’We are ignorant even of the names of most pre-Conquest sheriffs.’ Thus Eric John, in a recent survey of the late OId English kingdom, sums up one of the major problems facing any detailed study of its administration: the identification of its agents of government. The magnitude of this deficiency can be seen by comparing the scope of the present paper with Judith Green’s splendid study, delivered to this conference a few years ago, on the sheriffs of William the Conqueror. I should dearly love to present a companion piece on the sheriffs of Edward the Confessor, but the groundwork for such an essay has not yet been laid. One of the purposes of this paper is to suggest one line of enquiry by which more information on the Confessor’s sheriffs (and indeed the Confessor’s thegns) might be obtained. The subject of this exercise is a pre-Conquest sheriff whose name is known, and better-known than mast, at least in his progeny; Æthelwine, the ancestor of the Arden family. A summary of what has already been established concerning him is, nevertheless, both short and superficial. It is generally assumed that he was sheriff of Warwickshire in the reign of Edward, and possibiy in the early years of William the Conqueror. He was living in 1072, when he attested, as sheriff, a charter of Robert of Stafford, granting two hides at Wrottesley, Staffs, to Ethelwig, abbot of Evesham. Two of his sons, Thorkil and Ketilbiorn, attested the same charter, and a third, Guthmund, held Great Packington, Warks, in 1086. All three sons have Norse names, which suggests that their mother was of Scandinavian origin, either from one of the Anglo-Danish kindreds long established in eastern England, or a connection of one of the Scandinavians who settled in the west midlands during the reign of Cnut. We have no information on Æthelwine’s marriage, however, and his sons’ names may merely represent current fashions in nomenclature. Æthelwine was dead by 1086, when his lands were held by his son, Thorkil. He probably died in the abbacy of Æthelhelm’s of Abingdon (1071-1083), for it was during Æthelhelm’s time that Thorkil gave to the abbey three manors described as being of his patrimony. Æthelwine himself had been a benefactor of Coventry Abbey, to whom he gave Clifton-on-Dunsmore, Warks, ‘with the consent of King Edward, and of his (own) sons, for his soul and in the witness of the shire.