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Ælfhild 14

Name

Summary

Ælfhild 14 was the TRE holder of one of three manors in western Herefordshire that were together assessed at 3 hides but for which Domesday Book records no value.

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 Herefordshire	Phil. ref. 23,3	Vill Burcstanestune	DB Spelling Elfild	Holder 1066 Ælfhild 'of Burcstanestune'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Drew fitzPons	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 1.00	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence D	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

The precise location of Ælfhild 14’s small estate is uncertain.  It lay in the Golden Valley and may have been a part of Poston, between Peterchurch and Vowchurch, but the DB place-name Burcstanestune (from the genitive of the Old English personal name Burgstān and OE tūn ‘estate’) is not otherwise recorded (Thorn and Thorn 1983: 23,3 Notes).  

DB notes that Edwin , Ælfhild 14 and Alweard held Burcstanestune as three manors TRE and that it was in the hands of Drogo fitzPoyntz by 1086; but there is nothing to indicate that the three TRE holders were related, nor do they or their successor provide grounds for associating Ælfhild 14 with any other person of that name.

Ælfhild 14’s manor lay about 36 miles from Ælfhild 15’s three-hide estate at Charfield, the nearest estate also held TRE by someone called Ælfhild; but with the Severn estuary also intervening this seems too far for them to be the same person.  It is notable that Ælfhild 14 and Ælfhild 15 were the only people so named to be spelt with an initial Elf- rather than Al(f)- in DB, but this appears to be a minor spelling variant that is more frequent in the west midlands than elsewhere (cf. von Feilitzen 1937: 172-81).  Although some uncertainty remains, therefore, there are not 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)

Thorn and Thorn 1983: F. Thorn and C. Thorn, eds., Domesday Book 17: Herefordshire (Chichester, 1983), 23,3 Notes.