On 11-Sep-17 10:30 AM, Peter Stewart wrote: > On 10-Sep-17 4:02 PM, Peter Stewart wrote: >> Thompson reported (p 71) that Eustace's fist wife, the English >> princess Goda, 'bore her new husband no surviving male heir, and by >> the late 1040s she must have been nearing forty years of age. It was >> now perhaps convenient to dissolve the marriage. The existence of a >> common ancestor in King Alfred of England allowed Eustace and Goda to >> part, and the researches of Dr Christopher Lewis suggest that from >> 1051 Countess Goda lived in her brother’s kingdom, probably at >> Lambeth, close to his chosen residence of Westminster'. The reference >> given for this (ibid note 42) is not very illuminating: 'C. P. Lewis, >> personal communication, based on Goda's holdings in Domesday Book, in >> particular at Lambeth, DB, I, fol. 34. Using material from Rochester >> Cathedral priory's fourteenth century Registrum Temporalium, Dr Lewis >> has deduced that Goda's property at Lambeth was subsequently given to >> Rochester. Rochester later asserted that it had the treasures of the >> Countess Goda in its possession, and it also had an interest in what >> it referred to as 'Countess Goda's former soke' in London, probably a >> survival of the nineteen burgesses recorded under Lambeth in >> Domesday.' It is not clear from this what basis Dr Lewis has for >> identifying the Goda in Domesday book and the 'Countess Goda' in the >> much later Rochester record with the countess of Boulogne. If she was >> nearing 40 in the late 1040s she must have been nearing 80 at the >> time of the Domesday survey, and you might expect that we would hear >> something besides this about a daughter of Ætheldred II who lived for >> at least 20 years under the reign of William the Conqueror. > > The 'Registrum temporalium' of Rochester cathedral priory was > published in 1769, and contains several records of countess Goda's > property - this was evidently Edward the Confessor's sister, wife > successively of counts Drogo of Amiens and Eustace II of Boulogne. > Lambeth church was conceded by William II (in one case identified by > the editor as William I) as it had been held by countess Goda ('sicut > comitissa Goda prius habuit'), and some of her possessions (gospel > books, gold and silver items, etc) were taken from Lambeth to > Rochester by the keeper of the manor. > > From these records it could be taken that Goda was living at Lambeth > into William II's reign, and she is mentioned in Domesday book as > having held it. However, we also know from a confirmation in 1101 by > St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, that William was actually > restoring to Rochester the property at Lambeth that Goda had herself > previously given ('in Surreya Lamhetham cum ecclesia quod dedit Goda > comitissa, et Willelmus rex filius regis Willelmi ecclesie Roffe > deinde restituit'). In light of this, there is no certainty as to when > her donation was made, and this may well have been before the Conquest > rather than after the Domesday survey. The supposed confirmation by St Anselm turns out to be a 13th-century concoction according to the editors of *English Episcopal Acta 28* (2004), but the point remains that by its own account Rochester cathedral priory had received Lambeth originally from Goda. Peter Stewart

On 11-Sep-17 10:30 AM, Peter Stewart wrote: > On 10-Sep-17 4:02 PM, Peter Stewart wrote: >> Thompson reported (p 71) that Eustace's fist wife, the English >> princess Goda, 'bore her new husband no surviving male heir, and by >> the late 1040s she must have been nearing forty years of age. It was >> now perhaps convenient to dissolve the marriage. The existence of a >> common ancestor in King Alfred of England allowed Eustace and Goda to >> part, and the researches of Dr Christopher Lewis suggest that from >> 1051 Countess Goda lived in her brother’s kingdom, probably at >> Lambeth, close to his chosen residence of Westminster'. The reference >> given for this (ibid note 42) is not very illuminating: 'C. P. Lewis, >> personal communication, based on Goda's holdings in Domesday Book, in >> particular at Lambeth, DB, I, fol. 34. Using material from Rochester >> Cathedral priory's fourteenth century Registrum Temporalium, Dr Lewis >> has deduced that Goda's property at Lambeth was subsequently given to >> Rochester. Rochester later asserted that it had the treasures of the >> Countess Goda in its possession, and it also had an interest in what >> it referred to as 'Countess Goda's former soke' in London, probably a >> survival of the nineteen burgesses recorded under Lambeth in >> Domesday.' It is not clear from this what basis Dr Lewis has for >> identifying the Goda in Domesday book and the 'Countess Goda' in the >> much later Rochester record with the countess of Boulogne. If she was >> nearing 40 in the late 1040s she must have been nearing 80 at the >> time of the Domesday survey, and you might expect that we would hear >> something besides this about a daughter of Ætheldred II who lived for >> at least 20 years under the reign of William the Conqueror. > > The 'Registrum temporalium' of Rochester cathedral priory was > published in 1769, and contains several records of countess Goda's > property - this was evidently Edward the Confessor's sister, wife > successively of counts Drogo of Amiens and Eustace II of Boulogne. > Lambeth church was conceded by William II (in one case identified by > the editor as William I) as it had been held by countess Goda ('sicut > comitissa Goda prius habuit'), and some of her possessions (gospel > books, gold and silver items, etc) were taken from Lambeth to > Rochester by the keeper of the manor. > > From these records it could be taken that Goda was living at Lambeth > into William II's reign, and she is mentioned in Domesday book as > having held it. I may have misunderstood the interpretation placed by Christopher Lewis on the evidence mentioned - because of Kathleen Thompson's phrase "Goda's holdings in Domesday Book", I took it he was proposing that Goda lived until 1086. However, the holdings ascribed to her in Domesday book were not contemporary with the survey and recorded in the present tense, but rather in the reign of her brother Edward the Confessor and recorded in the perfect tense. In Surrey she had formerly held the manor of Lambeth, which was held by its church of St Mary in 1086 ('Sancta Maria manerium est quod Lanchei uocatur. Goða cometissa tenuit soror R[egis]. E[dwardi].') St Mary’s at Lambeth also held Aston Subedge in Gloucestershire, which Goda had held in the reign of her brother Edward, ('Ecclesia Sancte Marie de Lanheie tenet Estone. Goða comitissa tenuit T.R.E.'). Ralph of Fougères held Headley in Surrey which Goda had held in her brother's reign ('Radvlfus de Felgeres tenet Hallega. Goða comitissa tenuit de rege E.'). Clearly she was no longer living in 1086. Her former holdings were discussed by John Blair in *Early Medieval Surrey: Landholding, Church and Settlement before 1300* (Stroud, 1991), p. 102: 'According to Domesday Book ... Lambeth manor had been in the hands of King Edward's sister Godgifu before her death in 1056; in 1086 St Mary's church of Lambeth held it from the crown except for one field, then in the hands of Odo of Bayeux, which had belonged to the church in Godgifu's time. Soon afterwards the church and the whole vill were apparently given by William Rufus to Bishop Gundulf and his monks at Rochester. Perhaps the best interpretation is that Godgifu had herself founded some kind of collegiate minster, endowing it with the whole manor ... A note that Rochester removed from Lambeth a gold and silver shrine, gospel-books, rich crucifixes and other ornaments, all of which had belonged to Godgifu, may mark the end of a private college or minster', and ibid 198 note 58 regarding the forged confirmation of St Anselm: 'Rochester's later claim that Godgifu had given them the manor before the Conquest ... was presumably baseless'. Goda's death in 1056 is not certain, but only deduced from the remarriage of her second husband, Eustace of Boulogne, reportedly in 1057. If Dr Lewis thinks that she had parted from Eustace and lived in England from 1051, this would require some firm evidence - apart from the Domesday and Rochester records - that Kathleen Thompson did not report. Otherwise, as far as I am aware, there is no evidence that Goda and Eustace separated after he was excommunicated in October 1049. For all we know this may have been resolved, perhaps along with the problem of William with his intended marriage to Matilda, or they may have gone on defying the Church without a resolution. The same may have applied to count Enguerrand I of Ponthieu ('Angilrai', i.e. Angilrannum) who was also excommunicated in 1049. Peter Stewart