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Mawa 3

Name

Summary

Mawa 3 was probably a half-free woman with a tiny holding in south-east Suffolk TRE that she held in the soke and commendation of Ely Abbey; it was assessed at only 20 acres and may have had a value of 2s.

Profile

Mawa 3 is not named in DB but IE (145) records her as holding 20 acres at Goluesteham in the soke and commendation of the abbey of St Æthelthryth at Ely, which may be associated with the 20 acres in Ingoluestuna that DB records as being held TRE by Godric (Palmer et al. 2002: DB 21,65; 32,26 Notes).  Neither Goluesteham nor Ingoluestuna have yet been identified but both were clearly in Carlford Hundred in south-east Suffolk and both occur in DB and IE in fairly close proximity to entries relating to Culpho.  If Ekwall (1960: 136) is correct in deriving Culpho from Old English Cūþwulfes-hōh ‘Cuthwulf’s hill-spur’ (perhaps with Cuulf as a late form of Cuthwulf) then Ingolues(e)tona could represent In Cūþwulfes-tūn ‘Cuthwulf’s estate’ and Goluesteham a variant form Cūþwulfes-hām ‘Cuthwulf’s homestead’, although the medial ‘-te-‘ of the latter form would need to be explained.

In either case, it does not necessarily follow that Mawa’s holding was the same as Godric’s (although the value of 2s given for the latter in DB may be a guide to the value of Mawa’s), nor that there was any connection between the two individuals.

Although the wording of the IE entry dimiđ. lib’a femina ... in soc’. 7 com’niđ probably means that Mawa was a ‘half-free woman in [full] soke and commendation’ of Ely, it is possible that she was ‘a free woman half in soke and commendation’ of Ely, which would parallel the status of Godric.

The only estate recorded in DB as held TRE by someone perhaps called Mawa may be a scribal error (see Mauua 1) and refers to a free man with no connection to Ely Abbey rather than a free woman, so that although the estate was only about 12 miles from Goluesteham the identity is no more than possible.  There is no reason to consider Mawa 3 in connection with any other estate or person.

Bibliography

Ekwall 1960: E. Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, 4th edn (Oxford, 1960)

IE: Inquisitio Eliensis, in Inqusitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis, nunc primum e manuscripto unico in Bibliotheca Cottoniana asservato typis mandata, subjicitur Inquisitio Eliensis, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton (London: John Murray for the Royal Society of Literature, 1876), 97–195

Palmer et al. 2002: J. Palmer, F. Thorn and C. Thorn, and N. Hodgson, Electronic Edition of Domesday Book: Translation, Databases and Scholarly Commentary, 1086, 2nd edn (2002), currently published online by the UK Data Service https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue?sn=5694