Berkeley, 1272–1741 · 195 records · found 15 September 2026

The name in its own century

Smyth's pedigree of the Swonhungers, checked against the deeds Smyth was reading — and one generation he did not print.

This archive has carried John Smyth's pedigree of the Swonhungers on Smyth's own authority since 13 September — six generations, from a John who married a Stone coheir to the John who died without issue in 1401. Today the deeds Smyth was reading were found in a catalogue, and they do better than agree with him. They confirm him from the parchment, and they add a generation he did not print.

Method

Why it had not been found before

The Discovery catalogue was searched on 14 September and returned seventy-one records — under SANIGER. That is the modern spelling. The medieval clerks did not use it, and this archive's own alias list has carried the medieval forms for weeks without anybody running them against a catalogue.

Spelling searched	Records	What it is
Swonhungre	126	the commonest medieval form
Swonhongre	55	the same name, the scribe's other vowel
Saniger	71	searched on 14 September — the modern form
Sanigar	44	mostly modern, and mostly elsewhere
Sanniger	4	two of them matter: Berkeley 1694, Chepstow 1806
Swonhunger	2	the spelling Smyth himself printed — almost unused by the clerks
Swanhanger	3	the form that survived into the estate papers
Sanigor · Sinegar · Swanhunger	6	one useful, the rest false
Sanigre · Sannigar · Synigar · Swonhanger · Swanhangar	0	tested, and empty

One hundred and ninety-five unique records across thirteen spellings, of which a hundred and seventy-eight are at Berkeley Castle. Seventeen of the twenty-five read closely today were new to this archive. The lesson is narrow and cheap: this site already knew the old spellings — it uses them in its own search index — and had simply never spent them on somebody else's catalogue.documented

BCM/A/1/24/266 · temp. Edward I, 1272–1307 · quote GC1555

The surname being made, in one line of a deed

Thomas de Swonhungre, son of Thomas de Esshelesworth documented

The father is named from one place and the son from another. Four and a half acres in the field called Alilonde pass to Henry le Grout of Berkeley for a penny a year, a pound of cumin, and seven marks down.

This is what a locative surname looks like before it is a surname. The son is not called Swonhungre because his father was; he is called it because he lives there. A generation later the name is heritable, and by 1356 it is being inspected in charters as a family name.

And where the father came from

Esshelesworth is ASHLEWORTH, a Gloucestershire parish on the Severn north of Gloucester — Domesday's Escelesworde. And the Berkeley deeds have the transaction that made the surname. BCM/A/1/24/67, late Henry III and so before 1272: «Maurice de Berkel' and THOMAS DE ASSHELWORTH. Maurice has granted to Thomas 7 acres of land in the MANOR OF HAMME, next to the road between the new ditch and Bradeflet; rent 2s. 11d. a year, and Thomas has given him one bezant.» The manor of Ham contains the hamlet of Swonhungre. inferred

A man from Ashleworth buys into Ham in the 1260s. In the next reign his son is Thomas de Swonhungre, son of Thomas de Esshelesworth — named not from his father's place but from his own. Two deeds, a generation apart, and between them the whole mechanism by which this surname exists. The witnesses to the 1260s grant include Peter de Wika and Thomas de Wike — the family whose inheritance Alice de Swonhongre would share eighty years later.

And what it is not. Graded INFERRED, not documented. The two deeds name a Thomas de Asshelworth and a Thomas de Esshelesworth; nothing in either says they are the same man, and the identification rests on the name, the place, the manor and the generation lining up. That is a strong case and it is still a case.

BCM/A/1/24/261 · St Mark the Evangelist, 15 Edward II · quote GC2376

Saniger and Swonhungre, in the same sentence, in 1322

Denise Bolcard, widow, leases Philip son of Richard Couthulf of Saniger one selion of land in the field called Westfeld, in the furlong called Kyngakre, «beside the path from Berkel' to Swonhungre», for life, at a halfpenny a year. The witnesses include WILLIAM DE SWONHUNGRE. The deed was executed AT SANIGER.

Smyth wrote in about 1639 that the place was «Swonhunger; corruptly called Saniger», which reads as an antiquary reporting a later corruption. This deed is three hundred years before Smyth and uses both forms at once — a man of Saniger, a path to Swonhungre, a witness surnamed de Swonhungre, and Saniger as the place the scribe was standing in. They were not successive spellings. They were contemporaneous ones. documented

The Berkeley deeds

Smyth confirmed from the parchment, and one generation added

Three deeds carry genealogical statements. Two of them match what Smyth printed; the third gives a generation above where his pedigree starts.

Reference	Date	What it says	Effect
BCM/A/1/56/29	6 Oct 1354	«William Swonhongre, COUSIN AND ONE OF THE HEIRS OF THOMAS DE STONE; and Walter Hurste and Joan his wife, cousin and coheir of the said Thomas» — an indenture dividing a messuage and a virgate in Nibbeleye. Smyth says William «took a third partition of the family lands in 27 Edward III». This is that partition, in the original, at 28 Edward III.	confirms Smyth
BCM/A/1/24/184	1 May 1356	«William Swonhungre, brother and heir of Thomas Swonhungre of Wanswell» inspects «a charter of JOHN SWONHUNGRE, HIS FATHER, SON AND HEIR OF JOHN SWONHUNGRE». The catalogue adds: «[Transcript: Smyth, iii. 380-1.]»	confirms Smyth, and adds a generation
MS 3549/4	14th century	A grant in fee tail by the vicar of Berkeley and the rector of Stanley to «WILLIAM SWONHUNGRE AND ISABELLA HIS WIFE». Held not at Berkeley Castle but at Birmingham.	confirms Smyth

The generation that was not there. Smyth's pedigree opens with a John Swonhunger who married Alice, younger daughter and coheir of Thomas de Stone. The 1356 inspeximus says that John was himself «son and heir of John Swonhungre» — so there is a John above the John the printed pedigree begins with. And Smyth gives William's first wife as Isabel; a deed at Birmingham, which Smyth is unlikely to have seen, names her Isabella.

The pedigree on this site was carried as INFERRED because it rested on one antiquary transcribing deeds nobody here had seen. The deeds have now been seen — as modern catalogue descriptions, not as parchment — and they say what he said. That moves the spine of it, not every twig. documented

And what has not been seen. What has been read is the archivists' calendar of each deed, not the deed. A calendar is a summary made by somebody competent who had the original in front of them; it is excellent evidence and it is not the document. The deeds are at Berkeley Castle, at Birmingham, at Hertford and at Kew, and none of them has been seen by this archive.

Smyth's pedigree, as this archive had it →

DE/M/95 · Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies · 14 March 20 Edward III, 1346 · given at Berkeley

Three women, three families, and one inheritance divided

«Between JOHN CAPEL, THOMAS DE SWONHONGRE and JOHN DE LOREWYNGE: whereas formerly a purparty was made, between JOAN CAPEL, MOTHER OF THE SAID JOHN CAPEL, HER HEIR, ALICE DE SWONHONGRE, ANCESTOR OF THE SAID THOMAS AND HER HEIR, and AGNES DE LOREWYNGE, ANCESTOR OF JOHN DE LOREWYNGE, HER HEIR, OF THE INHERITANCE IN HAMME OF JOHN DE WYKE» — the garden and «la Crane», Bruggecroft, Redecroft, Cleycroft, Portrerecroft, Stapelyngferlong, Stapelyngmede and Hammemede, now redivided between the three men by metes and bounds. documented

A purparty is the share of an inheritance split between coheirs. Three women — Joan, Alice and Agnes — each took a third of the inheritance of JOHN DE WYKE in Ham, and a generation later their three heirs are redividing it. So Alice de Swonhongre was one of three coheirs of John de Wyke, and Thomas de Swonhongre holds through her. The land came into this family through a woman, and the deed says so twice over.

And John de Wyke is a neighbour, not a stranger. Smyth lists the hamlets of Hamfallow as «Wike ats Wikes-elme, Wanefwell, Swonhunger ats Saniger, Halmer ats Ecton, and Egeton». Wyke is the hamlet next door. A man named from one hamlet leaves land to three daughters who marry into three others — which is what a small vale full of small holdings looks like from the inside.

Why a Berkeley deed is in Hertfordshire. Raised as a question on the work list and answered from the catalogue's own hierarchy: DE/M is «Personal and family papers of the CAPELLS, EARLS OF ESSEX, including 17th-century personal papers and title deeds of their Essex and Hertfordshire [estates]». The first party to the deed is John Capel. It stayed in his family's muniments and travelled with them out of Gloucestershire — which is why no search of a Gloucestershire repository would ever have found it. Berkeley Castle keeps its own copy as BCM/A/1/24/297; the deed itself says three copies were sealed.

The women this archive can name →

BCM/A/1/24/185 · 11 April 51 Edward III, 1377

And the fish-traps turn up again

Elias regrants a holding his father William had leased to William Panyter: a messuage, curtilage and garden, two crofts called Homecroftes, land at Homemersch, Homemeode and Homeolond, two parcels called Luyteleradelynch and Mecheleradelynch — and «TWO STAITHES IN THE SEVERN FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF FISH-TRAPS». The rent is halved from 26s. 8d. to 13s. 4d., and Amicia, Panyter's wife, is to have the holding for her life after him.

This archive already had Jeayes's 1892 calendar of a Berkeley charter reserving a fishery on Wednesdays and Fridays. The staithes are the same economy seen from the tenant's side: a family whose land ran to the Severn and whose rent was partly in the right to fix traps in it. documented

After 1401

The place outlives the family that was named from it

Smyth's main line ends in 1401 with a John who died without issue, and the estate passes to Thorpe. The name on the ground does not stop.

Reference	Date	What it is
BCM/A/1/67/13	13 Nov 1428	«John Swonhungre the elder» — with John Byrden, chaplain, and William Brown of Berkeley
MS 3549/187	6 April 2 Charles I, 1626	Inquisition post mortem of Henry Mallett, a minor, holding lands in Peddington, Matford and «Swanhingne Swanhanger»
D2957/41/129	17 Dec 1694	«EDWARD SANNIGER OF BERKELEY, GENT» assigns a mortgage on Window Feathers, Upper Feathers and two acres in Hamstalls, in Alkington — £100, to a Dursley clothier and a Dursley mercer
D654/III/9	1690–1741	«Messuage called Oldminsters in SWANHANGER, and lands (named) [SANIGER IN HINTON]» — the cataloguer's own square brackets, equating the two

The 1694 deed is the same household this archive already follows through the Berkeley estate papers — Edward Saniger of Saniger, clothier, mortgaging to Richard Holliday the cooper in 1692 — spelled with two n's and styled GENT two years later, in a transaction assigning that very mortgage on. documented

The National Archives

Two at Kew, from the other end of the same road

Reference	Date	What it is
E 40/11334	[1100–1603]	Grant by the warden and prior of «the hospital of the Holy Trinity of LONGEBRUG without Berkeley» to Thomas Aleyn and Alice his wife
BCM/A/1/12/92	mid 13th century	Maurice lord of Berkeley grants the same Thomas Aleyn and Alice a messuage, garden, curtilage and croft in the town of Berkeley, «between THE KING'S HIGHWAY FROM LONGEBRUGGE TO SWONHUNGER» and the road to Richard Averey's house — rent 12s., and a tun of wine
E 40/12147	6 Oct 1339	Release by Richard Adames of Pedynton to John Broun of Weneswelle and Alice his wife, of land «in SWONHONGRE AND WENESWELLE»

The highway runs from Longbridge to Swonhunger, and Longbridge has a hospital whose grants name the same couple as the Berkeley charter. Swonhungre and Wanswell sit side by side in 1339, and in 1356 a man is «Thomas Swonhungre OF WANSWELL». The hamlet is being mapped by its roads and its neighbours rather than asserted. documented

BCM/A/4/2/22 · Monday before St Nicholas, 14 Richard II · at Wotton · quote GC3842

Why they hold of Berkeley, said outright in 1390

Thomas de Berkeley, lord of Berkeley, and John Coueleye. Thomas has granted to John THE MARRIAGE OF JOHN SWONHONGRE, SON AND HEIR OF ELIAS SWONHONGRE, WHICH CAME TO THOMAS BECAUSE ELIAS HELD OF THOMAS BY KNIGHT SERVICE. documented

One sentence does three things. It gives another filiation — John son and heir of Elias. It confirms what Smyth says of that John, that he was «in ward to Thomas lord Berkeley», and shows the mechanism: the heir was under age, so his marriage fell to his lord and was sold on to John Coueleye. And it states the tenure outright — knight service of Berkeley.

And it turns an inference into a record. This archive already argued that the Swonhungers generate no royal inquisition post mortem because they were mesne tenants of Berkeley rather than tenants-in-chief of the Crown. That was reasoning from silence, and it was right. This deed says it in the lord's own words, and the reasoning can be retired.

Drawn, not described

The descent, drawn

Four generations of Stones, six of Swonhungres, five wives and three coheirs is more than a reader can hold in prose. Solid lines are links a deed states. Dashed lines are links this archive has reasoned or taken from Smyth.

stated in a deed read here from Smyth or Cooke, or reasoned

Who is not on it, and why. ALICE DE SWONHONGRE, named in 1346 as «ancestor» of a Thomas and one of three coheirs of JOHN DE WYKE, is not placed on this chart. She may be the Alice de Stone above, holding through a second inheritance, or an earlier woman of the family. The archive does not know, and a chart is the wrong place to guess. The chantry licence of 1356, which prays for «William son of William Swanhangre, and ALIENOR his mother», is left off for the same reason: the Berkeley deeds of the same year make William the son of John.

And where the two printed pedigrees differ: Smyth has ELIAS marrying Isabel Daubeney and a second Elias marrying Jone Bill; Cooke has JOHN marrying Isabel Daubeney and their son Elias marrying Joan Bill. The chart follows neither on that point — it shows the generation without naming which man took the Daubeney heiress.

All 200 Berkeley records

The rest of the Berkeley corpus, read

The sweep of 15 September found 178 Berkeley Castle deeds and read twenty-five. All two hundred now indexed under every spelling have been read for relationship language — father, son, heir, widow, wife, cousin, ancestor — and twenty-five phrases actually tie the surname to a relationship. Seven were then read in full. This is what they add.

Reference	Date	What it says	What it adds
BCM/A/1/43/44	3 June 1311	«JOHN SON OF THOMAS DE SWONHUNGRE» witnessing a Gloucestershire quitclaim at Kingston by Slimbridge, in a list of county witnesses that opens with a knight.	a filiation, and a man of standing
BCM/A/1/24/188	early 14th cent.	«Thomas lord of Berkeleye and THOMAS SON OF JOHN DE SWONHUNGRE.»	a filiation
BCM/A/1/36/24	mid 14th cent.	«Thomas lord of Berkelee; and THOMAS SON OF WILLIAM DE SWONHONGRE, MAUD HIS WIFE AND JOHN THE YOUNGER THEIR SON» — a lease of a messuage and half-virgate in Hinton «which Robert Wyntur previously held IN VILLEINAGE», for their lives, rent 20s. and the customary maintenance of the woodward.	THREE generations in one sentence
BCM/A/1/24/173	15th cent.	«JOHN SON OF JOHN DE SWONHUNGRE AND ALICE HIS WIFE.»	a filiation and a wife
BCM/A/1/12/243	24 Jan. 1377	«John Lokyntone of Berkeley; and JOHN SWONHONGRE AND EDITH HIS WIFE.»	a second wife named
BCM/A/4/2/22	5 Dec. 1390	The wardship above — John, son and heir of Elias, his marriage sold by the lord.	a filiation, a tenure, and Smyth confirmed

Six statements of kinship the archive did not have this morning, and one of them carries three generations. Put beside the three found on 15 September, the deeds now name relationships for William, Elias, Maud, Alice, Edith, Isabella and Alice de Swonhongre — four wives, a mother-in-blood and two heirs — in a family this site could describe a week ago only as «the Swonhungers». documented

And the shape of the rest. The other hundred and seventy-five records are not empty; they are mostly WITNESS LISTS. Thomas de Swonhungre witnesses Berkeley charters from the mid-13th century to about 1311, repeatedly, beside the same men — Robert de Bradeston, John de Crawleye, Robert Wyther, Geoffrey Neel, John Sewaker. A man who witnesses the lord's deeds for fifty years is a person of standing in the hundred, which is a fact about the family even though no single deed states it.

The roads and the fields

How you got there

Five deeds describe the approach to the hamlet, and between them they map it without a map.

Date	Reference	What it describes
mid 13th cent.	BCM/A/1/12/92	«the king's highway from LONGEBRUGGE to SWONHUNGER», with the road from Locfastebrugg to Richard Averey's house on the other side of a Berkeley messuage
17 Aug. 1287	BCM/A/1/25/4	«a croft in the west part of Berkel towards Swonhungre called ALAGRENE STREET», inherited by Robert le Grip from his father Walter
10 July 1317	BCM/A/1/30/4	land in Ham «lying near Swonhungre, in the field called STODFOLD», a third of it held in dower by Joan Neel
25 April 1322	BCM/A/1/24/261	a selion «in the field called WESTFELD in the furlong called KYNGAKRE, beside the path from Berkel' to Swonhungre» — the deed executed AT SANIGER
7 July 1325	BCM/A/1/24/262	a croft «in the field called LE WESTFELD beside the king's highway and the footpath from Berckel' to Swonhungre»
21 Dec. 1324	BCM/A/1/65/12	land in Lokedonne «beside the road from Berckel' to Swonhungre called LE MULEWEYE» — the mill way

And one field name outlives everything else here

LE WESTFELD is where the 1322 and 1325 deeds put the path from Berkeley to Swonhungre. The earliest deed this archive holds for its own Sanigers is D2957/41/18, dated 2 November 1601: «Release of 3 acres of arrable in WESTFIELD, SANIGER, Berkeley». The same field, under the same name, two hundred and seventy-nine years later. inferred

And what it is not. This is a continuity of PLACE, not of blood. Field names are the most conservative thing in an English parish and routinely outlast the families farming them. It strengthens the identification of Swonhungre with Saniger, which was already secure; it says nothing about whether the men of 1322 and the men of 1601 are related.

Smyth of Nibley, about 1639

And Smyth, read again for the hamlet rather than the family

Volume 3 of the Berkeley Manuscripts — Smyth's Description of the Hundred, written about 1639 — was already quoted here for «Swonhunger; corruptly called Saniger». Read again on 15 September against the deeds, it gives two things that sentence does not.

The hamlet has a place in a formal list, not just a note	«the hambletts of Wike ats Wikes-elme, WANEFWELL, SWONHUNGER ATS SANIGER, Halmer ats Ecton, and Egeton: all of them within the parifh of Berkeley» — the hamlets of Hamfallow, one of the two halves of the manor of Ham. «Ats» is ALIAS, which is a flatter and more useful word than «corruptly called»: the two names are given as equal alternatives in an estate survey.
And the neighbours are the deeds' neighbours	Wanswell sits beside Swonhunger in Smyth's list, and Wanswell is where the deeds put the family: «Thomas Swonhungre OF WANSWELL» in 1356, land «in Swonhongre and Weneswelle» in 1339. Smyth is describing in 1639 the same cluster of hamlets the Berkeley clerks were writing about three hundred years earlier.
A named property that survives into the estate papers	Smyth lists the freeholds: «Oldminfter, Kingfhill, ffrogpit, Brokend, PART OF SWONHUNGER ATS SANIGER, Shobenaffe and Metrefden», and notes «one of the 8 tith barnes within the parifh of Berkeley, called OLDMINSTER BARNE». Gloucestershire Archives D654/III/9, 1690–1741, is «Messuage called OLDMINSTERS in Swanhanger… [Saniger in Hinton]». Smyth's Oldminster and the deed's Oldminsters are one property.
A second alias statement, from a fine	«levied a fine of that and other his lands in Berkeley, WANIFWELL, HINTON, SANYGER ATS SWONHUNGER» in the reign of Henry VII — the alias again, in the other order, a hundred and forty years before Smyth wrote the sentence this archive had been quoting.

The archive had Smyth's one famous sentence. What it did not have was that Smyth says the same thing three more times in passing, in the flat language of an estate survey rather than the language of an antiquary correcting a vulgar error — and that he names a property, Oldminster, which can be followed from his survey into a deed of the 1690s. documented

TBGAS vol. VI, read entire

Reading Cooke entire, and what it does to his 1774 sentence

The article was read in fragments on 15 September and entire the same day. Nine pages on one estate, and the parts nobody here had read change how much weight the famous sentence can carry.

He says where he got it

«William Thorpe his son inherited Wanswell, and married URSULA second daughter of JOHN SMYTH, OF NIBLEY, the antiquary and steward of the Berkeley Castle Manors, TO WHOSE MS. HISTORY OF THE HUNDRED OF BERKELEY, STILL PRESERVED AT THE CASTLE, I AM INDEBTED FOR MOST OF THE FOREGOING PARTICULARS.» documented

Two things follow. The medieval descent Cooke gives is Smyth's, not independent of him — so where this archive has been treating Cooke as a second witness to Smyth, it has partly been hearing Smyth twice. And Smyth died in 1641, so the 1774 sale cannot have come from him. That statement rests on something else: most likely the Wanswell title deeds, which Cooke cites elsewhere («the settlement made on this marriage dated 23rd September, 1636, which is still among the title deeds of the estate»), or the Lysons pamphlet below. The footnote marker printed after «1774» survives in the scan; the note itself does not.

And the estate's own descent, which is not the hamlet's

1402	Isabel Swonhunger marries JOHN THORPE, a burgess of Bristol — «the first of a family of whom ten successive generations possessed Wanswell… for nearly three centuries»
1441–1469	John Thorpe dies 1441; his son adds land in Lorrenge, Walgaston, Halmer and Berkeley in 1456, probably builds the present house, and dies 1469 with the estate valued at 14 marks
1512	Thomas Thorpe is Receiver to Maurice, 14th lord Berkeley, and serves under him in Spain
1558	Nicholas Thorpe sues out his livery at 21; the manor is valued at £14 7s. 8d., «an increase of about one-third in a century»
before 1638	GEORGE THORPE «sold off much outlying property» — including, by name, «some outlying land AT SANIGER, part of the manor of Wanswell», bought by William Jones, Esq., of Nasse near Lydney — and went to Virginia
1636	William Thorpe marries Ursula Smyth; the settlement «is still among the title deeds of the estate»
1672	George Thorpe sells Wanswell, then 340 acres, to DANIEL LYSONS of Gloucester for £3,500, with mortgages of nearly £1,800 also paid off
1818	The Rev. Daniel Lysons sells it to Colonel Berkeley, afterwards EARL FITZHARDINGE — 348 acres 3 roods 11 perches, £25,769, «a more than four-fold increase in value in a century and a half». «It has ever since formed an integral portion of the Berkeley Castle estate.»

This is the answer to a question this archive had asked badly. Saniger Farm and the manor of Wanswell are not the same property. Wanswell went Thorpe → Lysons → Berkeley, and reached the Earl in 1818. Saniger was OUTLYING LAND of that manor, being sold off in parcels from George Thorpe's time — one parcel to William Jones of Nasse before 1638. So Cooke's «sold by Edward Saniger to the Earl of Berkeley in 1774» is a separate, smaller transaction, and it is the more plausible for it: a farm in family hands while the manor around it changed owners three times. documented

And a source nobody here had heard of. «In his BRIEF HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE MANOR OF WANSWELL (a quarto pamphlet of 6 pages, published in 1817, now very scarce), the Rev. D. Lysons says the purchase money was £3500…» — written by the family that owned the estate, a year before they sold it, and quoting the abstract of title.

One date to distrust. Cooke has George Thorpe going to Virginia «where he died in 1662». The George Thorpe of the Virginia Company was killed in the massacre of 1622, and a Thorpe who sold Wanswell in 1672 cannot be a man who died in 1662 — the text gives that sale to his son, also George. 1662 is probably a misprint or a misreading of 1622, and this archive is not going to repeat it as a date.

BCM/A/1/24/189–190

And behind Alice, four generations of Stones

Wanswell came to this family through Alice de Stone. Two Berkeley deeds, found while looking for something else, carry her father's line back three further generations and name two more women.

BCM/A/1/24/190 c. 1304

«THOMAS DE STONE, SON AND HEIR OF ROBERT SON OF ROBERT DE STONE, and Sir Thomas de Berkelegh. Whereas Sir Thomas sometime enfeoffed ROBERT, GRANDFATHER OF THOMAS DE STONE, of certain lands… rent £11 a year, Thomas now has difficulty in paying the rent, for which reason, on the advice of Master William de Kyngescote, Robert de Bradeston, JULIANA HIS MOTHER, Robert Wyther and his other friends, he has given up the said holdings to Sir Thomas and quitclaimed them»

BCM/A/1/24/189 early 14th cent.

And what he took instead: «1 virgate of land which Hugh de la Stompe holds IN VILLEINAGE in Waneswelle, WITH HUGH AND HIS ISSUE AND CHATTELS»; half-virgates formerly of Hugh Bouchard and Isabel Snyte; «a field called WYNTMELLEFELD with an enclosed pasture called OLDEFISCHWERE»; 2 acres at Stone in the manor of Ham and 4 acres at Wodeford in Alkynton — «to him and his issue, rent £4 10s. a year». Witnesses include Sir John Basset and Sir William de Wauton, knights.

A man who cannot pay £11 gives back the large holding and takes a smaller one at £4 10s. That smaller holding is the Wanswell estate, and it is what Alice carried into the Swonhunger family twelve years later. Cooke calls it «Wanswell, augmented by the grant of Thomas sixth lord Berkeley» and says of this very deed that it «seems to be the only foundation of the tenure of any part of the Wanswell estate from Berkeley Castle» — he was reading BCM/A/1/24/189, and this archive now has its reference. documented

The line, as the deeds give it

Robert de Stone	the great-grandfather
Robert de Stone	the grandfather — enfeoffed by Sir Thomas de Berkeley at £11 a year
Robert de Stone and JULIANA	the father and mother; Juliana is among those who advise the surrender in about 1304
THOMAS DE STONE and ELYANORA	died 1316; Elyanora held land at Kingscote, and is named in the indenture of 1329 as «mother of the aforesaid Alice and Joan»
ALICE, the younger daughter	married John Swanhunger and brought Wanswell. Her elder sister JOAN married John Serjeant and took Stone and Woodford.

And Smyth gives the same three Roberts, independently

Reading Smyth's survey for Bellamy's Place at Southend in Nibley, a mile from the other Bellamies: «This Bellamies place was anciently in the beginninge of the raigne of kinge Henry the third, and before, the land of ROBERT DE STONE, FATHER OF ROBERT DE STONE, FATHER OF THOMAS DE STONE, who in the begininge of the raigne of kinge Edward the second was in ward for the same to Thomas then lord Berkeley, and lett by him to the said Walter Bellamy for 40s. per annum.» It is held «by the xvj[th] part of a knights fee, sute to his hundred Court of Berkeley from 3. weekes to 3. weekes». documented

Three generations of Robert, Robert and Thomas, from a survey written about 1639, matching word for word the descent BCM/A/1/24/190 gives in about 1304. Two sources three hundred years apart, neither depending on the other, and this archive found them a week apart. Smyth adds a fact the deed does not: Thomas de Stone was in ward to Lord Berkeley, so he was a minor — which is worth holding against the deed's picture of a man surrendering a holding he could not pay for «on the advice of… Juliana his mother».

And the tenure repeats. Bellamy's Place is held of Berkeley by a sixteenth of a knight's fee with suit to the hundred court every three weeks — the same sixteenth Cooke found in the Ham court roll of 1600 for Wanswell. One family's two properties, held on identical terms, three centuries apart in the record.

And the field names run all the way through. WYNTMELLEFELD and OLDEFISCHWERE are granted in about 1304. Fourteen acres «in Wyndmullefeld» are excepted from the sisters' settlement of 1329. Cooke, reading the same deed in 1882, calls them «a field called Windmill field, a pasture ground called Old Fish-weir». One field and one weir, named identically across five hundred and eighty years of documents — and the weir is on the Severn, which is the fishery the 1353 partition refused to divide.

TBGAS vol. VI, 1881–82

And somebody wrote the whole thing up in 1882

This archive spent a week establishing from deeds that Swonhungre and Saniger are one name and one place, and stated plainly that it could not join the medieval family to the Sanigers of 1601 onwards. A Victorian antiquary joined them in print a hundred and forty years ago, and nobody here had opened the volume.

They were an old Berkeley family, whose patrimonial house and estate in the neighbourhood is still called SANIGER FARM, AND WAS SOLD BY EDWARD SANIGER TO THE EARL OF BERKELEY IN 1774. inferred

J. H. Cooke, F.S.A., «Wanswell Court, and its Occupants for seven centuries», Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, volume VI, 1881–82, pages 313–315 — edited by Sir John Maclean, the same man who printed the muster of 1608

If Cooke is right, the family held its patrimonial estate continuously from the thirteenth century to 1774, and the two hundred years this archive called a silence are a silence in ITS OWN EVIDENCE rather than in the family's occupation. An Edward Saniger fits: the Berkeley estate deeds have Edward Saniger of Saniger, clothier, in 1692 and gent in 1709 and 1716, and Bigland lists Edward Saniger among the freeholders of Hinton in 1791.

And why it is graded INFERRED and not documented. This is a scholar's assertion in a footnoted article, not a chain of deeds set out. Cooke had the Berkeley muniments and Smyth in front of him and he was careful elsewhere — his castle-guard paragraph refuses the received story until he can produce a court roll for it. But a sentence in a journal is a conclusion, and this archive's rule is that a conclusion is evidence of somebody's reasoning, not of the fact. The thing that would settle it is the 1774 conveyance itself. What would settle it →

The descent as Cooke gives it

Thomas de Stone

died 1316, leaving two daughters his coheiresses

ALICE, the younger

«married John Swanhunger, or Saniger» — Wanswell allotted to her, «augmented by the grant of Thomas sixth lord Berkeley». Her elder sister JOAN, wife of John Serjeant, took the Stone and Woodford estates.

The lands held in common

Nibley, Ham, Cam, Hasilcote and Kingscote, «subsequently divided by several deeds of partition in 1347 and 1353, when the lands in Hasilcote and Kingscote and a moiety of an estate in Nibley were allotted to the Swanhungers, WHO THUS BECAME CONSIDERABLE LANDOWNERS»

John Swanhunger, grandson of John and Alice

«married Isabel daughter of John de Albiniaco, or Daubeney, the lord of Kingsholm by Gloucester, through whom a fourth part of that manor… was added to the family possessions»

Their son ELIAS

«by his wife Joan daughter of John Bill, was father of John Swanhunger, or Saniger»

John Swanhunger or Saniger

«died without issue in 1402, leaving two sisters, ELIZABETH, married to James Gaynor of Kingsholm, and ISABEL, who by her sister's death without issue inherited the whole property»

Isabel

«married JOHN THORPE, A BURGESS OF BRISTOL, the first of a family of whom ten successive generations possessed Wanswell and the other family estates for nearly three centuries.» He died 1441; his son John added lands in Lorrenge, Walgaston, Halmer and Berkeley in 1456.

Where the two printed accounts disagree. One discrepancy worth keeping visible: Smyth has ELIAS marrying Isabel Daubeney and a second Elias marrying Jone Bill; Cooke has JOHN marrying Isabel Daubeney and their son Elias marrying Joan Bill. The two printed accounts differ by a generation on which man married the Daubeney heiress, and this archive has no independent means of choosing between them.

And he settles Thorpe's Tower from a court roll. Rudder says the Thorps held by guarding a tower in Berkeley Castle. Cooke refuses to take it on trust: «The only documentary evidence of this Castle-guard tenure which I have met with is in a COURT ROLL FOR THE MANOR OF HAM, holden on the 26th May, 42 Eliz. (A.D. 1600), when the Homage presented the death of NICHOLAS THORPE, who died seised of the manor of Wanswell, holden by the sixteenth part of a knight's fee, the yearly rent of £4 8s. 8d., AND BY KEEPING ONE TOWER IN THE CASTLE OF BERKELEY CALLED THORPE'S TOWER.» He adds that the chief rent «was regularly paid until 1818, when it was extinguished by Earl Fitzhardinge's purchase of the estate». documented

TBGAS, 67 volumes swept

The Society printed the deeds in full, and a pedigree with ages in it

Sixty-seven volumes of the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society are digitised in full text. All sixty-seven were swept on 15 September, each with its own Berkeley mention count as its control; one volume could not be fetched and is recorded as unread rather than as empty. TWELVE carry the name. Three of them change what this archive can say.

Volume 22, 1899 — the deeds in English, not in summary

Everything this archive has read so far is a CALENDAR: an archivist's summary of a deed. Volume 22 prints a numbered series of Berkeley-area deeds in full English translation, and two of them are ours.

No. XXXIX · 1 May, 3 Edward III — 1329

«between JOHN SON OF JOHN DE SWONHUNGRE AND ALICE HIS WIFE of the one part, and JOHN SON OF JOHN LE SERIAUNT AND JOAN HIS WIFE on the other part, DAUGHTER AND HEIR OF THOMAS DE STONE». The Swonhungres release their claim in Olverstone, Netterstone and Woodford; the Serjeants release to them everything in WANSWELL «which belong to them of the heritage of the aforesaid Thomas de Stone as in lands meadows pastures commons woods FISHERIES rents and reversions» — except named closes, and except forty shillings' rent from a virgate «WHICH WILLIAM DE SWONHUNGRE HOLDS FOR TERM OF HIS LIFE».

And the sentence at the end of it

«all the land, rents, and reversions, which ELYANORA DE STONE, MOTHER OF THE AFORESAID ALICE AND JOAN, held in Kyngescote, remain entirely to [both couples] and to the heirs of the aforesaid Alice and Joan BY REASONABLE PORTION FOR EVER.»

No. XXXVIII · Monday the Feast of St Mary Magdalene, 27 Edward III — 22 July 1353, at Berkeley

«between WILLIAM BROTHER AND HEIR OF THOMAS DE SWONHUNGER of the one part, and John Seriaunt the younger of the other» — a partition of all the tenements, lands and rents they held in common «in the vill and hamlets of HAM, CAM, STINCHCOMB, KINGSCOTE, AND HASELCOTE, EXCEPT THE FISHERY IN SEVERN WHICH IS EXCEPTED FROM THIS PARTITION, AND WILL REMAIN IN CO[MMON]». Witnesses John Capel, John Purlewent, John Draicote, Stephen Kyneltre.

Two things fall out of this. ALICE AND JOAN ARE SISTERS — daughters of Thomas de Stone and of ELYANORA, a woman neither Smyth nor any deed read here had named — and the Stone inheritance was split between them, the Swonhungres taking Wanswell. That is why a man is «Thomas Swonhungre OF WANSWELL» in 1356: the property came in through his mother's family, and it came in through a woman. And the 1353 indenture is the partition Smyth dates to «27 Edward III» and describes in a line — here it is entire, down to the clause keeping the Severn fishery out of the division. documented

Volume 10 — a pedigree, with ages, out of the royal inquisitions

A Daubeney pedigree printed in volume 10 carries the Swonhungers as a branch, and its authorities are inquisitions rather than tradition.

Person	Dates given	Marriage or note
Isabel Daubeney	ob. before 1393	= [Elias] Swonhonger
Elias Swonhonger	ob. 13 Richard II — 1389/90	= [Jone, daughter of John] Bill
John Swonhonger	AGED 18 IN 1393; ob. 3 Henry IV — 1401/2, s.p.	coheir of Elizabeth Wauton in 1394
Isabel Swonhonger	—	= John Thorp

Authorities given: the inquisition post mortem of John Wauton, 16 Richard II part 1 no. 16; the inquisition «melius scire» as to the heirs of Elizabeth, late wife of Andrew Wauton, 18 Richard II no. 81; and Smyth's Hundred of Berkeley, page 370.

John Swonhunger was eighteen in 1393. Smyth says he was in ward to Lord Berkeley and died without issue in 1401–2, and this archive found the deed of 5 December 1390 selling his marriage — he was about fifteen. An age, a wardship and a death date from three independent sources, and they agree. It also settles a name: Smyth gives Elias's wife as «Isabel, daughter and coheir of JOHN DE ALBINIACO alias ALBENY». De Albiniaco is the Latin of DAUBENEY, and the pedigree names her Isabel Daubeney. documented

And it sharpens this archive's own structural claim. This site has said the Swonhungers generate no royal inquisition because they held of Berkeley, not of the Crown — and the deed of 1390 has now documented that tenure. But through the Daubeney marriage they held elsewhere. In 1394 a royal commission, by writ of 21 November 18 Richard II, was sent to the escheator of Gloucestershire to enquire whether John Swonhongre and others «had become the heirs general of John and Cecilia Daubeney», grandparents of Elizabeth Wauton, whose lands at Kingsholme and Hinton Daubeney had fallen in. So there ARE royal records naming him — just not for the Berkeley land. The claim was right about Berkeley and too broad about everything else. documented

A third volume: the family named in a chantry's prayers, 1356

A paper on the Gloucestershire chantries prints the licence: «John Sergeant of Stone, the younger, was licenced to found a chantry in Stone called OUR LADY'S CHANTRY and to endow it with 9 messuages, 86 acres of land and 2s. rent in Stone, Hall, Arlingham and Came, for a priest there to pray in the Chapel of Stone for the good estate of himself and of John Sergeunt his father and of Thomas Lord Berkeley and of Maurice Berkeley his son, AND OF WILLIAM SON OF WILLIAM SWANHANGRE, AND ALIENOR HIS MOTHER, and of Jone late wife of him the said John Sergeant, and of Margaret late mother of him the said Maurice; for which he paid a fine of 108s. 2d.» Authorities given: Letters Patent 30 Edward III part 3 m.22, the Fine Roll m.3, and the writ and inquisition AD QUOD DAMNUM of the same year — 1356. documented

Two things. ALIENOR is another woman of this family named nowhere else this archive has read, and she is named as a mother. And the Serjeants, who took the other half of the Stone inheritance, were still praying for the Swanhangres a generation after the partition — the same year William was settling his brother's estate at Wanswell. The same paper states the partition a third time: «John Sergeant acquired the Stone estate by marriage with JOAN, ELDEST daughter and coheir of Thomas de Stone. ALICE the other daughter and coheir married John Swanhangre, and took WANSWELL in partition», citing Cooke's article.

And a name this archive can now place, with a caveat. «William son of William Swanhangre» looked like a contradiction: BCM/A/1/24/184 of the same year, 1356, makes William the son of JOHN. It is probably not a contradiction but two men. BCM/A/1/36/24, mid-14th century, leases land in Hinton to «THOMAS SON OF WILLIAM DE SWONHONGRE, Maud his wife and John the younger their son» — so a William had a son Thomas, and the chantry gives the same William a son William and a wife Alienor. That is a different household from the William who was son of John and brother and heir of Thomas of Wanswell. Two Williams living at once is the commonest pattern in this family, which has a Thomas in every generation and four Johns. Recorded as a resolution rather than a proof: no deed says these are two men, and nothing rules out one.

And two small ones. Another volume carries «Katherine, daughter of JOHN HARRIS OF SANIGAR» in an unrelated family's pedigree — the hamlet used as an address, exactly as Bigland's monuments use it. And the Society's own membership lists of the 1920s include W. SANIGAR, 205 Avon Vale Road, Barton Hill, Bristol — a man of the name, in Bristol, in living memory.

Library of Birmingham, MS 3549

And the Birmingham deeds turn out to be Smyth's own

Three of the records found on 15 September carried a Birmingham shelfmark — MS 3549/4, /20 and /187 — and three hits from one series is not an accident. It was raised as a question on the work list and answered the same day.

MS 3549 · 1200–1704 · SMYTH, JOHN (1567–1641), ANTIQUARY — MISCELLANEOUS DEEDS AND MANORIAL RECORDS COLLECTED BY JOHN SMYTH documented

The National Archives' Discovery catalogue, describing the collection at the Library of Birmingham

These are the steward's own working papers — the deeds he gathered while writing the Description of the Hundred and the Lives of the Berkeleys. That is why the 1377 grant appears twice, once at Berkeley Castle as BCM/A/1/24/185 and once here as MS 3549/20: Smyth had a copy on his desk. This archive has spent a week testing his pedigree against the Berkeley deeds; the collection he built it from is a second, separate pile, in another city, and largely unexamined here.

And it holds the two court rolls this archive most needs

Reference	Date	What it is
MS 3549/89	12 Sept 1587 – 15 March 1587/8	«Court roll of the manor of HAM AND HYNTON, co. Glouc., recording Courts Baron held 12 September, 29 Eliz. I.» — the manor Smyth describes as containing Hamfallow, and the tithing Bigland places Saniger in. Fourteen years before the earliest Saniger deed this archive holds and twenty-one before the muster.
MS 3549/182	4 October 1624	«Copy of court roll of the manor of ALKINGTON, recording the surrender by Richard Tovy and Joan Cole, widow of John Cole, of land near Michelwood.» Alkington is where Edward Sanniger's Window Feathers and Upper Feathers lay in 1694.

A court baron records who surrendered land, who was admitted to it, and who had died since the last court. These two sit either side of the 1608 muster and inside the silence this archive cannot cross. Neither is digitised, and both are at Birmingham rather than Gloucester — which is why nobody looking in Gloucestershire would find them. documented

What it would take to read it →

Rudder 1779 · Bigland 1791

The two county histories disagree, twelve years apart

Rudder's New History of Gloucestershire (1779) and Bigland's Collections (1791) are the standard printed authorities for every parish in the county. Both aimed at completeness, which is what makes a silence in either worth reading.

Authority	Verdict	What it says
Smyth, about 1639	NAMES IT	«the hambletts of Wike ats Wikes-elme, Wanefwell, SWONHUNGER ATS SANIGER, Halmer ats Ecton, and Egeton»
Rudder, 1779	OMITS IT	«6. Hamfallow, in which are Wanſwell, Wanniſwell, or Wanſel; part of Halmore; and Hamfallow.» That is the whole tithing as Rudder gives it, at page 280. Saniger is absent — and so is it from his index, which does carry «Wanfwell in Berkeley 280», Hamfallow, Halmore and Alkington.
Bigland, 1791	NAMES IT	«4. Hinton, wherein are Wanswell, a reputed Manor … SANIGER, LONG HELD BY AN OLD FAMILY OF THE SAME NAME»

The disagreement is not about whether the place existed — the deeds settle that from the 1270s — but about which tithing it belonged to and whether it was worth listing. Bigland puts Saniger under HINTON; Smyth put Swonhunger under HAMFALLOW. Rudder, working twelve years before Bigland, lists neither. A hamlet that sat on the boundary of two tithings is exactly the kind of place a topographer drops.documented

And Rudder gives the Thorps a tower

Smyth's pedigree ends with the main line failing in 1401 and the estate passing through Isabel Swonhunger to JOHN THORPE OF BRISTOL. Rudder, describing Wanswell in the same paragraph that omits Saniger, says: «THORP OF WANSWELL held his lands to guard a tower in Berkeley-caſtle, called THORP'S-TOWER, which was built in the reign of king Edward the Third. Thomas Thorp died ſeized of the manor of Wanſwell, 17 H. 8. Thomas his ſon had livery thereof 29 H. 8.» documented

The family that inherited the Swonhunger lands held them by castle-guard — a named tower in Berkeley Castle — and were still seised of Wanswell in 1525. That is a hundred and twenty-five years of the estate's descent after the point Smyth's pedigree hands it over, from a book this archive had not opened.

Located, not read · 20 September 2026

The tax records, which are the bridge

Between the last medieval deed and the first parish register this archive can read, there is a gap of a century and a half. Taxation is what crosses it. A subsidy roll or a hearth tax names householders by name, parish by parish, in exactly the years no register survives — and this archive has located the records and read none of them. They were researched in September 2026 and, until today, appeared on no page of this site.

Reference	What it is	Where	State
E 179/114/240	Lay subsidy, Berkeley hundred, 8 November 1543 — *«Assessment (individuals)»*, meaning named taxpayers	TNA, Kew	not digitised
E 179/114/235 · /296/5	Lay subsidy, Berkeley hundred, 1544–46	TNA, Kew	not digitised
E 179/114/272	Lay subsidy, 6 March 1546, with Henbury and Barton Regis	TNA, Kew	not digitised
E 179/114/295	Lay subsidy, Berkeley hundred, 1549	TNA, Kew	not digitised
E 179/329	Hearth tax, 1670–1674 — about four hundred exemption certificates, catalogued as «includes names of individuals»	TNA, Kew	not digitised
D383/1	Negative photostat of the Gloucestershire hearth tax enrolment, 1671–72, with part transcript	Gloucestershire Archives	not digitised
D5555/2/9	One bundle transcribing all three: Men and Armour 1608, the hearth taxes of 1664 and 1672, and the poll tax of 1678	Gloucestershire Archives	not digitised
D 1874/1	Photostats of the surviving 1381 poll tax membranes	Gloucestershire Archives	Berkeley hundred is not among them

documented

Why these and not something easier. The muster of 1608 named eleven men of this surname in four spellings, three of them in Berkeley hundred alone, at Halmore, Hinton and Saniger. John Saniger of Saniger appears in the Berkeley estate deeds from 1601. Before that the archive has deeds about land and almost nothing about people. A subsidy of the 1540s would name whoever held the hamlet sixty years before the muster — and an exemption certificate from the hearth tax names the poor, which is the half of a parish that leaves no other record at all. inferred

And one of them is a documented absence. The poll tax of 1381 does not reach Berkeley hundred. Gloucestershire Archives D 1874/1 photostats the surviving membranes and lists every one: Salmonsbury, Holford and Greston, Kiftsgate, Tibblestone, Rapsgate, Bradley, Crowthorne, Brightwells Barrow, Longtree, Cirencester, Bisley, St Briavels. Berkeley is not there. That is the same decade as the wardship of John Swonhonger and the £400 staple debt of William Swannanger, and the one record that would have counted every head in the hamlet does not survive for it. documented

What would actually move this. D5555/2/9 is the cheapest thing on this page by a distance — a single Gloucestershire Archives reference transcribing the muster this archive has already read, the hearth taxes it wants, and a poll tax of 1678 it did not know existed. One copying order covers three sources. It is in the letter drafted to Gloucestershire Archives on 20 September and not yet sent.

Discovery, by API · 17 September 2026

The catalogue, asked properly

This archive had searched The National Archives' Discovery catalogue thirty-seven times and graded its coverage «good». Every one of those searches was typed into a box, one at a time. Discovery publishes a JSON API that needs no account, no key and no bot check — and asked that way, the same question can be put to fifteen spellings identically, which turns anecdote into measurement. Written as `tools/discovery.py` on 17 September.

The instrument, tested before it was trusted. Discovery normalises a little: SANIGAER returns exactly the same 44 records as SANIGAR. So before anything was believed, nonsense was put through the same door. SANIGAAER, ZANIGAR and XQVWPLT all return nothing, and so do SANIGRE and SANNIGAR — which is what this archive had already found by hand. The search is not loosely fuzzy, and the counts below can be set beside each other. documented

Spelling	Records
Swonhungre	126
Swonhongre	55
Swonhangre	5
Swonhongere	3
Swanhanger	3
Swannanger	2
Swonhunger	2
Swonhungere	2
Swanhunger	1
Swanhangre	0

193 distinct catalogue records across the nine productive spellings. 183 of them are the Berkeley Castle Muniments, which this archive has worked. The ten that are not are the reason for the exercise, and they are listed in full below.

The ten that are not Berkeley Castle

E 40/12147 · 1339 · TNA, Kew

Release by Richard Adames of Pedynton to John Broun of Weneswelle and Alice his wife, of his right in land in Swonhongre and Weneswelle. Peddington, Wanswell and the hamlet in one deed, ten years after Alice de Stone brought Wanswell in.

DE/M/95 · 14 March 1346 · Hertfordshire Archives

An agreement among the Capell title deeds reciting a purparty made between Joan Capel, ALICE DE SWONHONGRE and Agnes de Lorewynge — and naming THOMAS DE SWONHONGRE as Alice's heir. The three coheirs, named together.

BCM/A/1/24/297 · 14 March 1346 · Berkeley Castle Muniments

The same partition, kept at Berkeley — and this copy says plainly what the Hertfordshire one only implies: «Partition of the inheritance of JOHN DE WYKE in HAMME between John, Thomas and John as the sons and heirs of Joan Capel, Alice de Swonhongre and Agnes de Lorewyng.»

MS 3549/4 · 14th century · Birmingham Archives

Grant in fee tail to WILLIAM SWONHUNGRE AND ISABELLA HIS WIFE of land in Waneswelle and Nybbeley, Berkeley hundred, from the vicar of Berkeley and the rector of Stanley.

MS 3549/20 · 11 April 1377 · Birmingham Archives

Grant for two lives from ELIAS DE SWONHANGRE to William Panyter of a messuage and land in Swanhanger itself. Elias acting in his own name, in the place the name came from.

C 241/174/26 · 28 October 1385 · TNA, Kew

Certificate of Statute Staple. Debtors: William Newport of Lichfield, WILLIAM SWANNANGER OF SWANNANGER IN GLOS., ESQUIRE, and John de Dean of Merstham. Creditor: William Fitzhugh, citizen and goldsmith of London. Amount: £400.

C 131/202/27 · 28 November 1385 · TNA, Kew

The writ that followed it, Extents for Debts. The Sheriff of Surrey replies that the three men were not found in his bailiwick, and that the writ arrived too late to be executed.

P/St.P and J/D/2(j) · November 1443 · Bristol Archives

Deed: Thomas Dodde of Stapleton to Richard Venables and JOHN SWONHUNGRE — two shops with gardens in the Old Market, St Philip and Jacob, Bristol, running back to Bastelane.

MS 3549/187 · 6 April 1626 · Birmingham Archives

Inquisition post mortem of Henry Mallett, a minor, proving he held messuages in Peddington, Matford and Swanhingne — «and elsewhere in the manor of Ham».

documented

A correction to this page's own arithmetic. This block first said 170 distinct records, 160 of them Berkeley Castle. Both numbers were short. Discovery returns `nextBatchMark` on every response and it is always empty, so `tools/discovery.py` stopped after one page and returned the first hundred records of however many there were — while printing the true total beside them, which made the truncation invisible. SWONHUNGRE alone has 126. The parameter that works is `sps.page`. The ten records below are unchanged: everything the truncation hid was Berkeley Castle Muniments, already worked. The finding stood; the counting did not.

The same deed, in two counties, and only one of them says why. The partition survives twice over. DE/M/95 at Hertford names the three women and their heirs and stops. BCM/A/1/24/297 at Berkeley says whose inheritance was being divided: JOHN DE WYKE's, in HAMME. This archive had reasoned that Alice was one of three coheirs of John de Wyke; here is a cataloguer saying it outright, and naming the manor. Ham is where Hannah Saniger's family were living in 1841 and 1851 — five hundred years later, in the same manor. documented

And how it was missed. This archive searched Discovery for John de Wyke on 15 September and recorded a null: «almost nothing … «de Wyke» with Berkeley and Hamme returns five records». The query was «de Wyke» with two other words. The record that mattered answers to «John de Wyke» in quotation marks, which returns 78. Nothing was wrong with the catalogue and nothing was wrong with the reasoning. The phrase was wrong, and a null carries the shape of the question that produced it.

Three people this archive did not have. WILLIAM SWANNANGER, esquire, bound for £400 at the Staple of Westminster before William Walworth in January 1385, and not to be found when the sheriff came looking. ELIAS DE SWONHANGRE, whom this archive knew only as «Elias» in the phrase «John, son and heir of Elias», granting land in the hamlet in his own name in 1377. And THOMAS DE SWONHONGRE, named in 1346 as the heir of Alice. Two of the three are styled or act as men of substance, and £400 in 1385 is not a yeoman's debt. documented

What is not claimed. No document here joins these people to one another, or to the John whose marriage was sold in 1390. William and Isabella hold Wanswell, and Wanswell is what Alice de Stone brought in; the 1385 esquire is «of Swannanger»; Elias grants in Swanhanger. It is the same name in the same few fields across sixty years, which is suggestive and is not a pedigree. This archive invented a branch of this family once already this month, and the rule that followed is that a premise arriving as background gets graded like any other claim. not claimed

And two questions that were nulls are not. This archive searched Discovery for «the partition of 1347» — the earlier of the two Cooke names — and recorded a null. It is DE/M/95, it is dated 1346, and it is in Hertfordshire because the Capells kept it and their papers went with them. It searched for the Serjeants of Old Court and for Peddington and recorded a null: Peddington is in E 40/12147 of 1339 and in the Mallett inquisition of 1626. Neither null was wrong about the box it typed into. Both were wrong about the catalogue. documented

What a catalogue entry is. Every line above is a modern cataloguer's description of a document, not the document. Two of them carry the cataloguer's own guess in square brackets — «Swannanger [Saniger?] in Glos.» at Kew, «[Saniger in Hinton]» at Gloucester — which is pleasing, because it is an independent reader making this archive's identification without being asked, and it is still a guess. None of these has been read. They are references to order, and that is what they are recorded as.

The Bristol shops, and nobody else has been there

John Swonhungre's two shops with gardens in the Old Market, St Philip and Jacob, 1443, «extending from the market to Bastelane behind», are the only thing this family leaves in a city. Before spending on fifteenth-century Bristol the question was put to the Falco archive, which is the other archive in this estate with a Bristol connection.

The answer is a clean no, and it was grepped rather than remembered: Bristol 0, Gloucester 0, Swonhungre 0, St Peter 0, St James 0, medieval 0. That archive is one maternal line from Arienzo in Caserta and its earliest document anywhere is a 1637 baptism. So this archive starts Bristol from nothing, which is a clean start rather than a duplicated one.

documented

And the lane may be more findable than the man. That session's own material is Italian notarial, where the boundary clause outlasts the owner — the neighbours and the lane are still there when the family is not. This page already works that way at Berkeley: the six deeds above map the approach to the hamlet without a map, and one of them is executed at Saniger. The technique has simply never been pointed at Bristol. BASTELANE is the searchable thing, and following it across owners may carry the two shops through a century in which no Swonhungre is ever named again.

One warning came with the no, and it is about money. Before pricing a medieval city's deeds, price its finding aids. That session spent a day on eleven annual registers and what decided the cost was not the number of volumes but whether the index at the back of each was usable — one year had no index, one had a printed index left blank, and two were filled and stopped at the letter C. «There is a catalogue» is a claim to test, not a fact to budget on. a method, not a finding

What none of this does

It does not connect these people to this family. The Swonhungre main line ended in 1401 and the archive's own Sanigers appear at Berkeley from 1601 — two hundred years of silence, across which no descent has been shown and none is claimed here. What today established is that the NAME and the PLACE are one thing, documented from the 1270s, and that Smyth was reporting deeds rather than tradition.

The join still missing. The join this archive actually needs is later and smaller: from the eleven men of the 1608 muster to John Saniger who married Lydia at Berkeley about 1797. Nothing found today touches it. lore

Saniger, the place → · The muster of 1608 → · The Sanigers → · What is being done →