Alwynn

Female
DWP
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

Alwynn is a late Old English feminine name that developed from the earlier names Ælfwynn (from ælf ‘elf, sprite’ and wynn ‘joy, rapture, pleasure’) and Æthelwynn (from æðele ‘noble, famous’ and wynn). The development of /æ/ %% /a/ in late Old English, together with the frequent loss of interconsonantal /f/ by assimilation or reduction, meant that Ælfwynn tended to become Alwynn, while the loss of intervocalic /ð/ meant that Æthelwynn became Ailwynn and thence, by reduction, was also developing towards Alwynn (von Feilitzen 1937: 91-3, 102-6, 142; Hogg 1992: 213; Insley et al. 2007: 85). It is not possible to differentiate the DB spellings Aluene, Aluuem (in this instance the ‹m› is probably a scribal error for ‹nn›) and Aluuen, which is why the head-form Alwynn is adopted here.

There are seven pre-Conquest bearers of the name Ælfwynn noted in the PASE corpus, dating from between the late tenth and mid-eleventh centuries, together with Ælfwynn 8, who occurs in a post-Conquest lease alongside her husband. The pre-Conquest instances were all members of the landed or religious elite such as Ælfwynn 2, who briefly succeeded her mother Æthelflæd 4 of Mercia, or Ælfwynn 6, a nun who held two monastic estates. There are also four PASE entries for Æthelwynn, all from the late tenth or early eleventh century and including Æthelwynn 1, a noblewoman mentioned in an early Life of St Dunstan, and Æthelwynn 4, a slave mentioned in a Hertfordshire will.

Also noted in PASE are Ælfwenna 1 (recte Ælfwynn), representing the Ælfwennæ (genitive) who in the late tenth century received bequests of land in her father’s will (S 1503a; von Feilitzen 1937: 161 n.1), and Ælwynn 1 (recte Alwine), representing the form Ælwyneys occurring on a probably eleventh-century Cornish inscribed stone and where the final -eys (for the masculine genitival inflection -es) shows it to be the masculine name Alwine rather than the feminine Alwynn (Okasha 1993: 144-5). In addition, an Æthelwyn occurs (as æþelwyn) as one of the peasants in the late tenth-century ‘Hatfield List’ (Insley 2003: 383). There are also three entries for the name Ælfwynn in the Durham Liber Vitae, albeit from early twelfth-century contexts (Insley et al. 2007: 85). 

Taken together with the instances recorded in DB, these data suggest that the name Alwynn and its precursors Ælfwynn and Æthelwynn were fairly common in the late Anglo-Saxon period, and that they enjoyed both a broad social range and a broad geographical distribution as well.

Bibliography

von Feilitzen 1937: O. von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala, 1937)

Hogg 1992: R. M. Hogg, A Grammar of Old English. Volume 1: Phonology (Oxford, 1992)

Insley 2003: J. Insley, ‘Pre-Conquest personal names’, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 23, Pfalzel – Quaden (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003)

Insley et al. 2007: J. Insley and D. Rollason with P. McClure, ‘A.3 English dithematic names’, in ed. D. and L. Rollason, The Durham Liber Vitae: Volume II (London, 2007)

Okasha 1993: E. Okasha, Corpus of Early Christian Inscribed Stones of South-West Britain, Studies in the Early History of Britain (Leicester, 1993)

S: P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968); cited by charter number from the revised edition available at www/sawyer.org.uk

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Aluene, Aluuem, Aluuen

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Alwynn

  Phillimore edition: Aelfwen, Alwen, Alwynn

  Alecto edition: Alwynn 

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
Buckinghamshire 14,18 Burston Aluuen Alwynn 'of Burston' Siward brother of Sæwulf Walter Giffard Thurstan fitzRolf 1.00 1.00 1.00 B Map
Buckinghamshire 35,3 Burston Aluene Alwynn 'of Burston' Siward brother of Sæwulf Thurstan fitzRolf Reynold 'the man of Thurstan fitzRolf' 1.00 1.00 1.00 B Map
Essex 24,4 Childerditch Aluuen Alwynn 'of Childerditch' - Swein of Essex Osbern the Frenchman 1.33 2.00 2.00 B Map
Suffolk 6,51 Great Glemham Aluuem Alwynn 'of Glemham' - Robert Malet Robert de Glanville 0.13 0.10 0.10 B Map
Totals

Subtenant in 1086

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
Essex B3a Colchester Aluuen - - William, king Alwynn, burgess 0.00 0.00 0.00 D Map
Essex B3a Colchester Aluuen - - William, king Alwynn, burgess 0.00 0.00 0.00 D Map
Totals