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Æthelflæd

Discussion of the name

Æthelflæd is an Old English feminine name comprising the elements æðele ‘noble, famous’ and flæd ‘beauty’.  Frequent loss of ‑ð‑ in the first element and further reduction to Al‑ in late Old English produced forms that cannot be distinguished from those resulting from a similar reduction of the name Ælfflæd, and these are discussed under Alflæd (cf. von Feilitzen 1937: 102-6, 144, 183)

There are 30 entries for Æthelflæd in the PASE corpus, the most famous of whom was Æthelflæd 4, ‘the Lady of the Mercians’, and all of whom occur before c.1038 except for Æthelflæd 30, a catch-all category for occurrences in DB.

Bibliography

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: Ædelflete

Spellings in FBB: Æilfled

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Æðelflæd

  Phillimore edition: Aethelfled

  Alecto edition: Æthelflæd

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
Shire Dorset	Phil. ref. 37,11	Vill Hethfelton	DB Spelling Ædelflete	Holder 1066 Æthelflæd 'of Hethfelton'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William de Briouze	1086 Subtenant Robert 'the man of William de Briouze'	Fiscal Value 2.00	1066 Value 0.50	1086 Value 0.50	Confidence B	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

People of this name

• Æthelflæd 31 - Æthelflæd ‘of Hethfelton’ (Dors.), fl. 1066
• Æthelflæd 32 - Æthelflæd ‘of Rougham’ (Suff.), fl. 1086