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Ælfhild 15

Name

Summary

Ælfhild 15 was the TRE holder of an estate in south Gloucestershire that was assessed at 3 hides and valued at £4.

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 Gloucestershire	Phil. ref. 74,1	Vill Charfield	DB Spelling Elfelt	Holder 1066 Ælfhild 'of Charfield'	Lord 1066 Edward, king	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Jocelin the Breton	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 3.00	1066 Value 4.00	1086 Value 2.00	Confidence E	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

It is difficult to judge whether Ælfhild 15 is the same person as Ælfhild 13, who was the TRE holder of estates at Lovington and Westcombe in Somerset, the latter lying some 34 miles from Charfield.  Given the respective sizes of the estates (Ælfhild 13’s amounted to 8¾ hides), these do not seem too distant from each other to have been held by the same person.  Where they differ, however, is that Ælfhild 13’s private estate at Lovington had passed to Serlo de Burcy by 1086 whereas that of Ælfhild 15 had passed to Joscelin Breton (although it is worth noting that neither successor held land in both shires).  Furthermore, the presence of Ælfhild 16 at Hartham, only 15 miles from Charfield and 22 miles from Westcombe, shows that the name Ælfhild was not sufficiently uncommon locally to form the basis of an identification without supporting evidence.  For this reason, therefore, the difference in successors just tips the balance of probability in favour of Ælfhild 15 and Ælfhild 13 being different people.

Ælfhild 15’s manor lay about 36 miles from Ælfhild 14’s estate in Herefordshire, but with the Severn estuary also intervening this seems too far for them to be the same person; furthermore, the estates passed to different successors.  Although Ælfhild 14 and Ælfhild 15 were the only people so named to be spelt with Elf- rather than Al(f)- in DB, this seems to be a minor spelling variant more frequent in the west midlands than elsewhere (cf. von Feilitzen 1937: 172-81).  While some uncertainty remains, therefore, there do not appear to be sufficient grounds for regarding Ælfhild 14 and Ælfhild 15 as the same person.

Bibliography

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