Grene

Male
CPL
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

The masculine name Grene is the Old English colour-adjective grēne used as a byname or a true personal name (von Feilitzen 1937: 274–5). Besides the one person of this name in DB, it is attested at an early date in the patronym of Godwine Grenessone (or Grenesune), a burgess of Winchester c. 1110 (Winton DB: nos. 10, 233). Redin (1919: 25) could not bring himself to believe that ‘green’ could have been used as a name, but the attested semantic range in Old English covers ‘tender, fresh, new’ and ‘unripe, raw, uncooked, immature’ as well as the colour (Toronto DOE: grēne, senses C, D; OED: green, adj. and n.1, A (adj.), senses I.1.a., I.1.b., I.2.a., II.5., II.6.a., II.6.b., II.7.a.), providing plenty of scope for nicknames, both complimentary and derogatory.

Bibliography

Redin 1919: Mats Redin, Studies on Uncompounded Personal Names in Old English, Inaugural Dissertation (Uppsala University, 1919)

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)

Winton DB: ‘The Winton Domesday’, ed. and trans. Frank Barlow, in Winchester in the Early Middle Ages: An Edition and Discussion of the Winton Domesday, ed. Martin Biddle, Winchester Studies 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 1–141

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Grene

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Grēne

  Phillimore edition: Green

  Alecto edition: Grene

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire Phil. ref. Vill DB Spelling Holder 1066 Lord 1066 Tenant-in-Chief 1086 1086 Subtenant Fiscal Value 1066 Value 1086 Value Conf. Show on Map
Sussex 13,41 Cokeham Grene Grene 'of Cokeham' Harold, earl William de Briouze Ralph fitzTheodoric 2.25 2.75 2.75 A Map
Totals