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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1999-02 > 0920136685


From: <>
Subject: Re: The Kings of Mercia
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 12:31:25 EST


In a message dated 2/26/1999 3:09:44 PM, writes:

<<If this HEREWARD really did have a son LEOFRIC, then the implication in my
mind was/is that HEREWARD's parents may well have been *the* Leofric and
Godiva. Perhaps, however, this Hereward is a different person to "the
Wake," but was "Hereward" that common a name?.......as also "Leofric"?.>>

There was a Hereward that held lands in Warwick and Lincolnshire in the time
of Edward the Confessor. There were at least two nobles named Leofric, one in
Mercia and one in Bourn Lincolnshire. If we assume that his father was named
Leofric, it is more likely that Herward's father was the Lincolnshire person,
but the connection hangs by the most slender of threads.

The Herward legends sprang up within 40 years of his death, so living memory
can play some part here. Geoffrey Gaimar (c1140) wrote _Gesta Herwardii
Saxonis_, "Deeds of Herward the Saxon." Does anyone have that story handy?
Does Gaimar give any children or ancestry?

- Ken

Kenneth Harper Finton
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