Harding Fitz Eadnoth

   Another name for Harding was Harding de Meriet.

  General Notes:

Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, Vol. I,pp. 124-125. (Berkeley) footnote (d)

Robert's parentage has been long and hotly disputed. He has been termed "son of the king of Denmark", "Mayor of Bristol", and so forth. The view now generally accepted is that he was the son of Eadnoth (killed 1068), "Staller" to King Harold to Edward the Confessor . He is said to have been a merchant at Bristol, and of great wealth and influence E.A Freeman pronounces this descent "in the highest degree probable".

~In the Great Governing Families of England, p. 213, The authors despute that Eadnoth was the father of Harding on the basis that Robert Fitz Harding acquired his land through purchase rathern than having a landed proprietor such as Elnoth the Stlarrad. They also state that Harding was of Danish origin. ¹⁴¹

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ¹²⁸²
Harding filius Elnodi of the Exchequer Domesday, 1086, called 'Hardincus filius Elnodi' and 'Hardin de Meriet' (from his manor of Merriott) in the Inquisitio Gheldi, 1084, who flourished from 1084 to 1140, was one of the Anglo Thanes of Somersetshire. Smyth states that Harding was descended from the race of the Danish Kings [MS. 'Lives of the Berkeleys' at Berkeley Castle]. It is remarkable that Harding, the son of Eadnoth, was not allowed succession to any of his ancestral estates. William of Malmesbury, his cotemporary, remarks that he appears to have thriven by forensic rather than martial genius. Harding de Meriet was clearly the greatest of the Somerset Anglo Thanes. He had, in 1086, six Somerset manors, one of which (Capland) had been augmented since the Conquest by a parcel of waste land taken from the Royal manor of Curi (Curry Rivell). In five of his six manors in Somerset Harding succeeded to Tovi, or Tofig, who was sheriff of Somerset at the Conquest, and who was apparently in office in the summer of 1068 when, as Tovig 'minister,' he attested King William's famous charter to Giso, Bishop of Wells. In Harding's sixth manor (Meriet) his antecessor had been Godwin\emdash possibly that Godwin who preceded Tofig as sheriff of Somerset, and who, if Harding's antecessor at Merriott, was living in 1066.

As Domesday tenant in capite, ' Harding filius Elnodi' alias 'Hardin de Meriet,' held the six following manors in Somerset, viz., (1) Digenescova (Discove) in Bruton Hundred: 1 hide, 3 ploughs ; value £2. Of this 1 hide, he held 1 virgate and 2 fertines (half a virgate) in demesne, i.e., in Domesday subtenure. (2) Brada, in the Hundred of Abdick cum Bulstone (part of Bradon and probably Goviz-Bradon): 1 hide, 2 ploughs; value 10s.; Celric sxibtenant. (3) Capilanda in the same hundred (Capland in Broadway and Beer-Crocombe): 1 hide, 2 ploughs; value £1; to which was added after the Conquest, out of the Royal manor of Curi, 2 virgates that were waste land when Harding received them, worth 6s.; total value, £1 6s. (4) Bochelanda in the Hundred df Abdick (Buckland St. Mary): 1 hide, 4 ploughs, 20 caprae; value 10s.; Godwin, a Saxon Thane, subtenant. (5) Lopen in South Petherton Hundred: of the whole 2 hides therein, of which he was tenant in capite, he held 1 hide and |£ in demesne. There were 2 ploughs, and the annual value was £2. (6) Meriet (Merriott) in the Hundred of Cruche (Crewkerne): 5 hides (being the portion of which Godwin, the praepositus or King's bailiff of the manor of Crewkerne, was the Saxon owner in the time of the Confessor), 6 ploughs, 1 mill yielding 5s.; total value £4. Of these 5 hides, Harding held 2½ in demesne. Seven hides--forming the remaining part of Meriet--(five of which were held by Leuin, and two by Bristuard in the time of the Confessor), were assigned by the Conqueror to his half brother, Robert, Count of Moretain, to hold in capite. Dodeman was the Domesday subtenant of the Count of Moretain's portion, which contained 7 hides, 7 ploughs, and 3 mills yielding 30s.; total value £7. [ibm.] These details are necessary as proofs, and they appertain to what follows.

Harding fitz Elnodi was one of the Justices Itinerant in Devon and Cornwall and Exeter to investigate the Royal Pleas in Lent, 9 Will. II. 1096 [Cartulary of Tavistock Priory, as quoted in Notes and Queries, 6th S. ii. 11]. 'It is abundantly clear,' writes the late Rev. R. W. Eyton in N. and Q., 5th S. xii. 362, 'that Harding fitz Ealnoth was succeeded at Merriott and other Somersetshire estates by his eldest son and heir Nicholas fitz Harding.'

~Genealogy of the Somersetshire Family of Meriet, pp. 5-6

• Background Information. ¹²⁷¹
At the time of the Conquest the later manor of Merriott formed two estates. The second estate, of five hides, occupied in 1066 by Godwin, had passed by 1086 to Harding son of Eadnoth the staller.

The manor evidently passed from Harding son of Eadnoth, or Harding de Meriet, to his son Nicholas FitzHarding (d. by 1171), followed by his grandson Henry de Meriet (d. by 1192). [Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 100-4.] Nicholas de Meriet (d. by 1229) inherited his father's lands in 1212, and in 1229 was succeeded by his son Hugh (d. c. 1236). [Pipe R. 1212 (P.R.S. n.s. xxx), 119, 223; Cal. Inq. p.m. i, p. 2] From Hugh's son Nicholas (d. c. 1258) the manor passed in turn to Nicholas's son John (d. 1285), and grandson, also John. The last succeeded as a minor and received his lands in 1297. [Cal. Inq. p.m. ii, pp. 341-2; Plac. Abbrev. (Rec. Com.), 293] On his death in 1308 he was followed successively by his sons John (d. by 1322) and George (d. 1328). [Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 104- 24; Cal. Inq. p.m. vii, p. 119.] From George's son, Sir John de Meriet (d. 1369), the manor descended to his son Sir John (d. 1391), and subsequently to the latter's daughter Elizabeth, wife of Urry Seymour.[Cal. Inq. p.m. xii, pp. 376\endash 7; Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 126-64] On Elizabeth's death without issue c. 1395 the estate was inherited jointly by her cousins Elizabeth and Margaret d'Aumale, granddaughters of George de Meriet (d. 1328) and wives of Sir Humphrey Stafford and Sir William Bonville (d. 1408) respectively. [Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 164\endash 7]

~A History of the County of Somerset, Volume IV, p. 53-55

• Background Information. ¹²⁷¹
In 1086 there were three separate estates called Lopen. The largest, of 2 hides, had been held T.R.E. by Tofig the sheriff, and in 1086 was in the possession of a king's thegn, the Englishman Harding son of Eadnoth the staller.

~A History of the County of Somerset, Vol. IV, 163-170