Tomtun, King Æthelred’s vill?

Summary.  ‘Tomtun’ could refer to a royal enclosure for King Æthelred, but where was it located? Was it by the River Tom or Tam? There is a case Tōmtun refers to Lichfield.

 

The Peterborough (Early Medieval) Chronicle[1] contained a charter in which Æthelred of Mercia attested at some time, 675 x 692[2], in his cubiculum or chambers at Tōmtun a grant giving land to abbot Headda at Breedon on the Hill.

Ita peractis rex ipse Aedilredus in cubiculo proprii vici qui nominatur Tomtun.

 

King Æthelred on the west front of the cathedral.

This indicates Tōmtun means a specific location, or the nature of a location.

Tun

Tun is Old English for an enclosed area of land and after consideration of many interpretations it could be a village, estate or farmstead.[3] Campbell concluded it could be a royal vill, a settlement with adjacent lands.[4] The reference with King Æthelred accords with an interpretation of a royal vill.

 

Tōm

          There are two explanations for Tōm, both poorly attested.   

1.Tōm or Tóm means in Old English empty or figuratively vacant or ‘free from’[5]. It is difficult to envisage a royal residence being empty or free from some attribute, however one interpretation does stand out. Wulfhere spent his kingship trying to free Mercia from the overlordship of Northumbria and avoid any tribute that was necessary. This ambition to make Mercia a growing kingdom in its own right without reference to Northumbria would have been paramount to Kings Wulfhere and his brother Æthelred. So does Tōmtun mean an independent royal enclosure not bound to another kingdom or tribe.

2. Tom or its cognate Tam means in Old English and Proto-Germanic the opposite of wild, namely tame. That could be construed to mean a slow river. It has been etymologically linked with the river Tame meaning a royal location by the river Tame, such as at Tamworth.[6] The people living in the River Tame area were known as the Tomsaete or Tomsæte which has been interpreted to be the ‘Tame dwellers,’ and centred at Tamworth, but could have been living anywhere along the river in the West Midlands.  There is no evidence for a royal settlement at this time, late 7th-century, at Tamworth. Another suggestion has been Catholme (Cattom next to Catton) since it stood where the river Tame joined the river Trent and there was a considerable settlement.[7] At both these locations the river does not appear ‘tame’, but the stream, now called the Curborough brook, through Licitfelda (Lichfield) in the 7th-century could have been meandering and slow.

 

If Tom did mean free where would a free king’s hall be located?

Archaeology shows the early minsters of the 7th to 9th-century in Southumbria were magnate farms, that is, high status settlements including royal estates[8] There are a few examples of the king living within a monastic complex and more have been suspected. Blair noted Yeavering, Northumberland, royal residence was handed over to be converted to a minster. King Æthelwalh of Sussex gave Wilfrid land and his own vill to be an episcopal seat, probably Selsey.[9] Lyminge, Kent, could have been both a royal centre and nunnery. Eynsham and Thame in Oxfordshire and Repton in Derbyshire might have had both a minster and a king’s centre.[10] Bamburgh, Northumberland, had a church within its royal palace complex[11] and this must have been noted by Wulfhere and Æthelred. This arrangement could indicate Æthelred’s hall was within the ecclesiastical settlement of Licetfelda.

 

AI gen. King Æthelred's vill by the River Tom.

 In 704, Æthelred abdicated and became a monk at Bardney, Lindsey, a monastery which he founded with his wife. This shows his preference for living in a monastical/ecclesiastical centre.

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[1] Archived in the Bodleian Library as MS. Laud Misc. 636. To Hædda, abbot of Breedon; grant of land at Cedenan Ac. It has a national reference of S1804.

[2] S. Zaluckyj, Mercia. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of central England. (2001), 218, suggested the year 691. Like many charters the authenticity of the charter has been questioned.

[3] A. D. Mills, A Dictionary of English Place­names. New York: Oxford University Press, (1991), 384.

[4] J. Campbell, ‘Bede's words for places’, in Essays in Anglo-Saxon History. (London: 1986), 114–5.

[5] J. Bosworth, A compendious Anglo-Saxon and English dictionary (London: 1838).

[6] A. Sargent, Lichfield and the lands of St Chad: creating community in Early Medieval Mercia. (Hatfield: 2020), 200.

[7] J. Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England (Princeton and Oxford: 2018), 196 n59.

[8] M. Carver, M. Formative Britain. An archaeology of Britain, fifth to eleventh century AD. (London and New York: 2019), 654.

[9] B. Colgrave, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus. Text, translation and notes (Cambridge: 1927), chapter 42, 85.

[10] J. Blair. The church in Anglo-Saxon society (Oxford: 2005), 186–7, 277.

[11] S. Foot, Monastic life in Anglo-Saxon England c600--900 (Cambridge: 2006), 77.