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Thurbrand, nicknamed "the Hold", was a Northumbrian magnate in the early 11th century. Perhaps based in Holderness and East Yorkshire, Thurbrand was recorded as the killer of Uhtred the Bold, Earl of Northumbria. The killing appears to have been part of the war between Sweyn Forkbeard and Cnut the Great against the English king Æthelred the Unready, Uhtred being the latter's chief Northumbrian supporter. Thurbrand may also have attested a charter of 1009 and given a horse to Æthelred's son Æthelstan Ætheling. The killing is the first-known act, if it did not initiate, a bloodfeud between Thurbrand's family and Uhtred going into the time of Earl Waltheof. It is possible that Holderness took its name because of Thurbrand's presence or ownership of the peninsula.
Feudalism as practiced in the Kingdoms of England during the medieval period was a state of human society that organized political and military leadership and force around a stratified formal structure based on land tenure. As a military defence and socio-economic paradigm designed to direct the wealth of the land to the king while it levied military troops to his causes, feudal society was ordered around relationships derived from the holding of land. Such landholdings are termed fiefdoms, traders, fiefs, or fees.
References
- 1 2 Chisholm 1911.
- ↑ Brooks, "Arms, status and warfare", pp. 91–2.
- ↑ Friar, Stephen (2001). The Sutton Companion to Local History (rev. ed.). Stroud: Sutton Publishing. p. 209. ISBN 0-7509-2723-2.
- Abels, Richard. Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England. London, 1988.
- Abels, Richard. "Heriot." The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge et al. Oxford: Blackwell: 1999. 235–6.
- Brooks, Nicholas (1978). "Arms, status and warfare in late-Saxon England". In Hill, David (ed.). Ethelred the Unready: papers from the millenary conference. BAR British series. Vol. 59. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. pp. 81–103. ISBN 086054043X.
- Stafford, Pauline. "King and kin, Lord and Community." In Gender, Family and the Legitimation of Power.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Heriot". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 364.
