-
etary payment.

Unfortunately, despite the provision of the ship at Hastings over many
years, there is actually no record of the King, or his court, ever sailing
from Hastings or any of the Cinque Ports to Normandy.34 On the occasions
when the king should have been able to use his own ship from Hastings
he was more likely to hire a ship, as in 1246, when he authorised the
sheriff of Kent to pay out 30s. 6d. for a ship from Dover for the voyage
of Imbert de Salinas and Master Eymes the Emperor’s clerk.35 And even
earlier in 1186 instead of using his esnecca berthed at Hastings he had
the Southampton esnecca sailed from there to Dover for a crossing to
Wissant:

To delivery of a ship — the king’s esnecca with the treasury and king’s
equipments for a channel crossing from Dover, £19. 7s. 0d. by the king’s
letter [of authority].35

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HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

Despite the fact that the king never used the ship berthed at Hastings, the
arrangements for its supply were continued and renewed for some 200
years.

And ﬁnally after 300 years of providing a service that was not used, in
1445 Margaret of Anjou, the bride to be of Henry VI, crossed the Channel
to England and according to the accounts of the manor, now kept by
Christchurch Priory, they as owners of the manor had to pay 53s. 4d. of
the total cost of £4; presumably the other half of the cost was borne by the
joint owner of the manor, the Cobhams.37

However throughout the whole period of the Bekesbourne tenure
there seems to have been no certainty on the part of the authorities as to
whether the tenure was held by the service of providing a ship speciﬁcally
for the king’s cross—Channel crossing or simply by the provision of a
ship as part of the quota of Hastings. It is unlikely that Bekesbourne was
required to provide two ships so even the authorities are not sure what
the ship is actually for, but since the king never used the ship it was a
useful addition to the Hastings quota. This Hastings connection is the
reason for Bekesbourne being granted non—corporate membership of the
Cinque Ports as a limb of Hastings. Along with Grange (Gillingham) it
was required that Bekesbourne (and Grange) as limbs had to supply one
ship each, which would count as part of the allocation of ships supplied
by Hastings for its Cinque Port obligations.

Hastings was very happy to have this obligation as part of its quota, and
whether the ship was for the king or not, it counted towards the quota.
Both the Bekesbourne and Grange families had close connections with
Hastings other than the Cinque Port connection and these were maintained
over many years. The Grange branch of the family kept the de Hastings
name and the records show that Matthew de Hastings held land and had
obligations in Hastings including provision by his tenants of a guard at
Hastings Castle.” The de Bumes and the de Becs also had property in
and around Hastings, as there is a record of Eustace de Burne selling
land at Eggingeth, near Hastings, which was passed on to the Abbey of
Robertsbridge, also near Hastings.” And as we have seen above the de
Becs tried to give the church at Bekesbourne to the priory of Holy Trinity,
Hastings, which showed their close ties with Hastings.

Why Henry I and Henry 11 would want the provision of a ship at
Hastings when they used the ship provided at Southampton is not clear.
Hastings occupied a special place in the hearts of the Norman Kings as
the place of the successful invasion and conquest and was, in their eyes,
the principal port of the Cinque Ports. Using a family with Hastings
origins to provide them with a personal service would have seemed
appropriate. The serjeanty was renewed time and time again even though
as we have seen above the obligations varied from the provision of a ship

324


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

for the exclusive use of the king to the provision of a ship for general
use. Although the serjeanties declined in the reign of King Edward I,
the obligations incumbent on the tenure of the manor of Bekesbourne
continued as though the serjeanty was in place, and even when the manor
was divided and sold on, the obligations were divided as we have seen
above in the case of Margaret of Anjou in 1445.

The documentary evidence for the early Norman period is sparse and
some aspects of the supply of the esnecca, and the serjeanty required for
supporting the supply, are still obscure. Unusually the serjeanty tenure
was divided, quite clearly in the case of Eustace de Burnes junior and
William de Bec senior in 1198. Although the divided serjeanty is recorded
in the Liber F eudom (Tesla de Nevill) for 1198 it could well have occurred
earlier and simply been recorded as a fact in 1198. It is also possible that
the division occurred when Hugh de Bec took over the administration of
the esnecca sometime between 1160 and 1170, but there are no records
to check for these early dates. Whether the requirement of the tenants
of Bekesbourne was for the supply of the king’s cross-Channel ferry, or
simply the provision of a ship as part of the quota of Hastings, is also
obscure, but some aspects of this dual requirement may be due to changing
circumstances over the years. When the esnecca service was required in
the reigns of King Henry II and King Richard 1, England, Normandy,
Anj ou and Aquitaine were all part of the Angevin Empire, with the ports
of Dieppe and Barﬂeur on the French coast within that empire. After the
reign of King John, Normandy and Anjou were lost and the nearest port
in France within the empire was in Gascony. The small esneccas of 21
men and a boy would not have been suitable for regular crossings from
England to Gascony although they were used on exceptional occasions.
Eventually with the loss of the French territories the requirement for
any sort of cross-Channel service was greatly diminished and the only
requirement left was for the provision of ships as part of the Cinque Port
quotas, and even these requirements were superseded by the founding
of the Royal Navy. Despite this the Cinque Port privileges continued at
Bekesbourne for many centuries until ﬁnally ended in the reign of King
George IV in 1832, with the passing of the Great Reform Act.

DAVID GILMOUR

1 The esnecca, from a Norwegian word for snake was a derivative of the Viking longship
propelled by oars or by a single masted square rigged sail. Basil W. Bathe, Seven Centuries
0/‘Sea Travel, p. 15.

2 Rose, G. and lllingworth, W, P/acitorum in Domo Westmonasteriensi asservalarum
Abbreviatio.‘ Temporibus Regum Ric. I Johann. Henr III, Edw I and Edw 1], Record
Commission, London, 1811, p. 39b. Willelmus [de Bea] dict’! quad term illa est de
sergeantia Domini Regis et non debet partiri, etprofert cartam Domini Regis H. patris [i.e.
Henry H], in qua continetur quad ipse concessit el dedil Hugoni de Becca ministerium de

325


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

Esnetka [? Esnecka] sua de Hasting quem Rogerus de Burnesfrater [llarie uxoris Hugonis
a'e Becco habuit et antecessores sui ante eum  etprecepit quod idem Hugo habeat et teneat
et heredes sui ministerium illud cum terris et omnibus pertinen ’ in pace etc. sicut unquam
antecessores Rogeri plenius etc. tempore H. regis avi. Richard 1. 1190.

3 J .H. Round, ‘The Dating of the Early Pipe Rolls’, English Historical Review, Vol. 36, no.
143, July 1921, p. 327, ‘in pay ofone sailor additional in Eustace de Burnes’ ship 60s.10d’.

4 J .C. Robertson, Materials for the History of Thomas BecketArchbishop ofCanterhury,
Longman, London, 1876, Vol. 3, p. 26, Fitz.Stephen, Rex Anglie ad suam transfretationem
navem propriam solet habere. Cancellarius ei ﬁeri fecit non unam solam sed tres simul
naves optimas.

5 Pipe Roll 14 Henry 11, Pipe Roll Society, Vol. 12, 1890, p. 92.

5 H.W.C. Davis, England under the Normans andAngevins, Methuen, London, 1905, p. 295.

7 Charles H. Haskins, ‘The Administration of Normandy’, The English Historical
Review, Vol. 24, no. 94 (Apr, 1909), p. 230.

3 Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday to Magna Carta 1087-1216, Clarendon Press
Oxford, 1955, p. 434.

9 Charles 1. Elton, Tenures of Kent, James Parker, London, 1867, p. 228.

10 Calendar of lnquisitions Post Mortem, HMSO, London, 1906, Vol. 2, 5 Edward I,
1277, 220, p. 134.

11 Audrey M. Woodcock, Cartulary of the Priory of St. Gregory, Royal Historical Society,
London , 1956, charter 38, p. 29.

13 Colin Flight, ‘Landholders in Kent’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 125 (2005), 364.

13 Felix Hull, A Calendar of the White and Black Books of the Cinque Ports, HMSO,
London, 1966 (fol. 40811), p. 630.

14 British Library, Cotton MSS Vespasian, A 5, 6 7, 11s trouveront ces neifs sur la
sumonce de 40 jours, armées at en chacun neif 20 homines, et le maistre des mariners, et ils
maintaindront a leur costes demesnes.

15 A.M. Woodcock, op. cit., charters 37 and 38.

15 J.H. Round, op. cit., p. 327.

17 A.M. Woodcock, op. cit., charter 37 and 38.

18 Liber Feodorum (Testa de Nevill), Part 1, Public Record Office, 1920, 1198, p. 13,
II 49: Stacekinus de Bumes qui est infra etatem et in custodia Roberti de T urneham tenet
Bumes in seriantia, et valet x. l. In manu Roberti de Turneham per dominum regem.

19 1bid., Part 1, p. 13, 1198, Willelmus de Beche tenet Bumes in seriantia, et valet x.l. et
debet invenire domino regi j. navem ad servicium suum, et oﬂere domino regi 

3° C. Elton, op. cit, p. 232.

21 Rose and lllingworth, op. cit., p. 39b.

22 C. Elton, op. cit, pp. 38-40.

33 Canterbury Cathedral Archives (hereafter CCA)-DCc—ChAnt/l/ 132 1227. Ancient
Charters Final Concord.

24 Liber Feodorum (Testa de Nevill) Part2 Public Record Ofﬁce, 1920, p. 1346, m 26 d.
De seriantiis, dicunt quod Willelmus del Bek el Eustachius ale Burn ’tenent xx. libratas terre
in Livingeburne de domino rege per servicium inveniendi j . navem ad summonitionem suam
cum hominibus ole Hasting.

25 Sir Nicholas Harris Nicholas, The History of the Royal Navy from the earliest times,
Bentley, London, 1847, p. 262.

25 Liber Foedorum (Tesla de Nevill), Part 2, Public Record Ofﬁce, 1920, p. 1381, 7 d, De
seriantiis, dicunt quod Wilelrnus de Becko et Eustachius dc Livyngeburn’ tenent xx. libratas
terre in Livyngeburne per seriantiam inveniendi unarn navem domino regi ad custum eorum
quandocunquc dominus rex voluerit transfretere.

326


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

Indo—European languages, for example English ruddy, rusty, russet, etc,
or Welsh rhwd (ﬁlth, rust).

The third part —z'ae is generally taken to indicate a plural. The problem
lies with the second syllable. Maybe —up— can be linked with a hypothetical
*apa (water), related to words such as abona (Celtic), aqua and amnis
(Latin), and the aappe sufﬁx in Germanic place names. However, it seems
perverse to abandon the letter A, which is common to all these watery
words, while keeping the P, which varies.

Many authors are content to guess that Rutupiae meant ‘muddy waters’,
but this is unlikely. Ancient Rutupiae was a respectable port, protected by
a shingle bank and it is hard to see how whitish shingle, yellowish sand,
or even brownish mud could be called rut—, reddish. Rutupiae was famous
for oysters (which cannot tolerate large amounts of mud) and the remains
of oyster beds in the Wantsum/Stour area described by Smith (1850) and
Dowker (1872) lie on an ancient sea shore covered by more than a metre
of alluvium, which cannot have arrived before late Roman. times.

Was there anything else at Rutupiae that was genuinely reddish and so
prominent as to give its name to the place? The obvious answer is Red
Hills, the distinctive archaeological remains of ancient salterns, which
have been much investigated in Essex. In that case, can the —tup— syllable
reasonably be translated as ‘mound’? Terp has been taken into English
from Frisian to mean ‘mound’, though most authorities hold that meaning
to be secondary to a meaning of ‘village’ as in its cognates: English thorp,
Dutch dorﬁ Welsh tref, etc. Tap, in Taplow, probably means ‘tapering
cylinder’ (contrary to what some place name compilations assert).
Particularly interesting is toft, which dictionaries consider to be originally
a Norse word and deﬁne as ‘eminence, knoll, or hillock in a ﬂat region’.

In fact, a remarkable number of words with a sense of enlargement
and/or sticking up have descended from a Proto-Indo—European root *m
or *teu (‘to swell’). Examples in English include tip, top, tuft, tumour,
tuber, tussock, tomb, and thumb. One line of descent ran through proto~
Germanic *tuppaz, which is generally considered the origin of the Latin
word tufa (helmet plume), which Bede helpfully translated with Anglian
tuuf

One argument against translating Rutupiae as ‘red tops’ is that in Roman
times languages put declensional endings on both nouns and adjectives.
So, at the very least, a hypothetical local—language source of Rutupiae
should have had a structure something like *rut—vowel—tup. However,
vowels are well known to disappear from the middle of multi-syllable
words, especially if unstressed or sandwiched between two similar con~
sonants.

If Rut did indeed have no declensional ending, Rutupiae would be
analogous with later Anglo—Saxon place names. Among the dozens of
compound names beginning with ‘red’ that Gelling and Cole (2003) cite,

328


HISTORICAL RESEARCH NOTES

Indo-European languages, for example English ruddy, rusty, russet, etc,
or Welsh rhwd (ﬁlth, rust).

The third part —iae is generally taken to indicate a plural. The problem
lies with the second syllable. Maybe —up— can be linked with a hypothetical
*apa (water), related to words such as abona (Celtic), aqua and amrzis
(Latin), and the —appe suffix in Germanic place names. However, it seems
perverse to abandon the letter A, which is common to all these watery
words, while keeping the P, which varies.

Many authors are content to guess that Rutupiae meant ‘muddy waters’,
but this is unlikely. Ancient Rutupiae was a respectable port, protected by
a shingle bank and it is hard to see how whitish shingle, yellowish sand,
or even brownish mud could be called rut—, reddish. Rutupiae was famous
for oysters (which cannot tolerate large amounts of mud) and the remains
of oyster beds in the Wantsum/Stour area described by Smith (1850) and
Dowker (1872) lie on an ancient sea shore covered by more than a metre
of alluvium, which cannot have arrived before late Roman times.

Was there anything else at Rutupiae that was genuinely reddish and so
prominent as to give its name to the place? The obvious answer is Red
Hills, the distinctive archaeological remains of ancient salterns, which
have been much investigated in Essex. In that case, can the —tup— syllable
reasonably be translated as ‘mound’? Terp has been taken into English
from Frisian to mean ‘mound’, though most authorities hold that meaning
to be secondary to a meaning of ‘village’ as in its cognates: English thorp,
Dutch dorf, Welsh tref, etc. Tap, in Taplow, probably means ‘tapering
cylinder’ (contrary to what some place name compilations assert).
Particularly interesting is toft, which dictionaries consider to be originally
a Norse word and deﬁne as ‘eminence, knoll, or hillock in a ﬂat region’.

In fact, a remarkable number of words with a sense of enlargement
and/or sticking up have descended from a Proto—Indo—European root *tu
or *teu (‘to swell’). Examples in English include tip, top, tuft, tumour,
tuber, tussock, tomb, and thumb. One line of descent ran through proto-
Gerrnanic *tuppaz, which is generally considered the origin of the Latin
word tufa (helmet plume), which Bede helpfully translated with Anglian
tuuf

One argument against translating Rutupiae as ‘red tops’ is that in Roman
times languages put declensional endings on both nouns and adjectives.
So, at the very least, a hypothetical local—language source of Rutupiae
should have had a structure something like *rut—vowel—tup. However,
vowels are well known to disappear from the middle of multi—syllable
words, especially if unstressed or sandwiched between two similar con-
sonants.

If Rut did indeed have no declensional ending, Rutupiae would be
analogous with later Anglo-Saxon place names. Among the dozens of
compound names beginning with ‘red’ that Gelling and Cole (2003) cite,

328