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Feudal England

Note 1 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES (continued 2)

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No authority, unfortunately, is given for the identity of this Uchtred with Uchtred, father of Dolfin, and the assumption of that identity involves the conclusion that Eadwulf 'Rus', who took the lead in the murder of Bishop Walcher (1080), was brother to Dolfin who received Staindrop in 1131, and uncle to a man who died in 1195 or 1196! We cannot therefore accept this descent as it stands, or carry the pedigree at present beyond Dolfin fitz Uchtred (1131). But as this Dolfin, when doing homage to the Prior of Durham for Staindrop, reserved his homage to the kings of England and of Scotland, as well as the Bishop of Durham, he was, no doubt, a man of consequence, and was probably of high Northumbrian birth. It may be worth throwing out, as a hint, the suggestion that his father Uchtred might have been identical with Uchtred, son of Ligulf, that great Northumbrian thegn who was slain at Durham in 1080. But this is only a guess. One cannot, in fact, be too careful, as I have shown in my two papers on 'Odard of Carlisle' and 'Odard the Sheriff',1 in identifying two individuals of the same Christian names, when, in these northern districts, the names in question were so widely borne. The Whitby cartulary, for instance, proves that Thomas de Hastings was (maternal) grandson of Alan, son of Thorphin 'de Alverstain', son of Uchtred (son of Gospatric), which Uchtred gave the Church of Crosby Ravensworth to the abbey in the time, it would seem, of William Rufus. But who Gospatric, his father, was has not been clearly ascertained. The skilled genealogists of the north may be able to decide these points, and to tell us the true descent of 'Dolfin, the son of Uchtred'.

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