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Erchenbald the Fleming, Domesday landholder
(c1024 - c1104)
Basic information about this person: \click here\
Erchenbald the Fleming was a knight of William the Conqueror who fought at Hastings and was rewarded with estates in Devon, Cornwall and Oxfordshire. Recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, he is the earliest known Fleming ancestor in the British Isles.
A Flemish knight in Normandy
Erchenbald was born around 1024, a son of an earlier Erchenbald, described as vicecomes, a viscount or sheriff. His brothers were Gulbert and Croco. By 1042 he was a knight in the household of Duke William of Normandy, the future William the Conqueror, and in the 1040s he inherited his late father’s land in Normandy as the eldest surviving son.
The Norman Conquest
In 1066 Erchenbald mortgaged his Norman land to Hugh, the butler of Ivry, presumably to equip himself for the invasion of England, and on 14 October 1066 he fought at the Battle of Hastings. In November 1067 he conveyed his inherited Norman land to the abbey of the Holy Trinity at Rouen, and the following month he settled in England.
Domesday landholder
By 1068 Erchenbald had obtained estates in Devon, Cornwall and Oxfordshire, including land near Launceston in Cornwall held as a tenant of Osbern fitz Osbern. Around 1070 he built a motte and bailey castle at Chumhill in Devon. In about 1076 his overlord at Launceston seems to have changed to Robert, Count of Mortain, the Conqueror’s half-brother.
In the Domesday survey of 1086 Erchenbald was recorded as holding estates in both Cornwall and Devon. Around 1103 he restored a tenancy to Bernard the Scribe, and he may have inherited further estates in Cornwall from his late cousin Osbern fitz Osbern, Bishop of Exeter. He died around 1104.
Legacy
Erchenbald’s sons were Stephen, William and John. Through Stephen he was the grandfather of Erchenbald le Fleming, first Baron of Slane in Ireland, and of Baldwin of Biggar, whose descendants held Biggar until it passed by marriage to the Flemings descended from Bertolf. He is therefore an ancestor of both the Flemings of Slane and the Flemings of Biggar and Cumbernauld.