In the process of looking for duplicates of Coel Hen (Old King Cole), I thought I’d try looking for the Englishing of the name, Cole, and found this family. And it has made me Sad.
The Coles of England aren’t connected to Coel Hen, though I have found plenty of web sites on Cole genealogy which says they are.
The supposed father of this man, James Cole, is Cola, Ethelweard's High Reeve — I just detached him from parents who couldn’t have been his on account of having died before he was born, so that’s nice and cleaned up.
Here is the problem:
“General” Cole did exist. His name was Cola. That’s not his last name, that’s just his name. The Anglo Saxons didn’t have last names.
We know about him from the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. Cola, Ethelred’s “high reeve” fought the Danes at Pinhoe in 1001 and lost.
That’s it.
The Coles show up in various places later in the Domesday Book.
But not only do we have no evidence of Cola’s family (his wife needs to get detached), this son can’t exist. Nobody was named James in England in 1001. Same thing with his son William. Also impossible.
If we follow the line down, we get to William Cole, Saxon lord of Devonshire. Now maybe this guy existed and maybe he didn’t — I haven’t been to see if I can find him — but if his name is William, and it’s 1140, he isn’t a Saxon Lord.
But! He has a son who is in the records! William Cole of Cornwall In Cornwall! But what that has to do with his dad I cannot tell. As, if he existed, it was I. A different piece of the country.
This line needs to be taken apart, and referenced.
Erica Howton You’re curating some of these — do you remember how they got put together?
(The “General Justice” title on Cola totally sets my teeth on edge. I can’t find, at the moment on the iPad, the actual Anglo Saxon that the Chronicle uses to describe him. But seeing General Justice on an Anglo Saxon Profile — not good.)
