Did someone named Bretel own land in England before the Conquest?
Open Domesday shows someone named Bretel (no last name) holding land called Trevillyn in 1066, which
was a settlement in Domesday Book, in the hundred of Tybesta and the county of Cornwall.
That’s big news. But is it the same Bretel?
The image below is from Domesday. No last name of this Bretel is mentioned. See the entire page here –
https://opendomesday.org/place/SX0461/trevillyn/
Bretel looks to have been a name originating in
pre-Conquest England.
Possible origins of his given name.
The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain
and Ireland, 2016.
English usage before the Conquest, becoming Middle English Bretel , Britel, and Brutel.
Compare Godwine Brytæl, 1035 in Tengvik (Dorset). (ii) relationship name,
alternatively in some instances from the Middle English personal name * Bretel or * Bertel ,
an unrecorded survival of Old English Beorhtel.
Early bearers: given names: Bretel , 1086 in Domesday Book (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset,
and Somerset); Bretellus de Amber’, 1130 in Pipe Rolls (Hants). surnames: Reginald Bretel ,
1169 in Pipe Rolls (Hunts).
Any study of Bretel St Clair must include
his major tenant-in-chief,
Robert Count of Mortain.
At the time of the Domesday Inquest, Robert, count of Mortain was
associated with 994 places. They stretch from Marske
by-the-Sea in North Yorkshire, England south to Eastbourne,
East Sussex, then west to St. Just, Cornwall.
See – https://www.chct.info/histories/st-just-in-penwith-st-just/
As William the Conqueror’s half brother – they shared Herleva of Falaise as their mother –
he was rewarded handsomely for his assistance to the Conqueror.
Citation –
‘Text of the Somerset Domesday: Part 2’, in A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 1, ed.
William Page (London, 1906), pp. 479-526. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol1/pp479-526 [accessed 24 December 2019].
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