Cynewig 3

Cynewig Cylla, fl. 1066
Male
DWP
4 of 5

Name

Cynewig
Cynewig 4

Summary

Cynewig Cylla, was a middle-ranking thegn of King Edward (Edward 15) with three estates in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire; these had a combined assessment of 17 hides and a total value of perhaps £24.

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
Gloucestershire 1,58 Arlington Cheuichelle Cynewig Cylla Edward, king William, king - 5.00 10.00 10.00 A Map
Gloucestershire 66,1 Saintbury Chenuicelle Cynewig Cylla - Hascoit Musard - 10.00 12.00 10.00 B Map
Oxfordshire 24,6 Asce Cheneuui Cynewig Cylla - Henry de Ferrers - 2.00 2.00 4.00 D Map
Totals

Profile

The name Cynewig was extremely rare and occurs only four times in DB. It is combined with the otherwise unrecorded byname Cylla in two entries that relate to fairly substantial estates that are only about 20 miles apart, and this combination of factors renders it almost certain that the same man, Cynewig 3, held both estates TRE even though they had passed to different successors by 1086.

One estate was of 10 hides at Saintbury, on the edge of the Cotswolds in north Gloucestershire and overlooking the Vale of Evesham, while the other was at Arlington, on the river Coln in east Gloucestershire, where Cynewig held 5 hides and in the entry for which he was described as a thegn of King Edward (Edward 15). The value of his Arlington estate is unclear (DB gives only a combined TRW value of £40 for that and an unconnected estate, which if divided in proportion to their hidages would imply that Arlington was then worth £10), but a combined holding of 15 hides would have placed Cynewig 3 firmly amongst the thegns of middle rank.

The precise derivation of Cynewig’s apparently unique Old English byname Cylla, spelt c(h)elle in DB, is uncertain. Tengvik examined possibilities including OE coll ‘hill’, OE cylle ‘bottle, flagon’ and OE cēol ‘keel, ship’, concluding that all pointed to an underlying sense ‘rounded, swollen’ and that Cylla was likely to be a nickname denoting a fat, bloated person or possibly a stupid one (Tengvik 1938: 299-300).

Cynewig 3 may be the same as the Cynewig who held 2 hides at Asce in Oxfordshire TRE, even though Asce passed to a different successor, Henry de Ferrers (Henry 6), than either of Cynewig 3’s other estates and its location is unknown. DB records that Henry had joined Asce to his land in Gloucestershire, which implies that this was closer to it than Henry’s other estates in Oxfordshire; and since his only such estate was by the shire boundary at Lechlade, it has been suggested (Morris & Caldwell 1978: DB 24,6 Notes) that Asce lay nearby on the Oxfordshire side of the boundary. If so, then it will have lain less than 10 miles from Cynewig 3’s estate at Arlington, and this relatively close proximity together with the extreme rarity of the name Cynewig renders it more likely than not that Asce was another of Cynewig Cylla’s estates.

The fourth estate recorded in DB as being held by some called Cynewig TRE seems less likely to have belonged to Cynewig 3, however. It lay in south Wiltshire and more than 40 miles from the nearest of Cynewig 3’s estates, and it passed to a different successor than any of the three already recorded for his estates. Although it too was a fairly substantial estate with an assessment of 6 hides, to associate this was Cynewig 3 solely on the basis of the rarity of name and the similarity of estate size seems too tenuous and the balance of probability is just in favour of identifying this Wiltshire estate with a different TRE holder, Cynewig 4.

Bibliography


Morris and Caldwell 1978: Domesday Book 14: Oxfordshire, ed. J. Morris and C. Caldwell (Chichester, 1978)

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