Anglo-Saxons; Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066
Dudda was a boor at Hatfield, and he had three daughters:
one hight Deorwyn, the other Deorswith, the third Golde. And
Wulflaf at Hatfield has Deorwyn to wife. Ælfstan, at
Tatchingworth, has Deorswith to wife: and Ealhstan,
Ælfstan's brother, has Golde to wife. There was a man hight
Hwita, bee-master at Hatfield, and he had a daughter Tate,
mother of Wulfsige, the bowman; and Wulfsige's sister Lulle
has Hehstan to wife, at Walden. Wifus and Dunne and Seoloce
are inborn at Hatfield. Duding, son of Wifus, lives at
Walden; and Ceolmund, Dunne's son, also sits at Walden; and
Æthelheah, Seoloce's son, also sits at Walden. And Tate,
Cenwold's sister, Mæg has to wife at Welgun; and Eadhelm,
Herethryth's son, has Tate's daughter to wife. Wærlaf,
Wærstan's father, was a right serf at Hatfield; he kept the
grey swine there.
In the west, and especially in Cornwall, the names of the serfs were
mainly Celtic,–Griffith, Modred, Riol, and so forth,–as may be seen
from the list of manumissions preserved in a mass-book at St. Petroc's,
or Padstow. Elsewhere, however, the Celtic names seem to have dropped
out, for the most part, with the Celtic language. It is true, we meet
with cases of apparently Welsh forms, like Maccus, or Rum, even in
purely Teutonic districts; and some names, such as Cerdic and Ceadwalla,
seem to have been borrowed by one race from the other: while such forms
as Wealtheow and Waltheof are at least suggestive of British descent:
but on the whole, the conquered Britons appear everywhere to have
quickly adopted the names in vogue among their conquerors. Such names
would doubtless be considered fashionable, as was the case at a later
date with those introduced by the Danes and the Normans. Even in
Cornwall a good many English forms occur among the serfs: while in very
Celtic Devonshire, English names were probably universal.
The Danish Conquest introduced a number of Scandinavian names,
especially in the North, the consideration of which belongs rather to a
companion volume. They must be briefly noted here, however, to prevent
confusion with the genuine English forms. Amongst such Scandinavian
introductions, the commonest are perhaps Harold, Swegen or Swend, Ulf,
Gorm or Guthrum, Orm, Yric or Eric, Cnut, and Ulfcytel. During and after
the time of the Danish dynasty, these forms, rendered fashionable by
royal usage, became very general even among the native English. Thus
Earl Godwine's sons bore Scandinavian names; and at an earlier period we
even find persons, apparently Scandinavian, fighting on the English side
against the Danes in East Anglia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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