Richard
Aschenald
Born about [location unknown]
Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
Descendants 
Father of
Ailric (Cawthorne) of Cawthorne
Died [date unknown]
[location unknown]
Profile last modified
| Created 19 Sep 2013
This page has been accessed 3,366 times.
Research suggests that this person may never have existed. See the text for details.
Biography
This person probably did not exist.
- It is difficult to reconcile the first name Richard (A French name) with an English (Anglo-Saxon/Scandinavian) man who lived and died in England before the Norman Conquest of 1066.
- Alric (or Ailric), Richard's supposed son, is well-studied by modern scholars, who say that Ailric is the earliest traceable member of that family.[1]
The first mention of Richard Aschenald, discovered so far, is in Leland's Itinerary, written centuries later in about 1540 - "The castel, town and landes about Brokenbridg longgid afore the Conquest to one Richard Aschenald. Richard had Ailrik and he had Swane, of whom cam Adam, of Adam cam 2 doughtters, wherof one of them was maried to Galfride Neville, the other to Thomas Burge"[2]
Although Ailric, Swein, Adam and his 2 daughters can be confirmed by primary sources (although the names of the sons-in-law are incorrect), there appear to be no earlier sources that mention Richard Aschenald.
Although it is possible that Aschenald has mutated over the centuries and was originally an Anglo-Saxon name or nickname starting with Æsc... [3]
Sources
- ↑ Hugh M. Thomas, "A Yorkshire Thegn and his Descendants after the Conquest", Medieval Prosopography, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Autumn 1987), pp. 1-22. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44947023
- ↑ Leland, John. The Itinery of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543. Parts I to III, edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith. London: George Bell and Sons. 1907. p, 40. Digital Image. Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/itineraryjohnle02lelagoog : viewed 15 January 2017.
- ↑ Thanks to Kirk Hess
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A > Aschenald > Richard Aschenald
Categories: Uncertain Existence
I also don't agree with disconnection from Alaric. Just because we don't have the sources that the 1540 source cites, it doesn't mean it was fraudulent. At this point, it's the best info we have, and perhaps the best we will ever get from that time.
It should be sufficient to label him as the "uncertain" father of Alaric, as has been done.
I adopted this profile awhile ago, so I don't know the details of how it was created.
Leland only gives his source as that Ashchenald was documented as being a land owner around the Pontefract area pre-Conquest. This is not born out by records of PASE and the Open Domesday Project. Nor is he mentioned in local historical records other than the links back to Leland.
Unless someone can come up with corroboration of his existence I would suggest deleting this person from the records.