Niveling

Male
CPL
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

The name Niveling is evidently the OE equivalent of the Continental Germanic name Nibelung rather than the CG name itself (as Forssner 1916: 193; von Feilitzen 1937: 331). The DB spellings Niuelig and Niuelin point unambiguously to –ing as the final element. In the thirteenth century the forename Neuelinus is on record at Durham (LVD: II, 65) and the surname Nevelyn in Yorkshire (Forssner 1916: 193), though an Old French diminutive has been suggested as the origin of the former. Niuel– cannot represent any OE element, so the name must have been in some sense adopted from Continental usage. In Europe Nibelung was both a personal name (e.g. Morlet 1968: 173) and a part of Germanic legend, most famously in connection with the stories recounted in the Nibelungenlied about the Burgundian kings of the Migration period. It is conceivable that some now lost OE poem preserved a version of those legends and thus direct knowledge of the name in England. The latter assumption better explains use of the name in eleventh-century Yorkshire than the idea that a minor Yorkshire landowner was a foreigner (as Forssner 1916: 193). No other person called Niveling is currently recorded in Anglo-Saxon England.

Bibliography

Forssner 1916: Thorvald Forssner, Continental-Germanic Personal Names in England in Old and Middle English Times (Upsala, 1916)

Morlet 1968:

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

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Niuelig, Niuelin

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Nivelung

  Phillimore edition: Nivelung

  Alecto edition: Nivelung

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
Yorkshire 9W11 Seacroft Niuelig Niveling 'of Snitertun' - Ilbert de Lacy Robert 'the man of Ilbert de Lacy' 1.40 0.80 0.02 A Map
Yorkshire 9W18 Snitertun Niuelin Niveling 'of Snitertun' - Ilbert de Lacy - 2.00 0.75 0.00 A Map
Totals