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Wiglaf

Discussion of the name

Wiglaf is an Old English masculine name comprising the elements wīg ‘strife, war, valour’ and lāf; the word lāf usually has the sense of ‘remnant, legacy’ but the sense ‘son’ has been proposed for its occurrence as an element in personal names (Insley 2003: 378). The Domesday form Wilaus is probably for Wilauus, which would represent a Latinized nominative *Wiglafus (von Feilitzen 1937: 413). There are six pre-Conquest bearers of the name recorded in the PASE corpus, all of whom occur in Mercian contexts: Wiglaf 1 was king of the Mercians, 827-9 and 830-40, Wiglaf 2, Wiglaf 3 and Wiglaf 4 occur between 836 and 909 and Wiglaf 7 was a moneyer, probably at Chester, in the mid-tenth century. From a non-Mercian context there is also a Uiglaf recorded in an early ninth-century entry in the Durham Liber Vitae (Insley et al. 2007: 158). In addition, Wiglaf was the name of the young warrior and kinsman who stayed loyal to the aging hero of the eponymous Old English epic poem Beowulf in his final battle (Beowulf: lines 2602, 2631, 2745, 2852, 2906; Eliason 1978).

Bibliography

Beowulf: Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fr. Klaeber, 3rd edn. (Boston, 1950)

Eliason 1978: N. E. Eliason, ‘Beowulf, Wiglaf and the Wægmundings’, Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978), 95-105

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

Insley 2003: J. Insley, ‘Pre-Conquest personal names’, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 23, Pfalzel – Quaden (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 367-96

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), 81-165

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Wilaf, Wilaus

Forms in modern scholarship:

von Feilitzen head forms: Wīglāf

Phillimore edition: Wiglaf

Alecto edition: Wiglaf

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 Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 4,30	Vill Shalstone	DB Spelling Wilaus	Holder 1066 Wiglaf 'of Preston'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Odo, bishop of Bayeux	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 2.00	1066 Value 1.60	1086 Value 0.60	Confidence C	Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 4,34	Vill Lenborough	DB Spelling Wilaf	Holder 1066 Wiglaf 'of Preston'	Lord 1066 Leofwine, earl	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Odo, bishop of Bayeux	1086 Subtenant Ernulf de Hesdin	Fiscal Value 7.00	1066 Value 4.00	1086 Value 3.00	Confidence C	Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 4,35	Vill Preston Bissett	DB Spelling Wilaf	Holder 1066 Wiglaf 'of Preston'	Lord 1066 Leofwine, earl	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Odo, bishop of Bayeux	1086 Subtenant Ansgot de Rots	Fiscal Value 15.00	1066 Value 4.00	1086 Value 5.00	Confidence A	Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 4,37	Vill Barton Hartshorn	DB Spelling Wilaf	Holder 1066 Wiglaf 'of Preston'	Lord 1066 Leofwine, earl	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Odo, bishop of Bayeux	1086 Subtenant Ernulf de Hesdin	Fiscal Value 10.00	1066 Value 3.00	1086 Value 14.00	Confidence B	Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. B10	Vill Buckingham	DB Spelling Wilaf	Holder 1066 Wiglaf 'of Preston'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William, king	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 0.00	1066 Value 0.01	1086 Value 0.01	Confidence -	Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. B10	Vill Buckingham	DB Spelling Wilaf	Holder 1066 Wiglaf 'of Preston'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William, king	1086 Subtenant Ernulf de Hesdin	Fiscal Value 0.00	1066 Value 0.10	1086 Value 0.10	Confidence -	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

People of this name

• Wiglaf 8 - Wiglaf ‘of Preston’ (Buckinghamshire), fl. 1066