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"Turchil was the only Saxon magnate to increase his territories after the Norman conquest and was the largest landholder in Warwickshire at the time of the Domesday survey."[1]
Turchil of Warwick and Arden has long been recognized as a rare case of an Anglo-Saxon who managed to continue holding significant lands in the area where his family had been important before 1066. Nevertheless, although he was still a tenant-in-chief in 1086, a "feudal baron", he (or perhaps his heir) were later "demoted" to holding fewer lands, and holding them under the new French Earl, Henry "of Newburgh".
This history is not only interesting to genealogists and antiquarians. In the 16th century Turchil was the subject of intense investigation and dispute because of the implications for the claims of the powerful Dudley earls,[1] and in recent generations historians specialized in this period have paid special attention to Turkil and his family, including Ann Williams[2][3], Katharine Keats-Rohan[4], David Crouch, and Peter Coss. The great pre-WW1 genealogist J. H. Round commented on him at length in the VCH edition of Warwickshire Domesday Book (p.283ff).
For future research it is interesting to note that during this exact period (about 1056-1086) there was an important man who was also called Thurcil of Warwick who is known in numismatics as a moneyer.[5] Could they be the same person? It might explain his success with the Normans!
First name. Ignoring spelling-method differences, Turchil and Turkil can be thought of as medieval French attempts at his real English name Thurkil (Þurcil in Old English letters). In Latin he was Turchillus or Turkillus, as in French, but with the variable grammatical endings.[6]
The French spellings are the only ones found in writing. In Domesday Book Warwickshire, he is called "Turchil de Warwic" (of Warwick) where he has his own section as one of the tenants-in-chief.[7]
An earlier record from 1072, in which he appears with his father and one brother, calls him "Turkil filius Agelwini" (son of Agelwinus) which represents the same pronunciation.[8]
Two later charters concerning Chesterton and Hill, dated 1066-1087 and 1087-1100, call him (in Latin) "Turkillus" de Ardene or Eardene (of Arden), which again represents the same pronunciation.[9] The second one, importantly, refers to the fact that King William II "Rufus" had granted all the lands of Turkil to Earl Henry of Warwick. Williams (1988 p.291) believes this happened about 1088.[2]
Confirming the nature of the connection to Arden, another about the same Chesterton and Hill, from the same monastery, describes Turkil as a great noble of the English who dwells in the area of Arden. (It also mentions his son Siward.)[10]
Turchil or Turkil is a name which appears many times in Domesday,[11] It was an Anglo-Norse name, which had been common since at least King Cnut's time and was an imported contraction of an older imported name "Thorketil", which was itself also still in use in many countries including Normandy.[12]
Turchil's brothers also have Norse-style names, and Williams proposed that Alwin his father had a wife with Norse ancestry.[2]
Some modern historians "correct" his name to Norse forms with such spellings as "Thorkell" (Ann Williams), or "Thorkil" (Keats-Rohan, Open Domesday website).[13]
Second name. Like most people at the time, he probably was not seen as having a family name. However:
Williams even suggests that Thorkil himself may have been sheriff of Warwickshire, although she also points out that there is no direct evidence for this, and even his father's shrievalty was not necessarily of Warwickshire. She writes (1988 p.290) that "the fact that Domesday Book refers to Thorkil as Thorkil of Warwick, though elsewhere he is known as Thorkil of Arden, is surely crucial".[2]
Birth. 1040 is an approximation on the following basis:
Death. 1095 is an approximation on the following basis:
In the Warwickshire Domesday "Aluuin" (or Alwin) is several times described as a father of Turchil, and predecessor of him at some of his lands. In an entry for Barston, it is specified that he was both father of Turchil and sheriff.[17] (There is also an Alwin who is a tenant of Turchil, but no sign that the father is still alive in 1086.)
Apart from Domesday Book, as mentioned already, Thurkil appears in a charter of 1072.[8] This charter names him as the son of Agelwinus the sheriff. Agelwinus and Alwin are both standard ways in which the Old English name Æthelwine was rendered in Anglo-Norman documents.
Concerning the ancestry of Thurkil's father, see his father's article.
Williams and Keats-Rohan agree that Thorkell of Warwick had brothers named Guthmund (who is named as a brother in Domesday) and Ketelbjorn (Ketelbearne) (who is named as a brother in the 1072 charter). Williams notes that both Guthmund and Thorkell held land of William fitzAnsculf.[3]
Despite popular ideas to the contrary there does not appear to be any clear evidence about who Thurkil married. Nevertheless, since at least Dugdale, it has generally been believed that Thorkel had two marriages.
The first surviving record of any wife is from centuries later, at the end of the middle ages in the so-called "Rous Roll" by John Rous (late 15th century Warwickshire).[18]
The first wife described by Rous was a french countess of Perche. Keats-Rohan (1989) defends Rous and the records he left as a potentially helpful source for some other facts, but says concerning this first marriage that "Rous's assertion that Thorkil's first wife was the widow of Arnulf count of Perche and mother of his daughter Margaret, wife of Earl Henry of Warwirk, is not accepted by historians".
The second wife is referred to as Leverunia or Leveruna with whom Thorkil supposedly had a younger son named Osbert.[19] Keats-Rohan in her 1989 article found Leveruna also in Rous "a daughter of Earl Algar and Ælfeva, sister of Earls Edwin and Morcar and of Aldith, and second cousin of Thorkil himself".[4][20]
Like Dugdale before her, Keats-Rohan in her 1999 Domesday People continued to accept that there were two wives, and especially that the second one was named Leveruna, because of surviving legal evidence from some generations later, concerning Kingsbury.[21]
Williams called this interpretation of the legal records into question. According to her, the second wife supposedly named Leveruna (which could correspond to English Leofrun), daughter of Earl Aelfgar, is dubious: "the earliest evidence for a wife of Thorkell of this name comes from an inquest of 1208, in which she is described as the mother of Osbert of Arden. (Curia Regis Rolls, v, p. 241). Osbert of Arden, however, was the grandson, not the son of Thorkell; his father was Siward of Arden and his mother was probably Siward's wife Cecilia (PRO E13/76 m 71r). "[3]
See the profile for Thurkil's wife.
Domesday Book shows that Turchil was already holding land before the Battle of Hastings in Warwickshire, although his father was still alive. The PASE and OpenDomeday websites interpret Baddesley Ensor as such a manor, and it is used as an example on the internet. However the entry only says two of Turchil's men, apparently referring to their status in 1086, held it, along with Wolfhamcote. Instead, Warwickshire manors of a Turchil in 1086 which were held by Turchil in 1066 are Ashow and Brandon. As Round (1904, p.283) points out out he also held property in the town of Warwick itself.
Round (1904, p.283) believed it "may not impossibly have been Turchil 'of Warwick' himself" who was listed as one of the English magnates who submitted to William at his coronation.[22]
Because they maintained so much status, scholars have tended to propose that Aelfwine and his son Turchill must have been relatively quick to either support William the Conqueror, or at least not support the controversial king Harold, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But there are no records which refer clearly to any such actions or support.
There has even been a tendency starting in the 19th century to speculate in a romanticized and patriotic way. Turchil, said Freeman, was a traitor, "as he would be called in the mouths of his more stout-hearted countrymen", who "reaped his reward".[23]
Round as usual was sceptical of such remarks and pointed-out the possibility, now widely accepted (for example by Williams and Keats-Rohan), that Turchil was a supportive and successful representative of his local kin during the Norman consolidation of power, and that Warwickshire seems to be a shire where English land-holders maintained more status than elsewhere, even though they often became sub-tenants (as Turchil himself also did eventually).[24]
It should be kept in mind however that Turchil's tenancy-in-chief was apparently taken and given to the Beaumont family, who William II assigned as the new Earls of Warwick. His family continued as mesne lords in a reduced, but still important position.
(Also see discussion above.)
Thurkil was a common name, but in 1086, Thorkil of Warwick is associated with at least 52 places in Warwickshire where he was tenant-in-chief, meaning he had no landlord above him except the king. He was also a sub-tenant in more places, and had holdings in Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, and possibly more places. Thurkil's Domesday holdings (including maps):
He had at least one son:
One grandson is sometimes described as a son:
Children according to William Dugdale (17th century)[25]
Marriage 1:
Marriage 2 to "Leverunia":
Daughter according to John Rous (15th century). Rous made Margaret, daughter of the Count of Perche in France, and the wife of the first Norman Earl of Warwick into Thurkil's wife (as daughter of the Count of Perche) and daughter (wife of the Earl of Warwick), effectively splitting her into two generations. As Keats-Rohan (1989) says, this is rejected by modern historians.
Alleged children who have been de-linked from Thurkil. No basis has been found that the following persons are sons of Turchil and his alleged de Perche mother, and they therefore have been disconnected from this family:
See also:
Featured German connections: Turchil is 27 degrees from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 34 degrees from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 30 degrees from Lucas Cranach, 31 degrees from Stefanie Graf, 30 degrees from Wilhelm Grimm, 30 degrees from Fanny Hensel, 36 degrees from Theodor Heuss, 28 degrees from Alexander Mack, 45 degrees from Carl Miele, 25 degrees from Nathan Rothschild, 30 degrees from Hermann Friedrich Albert von Ihering and 27 degrees from Ferdinand von Zeppelin on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
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Categories: Arden Family | Domesday Book | Anglo-Saxon Survivors
2. And the 15th century text by Rous in his narrative that linked Thorkil and Alwin with the legendary Guy of Warwick: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c2525607?urlappend=%3Bseq=112
Round writes (Intro to Wks DD in VCH Wks Vol.1): "On what ground Turchil (or his son and heir, Siward) was deprived of his extensive fief we cannot tell; but the fact that, in Mr Freeman's words, 'he stands out more conspicuously in Domesday than any other Englishman' would be of itself enough to excite the cupidity of Normans. That his house however was not doomed to such ruin and destruction as was the fate of others is shown by the fact that his descendants held some tend knights' fees under the Earls of Warwick." https://archive.org/details/victoriahistoryo00doubuoft/page/277