Kilvert Ligulfsson

• Son of Ligwulf
• Birth: circa 991 in Northumberland, England
• Death: 1017 (22-30) in England
• Symeon of Durham. De obsessione Dunelmi (late 11th or early 12th century) says: "'Ecgfritha, the daughter of bishop Ealdhun, whom earl Uchtred sent away, became the wife of a certain thegn in Yorkshire, namely, Kilvert, son of Ligwulf; their daughter, Sigrida, became the wife of Arkil, son of Ecgfrith, and she bore him a son named Gospatric.'" (Source: Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England)
• Notes ◦the daughter of Bishop Ealdun, whom Earl Uhtred had dismissed. was taken by Kilvert, son of Ligulf. a Yorkshire thegn; from whom he fathered a daughter named Sigrid: Arkil, son of Ecgfrith, took her as his wife from whom he had a son called Cospatric. Cospatric married the daughter of Dolfin. son of Torfin, and they had a son called Cospatric who recently had to fight against Waltheof son of Aelfsige. Kilvert, son of Ligulf, dismissed the daughter of Bishop Ealdun, Ecgfrida, at which the bishop told her to come back to Durham at once. To comply with what her father had ordered, she returned with Barmpton, Skirningham and Elton which she had retained in her own hand, and she gave back her own lands with herself to the church and the bishop. Later on she took the veil and served well until the end of her days, and was buried in the cemetery of Durham where she awaits Judgement Day. A Study of Marriage and Murder in Eleventh-century Northumbria:Issue 82 By Christopher J. Morris]

Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, Volume 4

BIOGRAPHICAL NUTES ON THE YORKSHIRE TENANTS. Page 385

(afterwards earl), Edgar Atheling. the four sons of Karl, and others, with the nssistance of the burghers of York, made a desperate attack on the royal fortress there, of which William Malet was governor, but they were surprised by the active king and surrounded.

Many were slain and many were taken prisoners, but Arkill was among those who escaped by flight. (1b. IV. v.) Arkill's estates were no doubt then forfeited, and Gospatric, probably still his father's hostage, would have been sacrificed had he not found favour in the king's eyes.

Again, Arkill and the others, assisted by the Danes, attacked York, 1069; this time the city was taken and sacked, but the ultimate consequences were as disastrous as before, and we do not hear of him again. It is said he escaped to Scotland, and king Malcolm granted him the lands which afterwards constituted the earldom of Lennox, his grandson Alwyne, son of his son Arkill, being the first earl.' What further we know of his son, Gospatric, is recorded by Simeon of Durham, who states that his mother was Sigrida, (daughter of the Yorkshire thane, Kilvert, son of Ligulf), who had been the wife of another Arkill, (son of Fridgist), and also of earl Eadulf.

Arkill had with this wife, who was a granddaughter of bishop Aldun, certain lands of the see of Durham, which he gave back to St. Cuthbert after her death. Gospatric took to wife a daughter of Dolfin, son of Thorfin, and had a son, Gospatric, who "of late ought to have fought with " (his cousin) Waltheof, son of Eilsi of Tees, perhaps about some of those lands of the see of Durham, which bishop Aldun had given his daughter, from whom they were both descended.

This tenant in capite was the only Englishman in Yorkshire who found sufficient favour with the Conqueror to be allowed to keep any of his private estate:-some, as we shall sce, were permitted to retain their thane-lands, but all of them, with this exception, were deprived of their own pro-perty. Gospatric himself was probably the king's thane of that name, who retained lands as such in Holden and Heworth, for in the latter place he had also another estate.

• It is not improbable that Arkill had been another member of this family: Gitatrice Younger brothers and res to 54 MPs Abbey, wine shuenter cover into faVour Dis initience. Cops, son of relat, who witnease a de Mantickl. charter of earl Alan, c 15, may lave.

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Gospatric continued to hold, besides certain lands, thirty-two manors (distinctly so named), which had been his in the days of King Edward the Confessor; some twenty or more of these were in that part of Burghshire (now Claro Wapen-take) between the rivers Ure and Nidd, and between the towns of Ripon, Aldborough, Knaresborough, and Pateley Bridge.

In this district his lands were intermixed with those of William de Perci and Gilbert Tison, chiefly the former. We need only notice the following, as affording some means of identifying him and his descendants, among whom some of his lands seem to have been distributed. At Marton he had twelve carucates, the largest are held by him at any one place; it was formerly rated at only 40s., and now at 20s.,and perhaps he had a hall there. Farnham is the only place in the whole number stated to have had a church.

At Stanley (South ?) he had a manor and eight carucates; at Stolley (Staveley or Studley ?), a manor and lands, but they were waste. In three other places, Aldfield, Bickerton, and Burton, he had obtained manors, formerly belonging to Arkill, his father; only, however, a very small portion of the latter's former estate. In Weardley, he had the manors of Ligulf and Saxulf, whose heir he may have been, through his mother, daughter of the thane Kilvert, son of Liulph, or Ligulf.

We also find that he retained a manor of nine caru-cates of land and 100 acres of mendow in Sledmere, an outlying estate which, no doubt, had come to him through his mother, for Kilvert, and Thorfin also, had held a manor here, which the earl of Mortain obtained. Gospatric had a few other manors out of Burghshire, but adjoining it, and the fief of most if not of all of these lands, Nigel de Albini, or Roger de Mowbray obtained with others from Heury I. Alan, son of Thurstan,? ' son of Gospatric, exchanged with archbishop Roger all the lands which his father and ancestors held in Stanley (see abore) of the archbishop's fief, for lands in Bishopton and Ripshire, by deed dated at Ripon, in the archbishop's court, " in the mineteenth year of king Henry nephew of king Henry," 1173. (Mon. Angl. vi. 1191.) 'The descendants of another son. Dolphin, it is said, retained Staveley.

NAMED IN DOMESDAY BOOK, Page 387

In Langburgh wapentake, and other parts of the North Riding, Gospatric (the same no doubt) had held Brafferton, Harton, Ulveston, and fourteen other manors, but the king was retaining them in his own hands. At Ulveston this tenant in capite holds also another manor, not retained by the king, which serves to identify him as the same Gospatric. Among the fourteen others, we find Cayton and Allerston, which his descendants afterwards held, although they were retained by the king at the date of the Survey.

Uctred de Alverstain, (Allerston), son of Gospatric, gave to prior Serlo (ob. c. 1102), and the monks of Whitby, two carucates of land in Kaiton (all which, by the Survey, Gos-patric had there in the days of king Edward), on condition they would receive him into their house, should he choose at any time to leave the world; and Thorfin, his son, gave them the church at Crosby-Ravenswart, in Westmorland, about 1140. Thorfin's son, Alan, left a daughter and heiress, Helen, whom Thomas de Hastings married, and their present representative in the male line is the Earl of Hunting-don. Nor was this all Gospatric's former estate, for his manor of Misham had been given to Ernes de Burun; three others to Roger the Poictevin count; two to the earl of Mortain; and four, with lands in Thoresby and other places, to earl Alan, who allowed him to hold them under him, as also to succeed Arkill as his tenant in eight others.

These hunts in Thoresby, if we may trust that fine old "Rotulus Ilistorico-Genealogieus " of Henry VI's time,? descended by another son, Dolfin, to the family called de Thoresby, which procluced an archbishop of York, and our genial old autiquary of Leeds, who was not a little proud of his long pedigree, "series longissima. Per tot dueta viros antiqui al origine gentis.

Gospatrie's property was, it seems, divided among his sons, who sunk to be under-tenants of what chey retained. They were Gospatric, only mentioned by Simeon of Durham, but perhaps the father of Thurstan named above; Uchtred of Allerston and Kaston, and Dolfin of Staveley (?)

Sources

• Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England By Richard Fletcher - https://books.google.com/books?id=Mz7k0NeveBYC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&d...
• Wikipedia of Aldhun of Durham - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldhun
• EADWULF (-murdered 1041). Simeon of Durham names "Aldred, Eadulf and Cospatric" as the three sons of "Uchtred"[354]. Simeon of Durham records that Eadwulf succeeded in Northumbria after his brother Ealdred was murdered but that he was "put to death by Siward"[355]. Named son of Uhtred by Roger of Hoveden, second of the three sons he lists, specifying that he succeeded his brother as Earl of Northumbria [356]. He was betrayed and murdered on the orders of King Harthacnut[357]. m as her second husband, SIGRIDA, [widow] of ARKIL (son of Fridegist), daughter of KILVERT & his wife Ecgfrida. Simeon of Durham's Account of the Siege of Durham records that "Sigrida, the daughter of Kilvert and of Ecgfrida, the daughter of bishop Aldun" (first wife of Eadwulf's father Uhtred) married "Arkil the son of Fridegist, and earl Eadulf, and Arkil the son of Ecgfrith" - https://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/minibios/s/Uchtred-Buccle...
• The Historical Works of Simeon of Durham, By Simeon (of Durham) - https://books.google.com/books?id=mBI5AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA768&lpg=PA768&d...
• A History of Northumberland, in Three Parts: General history of the country By John Hodgson, John Hodgson-Hinde, James Raine, John Collingwood Bruce - https://books.google.com/books?id=D1IGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=...
• Marriage and Murder in Eleventh-century Northumbria: A Study of 'De ...By Christopher J. Morris - https://books.google.com/books?id=Crnv8jaK7hkC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=...
• The Church Historians of England: Reformation Period, Volume 3, Part 2, By John Foxe - https://books.google.com/books?id=xNnRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA768&lpg=PA768&d...
• Fryde et al. 1996, Handbook of British Chronology p. 214
• Fryde et al. 1996, Handbook of British Chronology p. 216
• Fletcher 2003, Bloodfeud p. 70
• a b Rollason 2004, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• a b Stenton 1971, Anglo-Saxon England p. 418 footnote 2
• a b Williams 2003, Æthelred the Unready pp. 72–73
• Fletcher 2003, Bloodfeud pp. 75
• Stirnet Genealogy, Peter Barns-Graham, Temp06 (Reliability: 3)
• Stirnet Genealogy, Peter Barns-Graham, Swinton01 (Reliability: 3)
• Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England Illustrated Edition by Richard Fletcher
• "The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Volume 4," by The Association, 1877