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Doleswif

Discussion of the name

Doleswif is the genitive of an Old English masculine name or byname Dol(a), perhaps from OE dol ‘foolish, erring’, compounded with OE wif ‘woman, wife’ and probably in the sense ‘the wife of Dol(a)’ rather than as a name or byname meaning ‘foolish woman’ (Tengvik 1938: 344; Thorn and Thorn 1985: Notes to 16,67).

The only entry in the PASE corpus is Doleswif 1, a catch-all category for occurrences in DB; there are no other relevant names in Dol- in the corpus.  However, Searle notes Dola, son of Wine, in the late tenth century Searle (1897: 168), and Tengvik adds Dolo, sister of Huna, from the Bodmin manumissions (Tengvik 1938: 344), so that although the name-type was clearly extremely rare it was by no means un-evidenced in pre-Conquest England.

Bibliography

Searle 1897: W. G. Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (Cambridge, 1897)

Tengvik 1938: G. Tengvik, Old English Bynames (Uppsala, 1938)

Thorn and Thorn 1985: Domesday Book 9: Devon, ed. C. Thorn and F. Thorn (Chichester, 1985)

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Dolesuuif

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Doleswif

  Phillimore edition: Doleswif

  Alecto edition: Doleswif

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 Devon	Phil. ref. 16,67	Vill Loxhore	DB Spelling Dolesuuif	Holder 1066 Doleswif 'of Loxhore'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Baldwin the sheriff	1086 Subtenant Robert de Beaumont	Fiscal Value 0.50	1066 Value 1.00	1086 Value 1.00	Confidence A	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

People of this name

• Doleswif 2 - Doleswif ‘of Loxhore’ (Devon), fl. 1066