The masculine Old English name Blaca is recorded only once before DB, as a person commemorated at Durham in the earliest part of the Liber Vitae (LVD: II, 169; von Feilitzen 1937: 203). The spelling Blache serves to distinguish this, the weak form of the name, from the strong form Blæc (Blac, Blach) and from the equivalent Scandinavian name, ON Blakkr (Blacre, Blac) (Blacher). Although the simplest of scribal errors would have confused the names, in practice there is no possibility of mixing up the TRE landowners called Blaca and Blæc.
The adjective which forms the name was almost certainly OE blæc (‘black, dark’), referring principally to hair colour, rather than OE blāc (‘bright, shining; pale’) (von Feilitzen 1937: 203).
von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)
Spellings in Domesday Book: Blache
Forms in modern scholarship:
von Feilitzen head forms: Blaca
Phillimore edition: Black
Alecto edition: Blaca
Shire | Phil. ref. | Vill | Holder 1066 DB Spelling | Holder 1066 | Lord 1066 | Tenant-in-Chief 1086 | 1086 subtenant | Fiscal value | 1066 value | 1086 value | Holder 1066 ID conf. | Show on map |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hertfordshire | 10,17 | Aldenham | Blache | Blaca, man of St Alban | Ecgfrith, abbot of St Albans | Paul, abbot of St Albans | Geoffrey de Bec | 1.00 | 1.00 | 0.60 | A | Map |
Total | 1.00 | 1.00 | 0.60 |
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