ORC’S Portesham Charter and the

puzzle of Cuceleshylle

Peter Laurie

Abbedesburie first appears in history in a charter of King Edmund, dated about 946 AD, giving 5 hides of land in the manor to Sigewulf. Although this charter is now lost, it was seen in the cartulary of Glastonbury Abbey in the 1600s.

The oldest surviving document to do with Abbotsbury is the grant by King Canute in 1024 of 7 hides of land in the village of Portesham to his "servant [whom his acquaintances and friends have been used to call Orc] for his amiable fidelity and willing mind". Either then or later, this land became part of the core of the holding of the Monastery of St Peter at Abbotsbury.

 

The document looks like this:

 

Orc’s charter from King Canute

A wedge shaped piece of parchment has been lost, and the resulting gaps in the text are shown below as ‘------’. The document was translated and printed for the House of Lords in an immense law suit about the ownership of the Fleet in the mid 1800s. The translation reads ( I have inserted waypoint numbers eg. ‘(1)’ – to make the discussion below easier to follow:

(preamble)

And the bounds of the aforesaid lands appear to be made known in these words, that is to say:- First from Mill brooke (1) to Cuceleshyll (2), from Cucceles [hyll] -------from the cave (3) to Motbeorh (4), from Motbeorge to the street (5), from that street to the old way (6) through the grove (7) and so to the small path (8) beyond the street to the old way (9) and so in length of the way to ---------------- and so to Atstealles hill (10) and from the hill south to the old pool (11) [and] so to Corfegetes (12), Westra Cottage [?]. From the cottage south by the pool (13) to the corner (14) of the ditch and so west by the ditch to the other corner (15) So south by the ditch to the corner (16) of the [meadow] and there west by the ditch to the other corner (17) of the meadow, and so south along the ditch to the Holy Well (18), from the Holy well west by the ditch to the Clay lane (19). From the Clay lane to the Mill brook (1) down by the stream (20) east of Mill brook to Cuccleshylle (2).

(signatures: Archbishop Ethelnoth plus 4 Bishops, 3 Duces, 5 Abbots, 3 Priests, 20 Ministers)

Anyone familiar with the ground in 1024 would probably have had little difficulty in following the boundary. In later years no doubt Orc’s military followers would have been on hand to correct any inadvertent mistakes. But what can we make of it on the modern map nearly a thousand years later? Enough way-points are identifiable to get a rough idea of the perimeter on the north and east sides. The puzzle has always been (2): Cuccleshylle, which fixes the south west corner and therefore the total area of the grant. Although Canute says he is giving ‘7 hides’ of land, there is considerable uncertainty about the size of a hide and whether it applied to all the land in a manor or just the good corn land. . So, was Cuccleshylle Linton Hill – and if so where along it? Or was it St Catherines Hill in Abbotsbury? Or some bump down by the Fleet?

The question has now been solved by Andy Poore and Mark Gorowitz at the Ilchester Estate. Andy Poore writes in The Fox, , the Estate’s house magazine in the June 2002 issue:

 

Cocos Hill

 

In 1023 King Canute granted Portesham to Orc, one of his most prominent courtiers. This formed part of Orc's holdings at Abbotsbury which subsequently lead to the foundation of the Monastery and the present Estate.

The Document survives in the Estate Archive and begins (in Latin):

This fleeting life is so full of worldly miseries and by various imperfections consumed and wasted by trouble that in cases of premature death very many, alas! are dragged unprepared into eternity. But it is evident that all of those who are truly wise must labour by all known means that, avoiding the filth of the devil, we may be worthy to attain the most pleasing fellowship of a life of contemplation.

There then follows the grant of the land and its associated rights. Following this there is a description of the land involved. As was common in the period before maps became commonplace, this description took the form of a 'perambulation', that is a list of features (in Anglo-Saxon) which could be found along the boundary of the land in question. These features, and hence the boundary, can often be reconstructed and we have been able to identify most of these features as part of the Historic Research Project which is currently underway.

One place-name at the beginning of the Perambulation had, however, eluded us. The section reads:

First from Mill brooke to Cuccleshyll…………..

We have not found this place-name in any other written record apart from a reference to 'Cokeshyll' in the 1541 Lease of Abbotsbury to the Strangways Family. We worked out that the location of this feature was to the east or south-east of the village (Abbotsbury) but there were a number of possible alternative boundaries for this part of the Abbotsbury/ Portesham border.

In early May we were assisting the Farms with the construction of new maps for this year's IACS return and we produced a map of the old East Farm holding which had had the field names added. These names had been handed down by the farming tenants by word of mouth. There attached to a field just to the east of the Old Station was the name 'Cocos Hill'. This field lies adjacent to the present Parish boundary between Abbotsbury and Portesham and shows that this boundary is the same as that described in the 1023 document.

So for almost 1000 years this name has survived without being written, save for the slightly garbled version inserted in the 1541 Lease. It is likely that the name was more than 300 years old in 1023 since the first element Cuccles/ Cocos derives from the Old Welsh word 'Eccles', meaning church, and therefore reflects the language of Abbotsbury before Anglo-Saxon became dominant in the 8th century.

A.Poore

June 2002

We can now make rough sense of the document.

 

    1. The grant is in "a place to which the countrymen of that land have given the name Portesham". The deed goes on: "and the above named village shall be free..." implying that the grant was of the entire village as well as a piece of land. Incidentally, the ‘port’ in ‘Portesham’ at that period meant a market or place where business was done. Presumably the word, in Anglo Saxon, implied the carrying of goods to market, from the Latin portare, or some older, root word common to both languages. ‘Port’ only came to be applied to a maritime place of business later on.

 We have a few recognisable places:

1. "Mill Brook": In some ways this is the most interesting way point. There are two streams through Portesham. One runs down beside the main street, through the garden of Hardy’s house and then west south west towards Abbotsbury where it turns into the mill leat for the water mill (abandoned in the 1500’s) in the grounds of the Abbey House Hotel. The other: "the stream east of Mill brook" runs south from Portesham, turns westwards beside the B3157 and then dives off to the southwest beside Linton Hill and flows into the Fleet.

2. "Cuceleshyll" is a field to the south of the road, about half way between Abbotsbury and Portesham.

4. "Motbeorh" – the ‘mountain meeting place’ - is at the top of White Hill, the road climbing up out of Abbotsbury to the north east. The road makes a sharp turn round the lip of a natural amphitheatre to the south. The meeting place of the Hundred was near here – maybe in the small field to the north of the road where several parish boundaries meet, perhaps in the amphitheatre for greater comfort.

5. "The street" must be the north-south street in Portesham.

12. "Corfegetes" sounds like ‘Coryates’, the next hamlet to the east of Portesham. "Corfe" (as in Corfe Castle) means a cutting. "Corfegetes" would presumably mean the entrance to a corfe, and there is a dramatic cutting through the east-west rock ridge, giving access to the south.

13 – 19 These way-points are all on good land. They seem to describe a path that steps alternately west and south and probably identify an existing and well known boundary with neighbouring manor(s) – Elworth and perhaps Langton (Herring)

 

An attempt to draw Orc’s charter on the modern map. The SE corner is simplified - there would have been a jagged boundary meshing with the manor to the south east.

We can easily get a clear sense of a clockwise circuit (only witches went widdershins) round a parcel of land that is still good today, except for the hilly north west corner. It runs roughly east-west and is bounded by hills to north and south. Its village, where the workers lived, is in about the middle of the north side.

The dimensions are roughly 2.4 miles by .8 mile or 6M square yards. An acre is 4840 square yards, so the parcel is about 1200 acres. This gives us a hide of 175 acres – not wildly far from Domesday’s 193 acres to the hide (though that varies too).

Forty three years later Domesday lists Portesham as part of the lands of Abbotsbury Abbey:

 PORTESHAM. Before 1066 it paid tax for 12 hides. Land for 9 ploughs of which 5 hides are in lordship; 4 ploughs there; 12 slaves; 12 villagers and 10 smallholders with 5 ploughs and 7 hides.

A mill which pays 10s; meadow, 24 acres, pasture 1 league long and 2 furlongs wide, 3 cobs, 13 cattle, 20 pigs 250 sheep. Value £12

It is hard to work out whether there are 9 hides here (‘land for 9 ploughs’) or 12 hides – (‘5 hides in lordship’ plus the villagers’ and smallholders’ 7 hides). But whichever, it is not wildly different from Orc’s grant. Perhaps the Monastery had picked up some extra scraps over the years – as monasteries do.