Wilgrip

Male
CPL
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

Wilgrip is a masculine name of specifically Danish origin (von Feilitzen 1937: 22, 405), usually normalized by scholars as Vilgrip. It does not occur in English sources before the mid-eleventh century. Its spelling with an initial W– (and on coins with the graph for the letter wynn) shows that it had been fully assimilated to English speech by then. The DB spellings Wilgripus, Wilegrip, and Willegrip show the additional of a Latinizing suffix in the first example, and a French-speaker’s insertion of medial –e– to help pronounce a tricky cluster of consonants in the second and third (von Feilitzen 1937: 73).

The spelling Widegrip was assigned by von Feilitzen (1937: 407) to a different name, Old Danish Víðgrípr. The identification of Wilgrip 7 proposed here, however, suggests that Widegrip was an error for Wilegrip, a suggestion made elsewhere (Phill. Staffs. note 11,32). Close inspection of the facsimile of DB suggests that something was amiss when this name was written: at first glance the –d– of Widegrip looks like the second and less common of the two forms of the letter employed by the main scribe of Great Domesday Book (the form with a straight ascender), but it lacks the tag at the top of the ascender with which he usually started the downstroke (compare Widegrip in line 1 of the extract below with dimid’ in line 6). This momentary distraction in an expert and fluent scribe hints that he may have been unsure of the name he was copying (see GDB 249r, last 8 lines of column 1: entries for Ingestre and Tittensor (Staffs. 11:32–33).

Apart from DB landowners, the name occurs in PASE only as that of a moneyer who struck coins at Stamford (Lincs.) for Harold I, Harthacnut, and Edward the Confessor between 1038 and 1062, probably the same moneyer whose name also appears on coins struck at Lincoln 1048–50 and Hertford 1050–2 (PASE: Wilgrip 2–6).

Bibliography

Phill. Staffs.: Domesday Book, ed. John Morris, 24: Staffordshire (Chichester: Phillimore, 1976)

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: Widegrip, Wilegrip(us), Willegrip, 

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Vilgrip, Víðgrípr

  Phillimore edition:

  Alecto edition:

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
Shropshire 4,23,1 Kynnersley Willegrip Wilgrip 'of Church Eaton' - Roger, earl Gerard de Tournai-sur-Dives 1.00 1.05 0.90 B Map
Shropshire 4,3,4 Great Wytheford Wilegrip Wilgrip 'of Church Eaton' - Roger, earl Reynold de Bailleul 1.25 0.70 1.00 B Map
Staffordshire 11,32 Ingestre Widegrip Wilgrip 'of Church Eaton' - Robert of Stafford Hugh fitzConstantius 1.50 0.38 0.38 B Map
Staffordshire 11,65 Church Eaton Wilegrip Wilgrip 'of Church Eaton' - Robert of Stafford Godric 'of Ranton' 3.00 1.00 1.00 B Map
Suffolk 29,4 Flowton Wilgripus Wilgrip 'of Flowton' - Roger d'Auberville - 0.33 0.64 0.64 A Map
Totals