PASE

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Ælfnoth

Gender: Male

Author: DWP

Editorial Status: 4 of 5

Discussion of the name

Ælfnoth is an Old English masculine name comprising the elements ælf ‘elf, sprite’ and nōð ‘bold, daring’. The elements Ælf- and Æþel- tended to develop towards Al- in late Old English and thereby become indistinguishable, and these forms of the names Ælfnoth and Æthelnoth are discussed under the head-form Alnoth (von Feilitzen 1937: 45-7, 142; Campbell 1968: 136).

There are 65 entries for the name Ælfnoth in the PASE corpus (with a further 4 entries for Alnoth), all except 17 of which occur before c.1030. Of those 17 remaining, Ælfnoth 32 and 40 were abbots, Ælfnoth 8, 33-5, 38-9, 44 and 49 were minor landholders or officials, Ælfnoth 43 and 45 were post-Conquest instances, Ælfnoth 50 is a catch-all category for occurrences in DB, and Ælfnoth 58-60 and Ælfnoth 63 were moneyers. Given this high frequency of instances in the mid-eleventh century it is surprising that there are so few in DB, which confirms that many DB instances of the name Ælfnoth must be concealed under the head-form Alnoth.

Bibliography

Campbell 1968: A. Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959; revised edn 1968)

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: Alfnod, Alfnoð

Forms in modern scholarship:

von Feilitzen head forms: Ælfnōð

Phillimore edition: Alfnoth

Alecto edition: Ælfnoth

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 Suffolk	Phil. ref. 49,1	Vill Layham	DB Spelling Alfnod	Holder 1066 Ælfnoth 'of Layham'	Lord 1066 Harold, earl	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Hugh de Grandmesnil	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 3.00	1066 Value 3.50	1086 Value 5.00	Confidence C	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

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
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. C14	Vill Lincoln	DB Spelling Ælfnod	Holder 1066 Auti son of Azur	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William, king	1086 Subtenant Ælfnoth 'of Lincoln'	Fiscal Value 0.50	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence -	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value