Mads Jensen Kofoed

1449 - eft. 1481  (> 33 years)

• Navn	Mads Jensen Kofoed
  Født	1449	Hasle, , ,
  Køn	Mand
  Død	eft. 1481	Bornholm, , ,
  Person-ID	I1401	KaiOve
  Sidst ændret	23 feb. 2022

  
  

  Familie	Elisabeth Olufsdatter,   f. 1453, Hasle, , , ,   d. eft. 1481, Bornholm, , ,  (Alder > 29 years)
  Gift	ca. 1472	Hasle, , ,
  Notater	Referencenr.: 17950
  Børn	1. Jens Madsen Kofoed,   f. 1481, Ll. Haslegård, , , Hasle ,   d. 1519, Bornholm, , ,  (Alder 38 years)
  Sidst ændret	18 maj 2016
  Familie-ID	F0752	Gruppeskema  |  Familie Tavle

  
  

• Notater

  Occupation: Tradesman (Handelsmand) Reference: KGD note Mads Jensen Kofoed of Hasle is the earliest recorded Kofoed on Bornholm. Giessing (published 1786) relates in his pedigree of the "Family Kofoed," that the danish Noblemen with the "Koefoed'er" coat- of-arms were of mingled blood with the Normans, those people who had occupied Normandy. He relates further back: to when King William 1st the Conqueror, in 1063, went from Normandy to England, there was among the Norman nobility who followed him, one man with the name of Arnfred Kofod Also, on an English monastery list are several Danish names: Erik, Oluf, Svend of Essex, Ospern and Arnfred Kofod. It is related that the Scottish king, Macbeth, agreed to hide Ospern in Scotland, and that Svend became part of his royal staff. Arnfred Kofod became a faithul servant of King Edward. However, it would be impossible to establish any link between this man and the Bornholmer family of the same name. The surname Kofoed stems from "KoFod" which means "Cow's Foot". The origin of the name is not known, however the hypothosis has been put forward that the original Kofod had some sort of physical deformity, such as a club-foot. It seems that the old Bornholm Kofoed families used the cow-foot as their coat-of-arms; from obvious association with their name, rather than through their connection to the Duchy of Holstein. There are many myths and errors concerning the oldest Kofoed's on Bornholm. The book "P¯ sporet af de f?rste Kofod'er" by J?rn Klindt (published 1979) is a scholarly examination, which tries to clear up the many errors surrounding this families genealogy. J?rn Klindt relates that it is thought that the immediately preceading ancestors to the Kofoed'er of Bornholm originated from the area around Hamburg, in the Duchy of Holstein. In 1286 there is mention of a knight, Albertus Koefoed; the Holstein'er family attained the right to be armigerous and held various titles of knighthood. Every couple of generations the family rose in status to near nobility, only to then descended the social ladder; they never broke into, and then maintained noble status. The Kofoed'er spread east from the Hamburg area to Lübeck, Wismar, etc. along the north Baltic coast-line of present day Germany and Poland. They also spread up the Jylland peninsula into Schleswig and Danmark. Kofod/Kofoed/Koefoed is a family-name that has spread all over Danmark. There are numerous Kofoeds listed in the book of Danish Knights. The Kofoed'er who settled in Bornholm had attained the status of "Frim?nd", this meant that they were "free men" and had no over-lord except the King of Danmark, and thus were of the lower nobility. It should be noted here that such "frim?nd" would have were not of the social class of the true titled nobility, and in fact would have been snubbed by that rarified class of people. As free- men the Kofoeds were one of the leading families of Bornholm, with the right to own property, to engage in business and trade, to hunt the forests and make use of the beaches, and were among the island's brew-masters. They had the right to exact labour and duties from the "bonde" (peasant farmers) who lived and worked on their farms. Of course, over the succeeding years not all Kofoed descendants stayed amongst the social elite, and they gradually fell to lower social classes. To this day on Bornholm the surname "Kofoed" remains a prestigious family-name. Referencenr.: 1401