Cwengifu

Female
DWP
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

Cwengifu is an Old English feminine name comprising the elements cwēn ‘woman, wife, queen’ and gifu ‘gift’.  Von Feilitzen (1937: 220) noted that one of the DB forms has ‘n’ for ‘u’ in the second element through scribal error, but he was misled in his discussion of some genitive forms by the use of ‘&’ to represent ‘æ’ rather than ‘et’ in Farley’s edition (Rumble 1986: 39,8-10 Note).

The only entry in the PASE corpus is for Cwengifu 1, a catch-all for occurrences in DB; there are also three instances in the twelfth-century sections of the Durham Liber Vitæ (Insley et al. 2007: 101).

Bibliography

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

Insley et al., 2007: J. Insley and D. Rollason with P. McClure, ‘A.3 English Dithematic Names’, in The Durham Liber Vitae. London, British Library, MS Cotton Domitian A.VII: Edition and Digital Facsimile with Introduction, Codicological, Prosopographical and Linguistic Commentary, and Indexes, ed. D. W. Rollason and L. Rollason, 3 vols. (London: British Library, 2007)

Rumble 1986: Domesday Book 34: Suffolk, ed. A. Rumble, (Chichester, 1986)

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Quengeua, Quengeuua

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Cwēngifu

  Phillimore edition: Queneva

  Alecto edition: Cwengifu

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
Suffolk 14,117 Waldringfield Quengeua Cwengifu 'of Waldringfield' Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds Roger Bigod 1.50 1.00 1.00 B Map
Totals

Lord 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
Suffolk 14,117 Newbourn Quengeuua 3 free men Cwengifu Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds Roger Bigod 0.04 0.00 0.04 B Map
Suffolk 14,117 Haspley Quengeuua 1 free man Cwengifu Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds Roger Bigod 0.01 0.00 0.01 B Map
Totals

Lord 2 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
Suffolk 39,10 Newbourn Quengeua 16 free men Beorhtmær son of Cwengifu Ranulph brother of Ilger - 1.19 1.78 0.89 B Map
Suffolk 39,7 Waldringfield - 5 free men Beorhtmær son of Cwengifu Ranulph brother of Ilger - 0.33 0.20 0.20 C Map
Suffolk 39,8 Preston Quengeua 10 free men Beorhtmær son of Cwengifu Ranulph brother of Ilger - 1.00 1.00 0.50 B Map
Suffolk 39,9 Haspley Quengeua 2 free men Beorhtmær son of Cwengifu Ranulph brother of Ilger - 0.40 0.60 0.40 B Map
Totals