Gytha Unknown (abt. 1028 - 1099)

Born about 1028 in Herefordshire, England

Descendants

Died 1099 at about age 71 in Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, England

Biography

Ancestry

There do not appear to be any reliable sources describing her ancestry in any certain way, except books which clearly confuse her with her similarly named mother-in-law (including Keats-Rohan Domesday People, p.245).

Marriage

Complete Peerage states that her name can be derived from Domesday:

Domesday Book, vol. i, f. 14.8, if “Gethe uxor Radulfi comitis” is sufficient identification.

Historian Ann Williams in (2008) ^[1] writes:

it was probably to provide Ralph with additional support in his new command that King Edward arranged his marriage to Gytha, a woman from a wealthy east-midlands family, who by 1066 disposed of an estate totalling 94 hides and tencarucates, extending into Bedfordshire, Buckinhamshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire. Some may have come from her husband or his uncle the king, but the general distribution of Gytha's lands suggests that she was a kinswoman of the rich east-midlands thegn Burgred, who with his sons held in excess of 160 hides in Bedfordshire, Buckinhamshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. To give a single example, Gytha's manor at Higham Ferrers (Northants) included sokeland at Rushden, Irchester and Raunds, but in 1086 the sokemen who dwelt there asserted that they had been Burgred's men, and the sokelands were claimed as belonging to Burgred's manor of Raunds. The division may be reflected in the archaeological record; the tenth-century ditched hall beneath the mediaeval manor of Furnells might represent Burgred's manor, while Gytha's sokeland in the vill perhaps became the twelfth-century manor of Burystead.

Research Notes

An Ancestry.com submission ("Ancient and Archaic Lines," posted by Robert --, at Ancestry.com] says she was the daughter of Osgood Clapa and Agatha.

However, Mason (2004) asserts that Osgod Clapa's daughter Gytha is known to have married a Dane named Tofi the Proud. ^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Ann Williams. The World Before Domesday: The English Aristocracy 871-1066 p.19
2. ↑ Mason (2004) The House of Godwine: The History of a Dynasty p.42 and p.85.]

Acknowledgement

• WikiTree profile Hereford-25 created through the import of heinakuu2011-6.ged on Jul 5, 2011 by Johanna Amnelin.
• This person was created on 12 September 2010 through the import of 104-B.ged.
• This person was created through the import of Rodney Timbrook Ancestors and Relatives_2010-09-10.ged on 10 September 2010.
• This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011.