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Alwaru 2

Name

Summary

Alwaru 2 held a small estate in north Devon TRE, assessed at only 1 virgate yet with land for 3 ploughs and with a value of 20s; she was probably a dependent tenant of Beorhtric 36 and she did not have the power of alienation.

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. 1,63	Vill Iddesleigh	DB Spelling Aluuare	Holder 1066 Alwaru Tet	Lord 1066 Beorhtric son of Ælfgar	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William, king	1086 Subtenant Walter de Claville	Fiscal Value 0.25	1066 Value 1.00	1086 Value 1.00	Confidence B	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

This is the only estate held by someone called Alwaru recorded in DB, although another person with that name (Alwaru 3) is recorded in the Liber Eliensis.

Alwaru 2’s estate was a part of the manor of Iddesleigh held by Beorhtric 36 TRE, which then passed to Queen Matilda (Matilda 2) and thence to King William (William 1).  DB states that Alwaru ‘could not be separated from’ Beorhtric, and this lack of the power of alienation implies that she was one of his dependent tenants.  By 1086, her virgate had passed to the king’s subtenant Walter and its TRW valuation of 20s and its possession of ‘land for 3 ploughs’ indicate a slightly larger holding than its TRE assessment of 1 virgate would suggest.

Alwaru’s byname Tet is given only in the Exon entry (109a1) relating to this estate, where her name appears in the form Aluuatet.  John Dodgson (Thorn and Thorn 1985: 1,63 Notes) suggested that it represents Old Danish or Continental Germanic tet ‘pet, darling’, although von Feilitzen (1937: 154) did not recognize it as a byname and instead suggested that the Exon form could be a corrupted form of an Old Cornish name related to Old Welsh Elguoret, Elguaret. 

Another DB entry (fo 112v; Devon 24,22) seems to refer to this same estate.  It records 1 virgate belonging to the king’s manor of Iddesleigh and names the TRW holder as Walter de Claville; but it names the TRE holder as Aleuesdef (Ælgifu ) and does not mention Beorhtric.  Dodgson states that Aluuatet and Aleuesdef represent totally different names and that scribal confusion through the usual processes of mishearing or miswriting was very unlikely.  The relationship, if any, between Alwaru 2 and Ælgifu therefore remains unclear.

Bibliography

Thorn and Thorn 1985: C. Thorn and F. Thorn, eds., Domesday Book 9: Devon (Chichester, 1985), 1,63 Notes.

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)