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Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies: The Place of Women in Anglo-Saxon Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Abstract

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Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1943

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References

page 2 note 1 Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, II, 2, p. 390.

page 2 note 2 Harmer, F. E., English historical documents, p. 19.Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 Birch, , Cartularium Saxonicum, 410.Google Scholar

page 3 note 2 English historical documents, p. 31.

page 3 note 3 Robertson, A. J., Anglo-Saxon charters, p. 152.Google Scholar

page 3 note 4 Ten out of the 39 documents printed in Miss D. Whitelock's Anglo-Saxon wills were made by women.

page 4 note 1 Cart. Sax., 607.

page 4 note 2 The place-names of Devon (English Place-Name Society), pp. 355, 108.

page 4 note 3 Fägersten, A., The place-names of Dorset, p. 117.Google Scholar

page 4 note 4 Ibid., p. 179.

page 4 note 5 The name does not seem to be recorded in Swedish or in the West Scandinavian dialects, but was common in Old Danish (O. Nielsen, Olddanske Personnavne, p. 100). Two examples have been noticed in the English Danelaw.

page 5 note 1 It should be emphasised at this point that any list of these names which can be compiled at the present time is bound to be seriously incomplete. In dealing with the short forms of personal names which occur in countless place-names, it is always difficult, and generally impossible, to distinguish between the names of men and women. It is reasonable to assume that Bibury in Gloucestershire takes its name from a woman called Beage because in the eighth century the place, which until then had no fixed name, was granted to a local nobleman et filiæ suæ quæ vocatur Beage (Cart. Sax., 166). Without this information, few scholars would have hesitated to derive the name from the masculine form Bæga. The evidence which place-names supply for the existence of the woman landowner comes almost entirely from compound names which are proved to be feminine by the nature or arrangement of their elements.

page 5 note 2 Her name does not seem to have become permanently attached to the site until a century after her time. The first example of the compound Wolverhampton occurs in a late writ of William I. In Domesday Book, the place appears as ‘Hantone’ and ‘Handone’.

page 5 note 3 Historia Brittonum, ed. Mommsen, p. 206. According, to a northern tradition preserved in the late manuscript ‘E’ of the Chronicle the fortress was walled by the Bernician king Ida at about the middle of the sixth century.

page 5 note 4 Cart. Sax., 50. Buege is a short form of a feminine name beginning or ending in the element Burg.

page 5 note 5 Cart. Sax., 76. On this name see below, pp. 8–9.

page 5 note 6 Cart. Sax., 430, Hist. MSS. Comm., Report on the manuscripts of Lord Middleton, p. 208.

page 6 note 1 Cart. Sax., 865, where the name appears in the compound Æthehwithetuninga lea.

page 6 note 2 The place-names of Hertfordshire (E.P-N.S.), p. 181. The site is now represented by Beauchamps in Layston.

page 6 note 3 There seems to have been a doublet of Kenilworth in the Cynilde worth which occurs as a boundary-point near Whittington in Worcestershire.

page 6 note 4 A law of Hlothhere prescribes that a man who wishes to clear himself from the charge of stealing a slave must produce a number of free witnesses, of whom one must come from the tun to which he himself belongs. Liebermann, Gesetze, I, pp. 9, 10.

page 7 note 1 e.g., Eadnothes tun, Deorlafestun, and Beadurices tun, now represented by Ednaston in Derbyshire, Darlaston in Staffordshire, and Barcheston in Warwickshire.

page 7 note 2 The history of these Kentish names was first worked out by J. K. Wallenberg in The place-names of Kent (1934). Chilverton and Elverton are not, apparently, recorded before the thirteenth century, but there does not seem to be any reason for separating them from the other names of this group.

page 8 note 1 Cart. Sax., 58.

page 9 note 1 Cart. Sax., 274, 313.

page 9 note 2 Congresbury in Somerset, in which the first element is a saint's name, is probably another example.

page 9 note 3 In an endorsement by bishop Eegwine of Worcester to a charter of Æthelred of Mercia granting Fladbury to the seventh-century bishop Oftfor. Cart. Sax., 76.

page 9 note 4 There are several place-names in which the word mynster is compounded with a personal name, but the only case in which the name is that of a woman seems to be the Bebingmynster of Cart. Sax., 535. The first element in this name is clearly the Old English Bebbe. The site has been identified with Beaminster in Dorset, but the medieval forms of the latter name do not agree very well with this suggestion. In Alvechurch, Worcestershire (Æfgythe cyrcan. Cart. Sax., 1320), and Peakirk, Northamptonshire (æt Pegecyrcan. Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, 726), a woman's name is associated with the Old English cyrice, ‘church’. Nothing is known about the Ælfgyth of Alvechurch, but there is no reason to doubt that the Pege of Peakirk was the well-recorded sister of St. Guthlac of Crowland.

page 9 note 6 Cart. Sax., 318.

page 10 note 1 The name Anslow, which does not occur in Domesday Book, appears in the form Eansythelege in the boundaries of Wetmoor, Staffordshire, in a fourteenth century copy of a charter of Æthelred II (Staffordshire Historical Collections, William Salt Society, 1916, p. 124).

page 10 note 2 As no systematic collection of these names seems to have been made, it may be useful to give a selection of them here. (In the references, CD stands- for Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, and CS, for Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum.) Eanburge mere near Wootton Underwood, Bucks., CS 452; Cynewynne wylla near Ardley, Oxon., CD 1289; Hunburge fleot in South Hams, Devon, CS 451; Beadgithe burna near Bilston, Staffordshire, Monasticon Anglicanum VIII 1444; Eanflæde gelad near Hinksey, Berks, CS 1002; Eanflæde mutha near Reculver, Kent, CS 880; Sigwynne die near Fovant, Wilts., CD 687; Beornwunne treow near Creedy, Devon, CS 1331; Winburgestoc near Eynsham, Oxon., CD 714; Byrngythe stan near Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, CD 650; Wulfgythe bricg, near Mickleton, Gloucestershire, CD 714; Æthelburge weg near Bath, CS 1257; Æthelflæde stig near Phepson, Wore, CS 937; Ceoldrythe bece near Oldbarrow, Wore, CS 124; Beornwynne denu near Pershore, Wore, CS 1282; Mægnhilde beorh near Taynton, Oxon.; Bouquet, Recueil des historiens de la Gaule … xi, p. 655; Cyneburgæ hyrst near Droxford, Hants., CS 742; Denegithe graf near ‘Newton’, Northants., CS 712; Heatheburhe weorthyg near Pershore, Wore, CS 1282; Wihtlufe hamm near Lyford, Berks., CD 746; Sithrithe ford near Weston on Trent, Derbyshire, Charter in William Salt Library, Stafford.

page 10 note 3 CS 834.

page 10 note 4 CD 744.

page 10 note 5 CS 452.

page 11 note 1 To the examples recorded in charters, there may be added a number of ancient hundred-names which are formed from the names of women. A complete list is given by O. S. Anderson, The English hundred-names (1939), iii, 206. Among the most interesting are Auronhelle in Sussex— Ælfrun's hill’, Celfledetorn in Gloucestershire— ‘Ceolflsed's thorn’, Winburge treow in Worcestershire— ‘Wynnburg's tree’, Redbornstoke in Bedfordshire— ‘Raedburg's place’, and Underditch in Wiltshire— ‘Wynnthryth's dyke’.

page 11 note 2 Phrases referring to the boundary of a woman's land occur in Cart. Sax., 753, Ælfgythe mearc on eastan … ∘þ Eadgife mearce (‘Oswalding tun’, Kent); Cart. Sax., 984, on Ælflæde mearce (Padworth, Berkshire); Cart. Sax., 1077, be Byrhtswy þe mearce (Kilmiston, Hampshire); Cart. Sax., 1101, andlang Ælfwenne mearce (Vange, Essex); Cod. Diþ., 636, to Ælfflæde gemære (Clyffe Pypard, Wiltshire); Cod. Diþ., 641, on Wilburge imare (Tisbury, Wiltshire); Cod. Diþ., 724, on Ælflaede gemæro (Bishopton, Warwickshire); Cod. Diþ. 792, andlang stremes ∘ð Eadgife gemære (Leverton, Berkshire); Cod. Diþ., 1307, on Leofrune gemære (Whitchurch, Oxfordshire); Ordnance Survey facsimiles, ii, Winchester College 4, to Leofwinne mearce (Drayton, North Hampshire).

page 11 note 2 Cod. Diþ., 792.

page 12 note 1 It may be noted that in regard to Scandinavian, as to English names, it is often hard to distinguish between masculine and feminine forms. There is nothing, for example, in Touetun, the Domesday spelling of Towton in Yorkshire, to show whether the first element is the masculine Tófi, or the feminine Tófa. Ambiguities like this are frequent.

page 12 note 2 Domesday Book, I, fo. 373.

page 13 note 1 Robertson, A. J., Anglo-Saxon charters, p. 112.Google Scholar