Margaret Gelling identified a category of place-names called ‘X’s tūn’ names, where the name of an individual or a group was combined with the OE element tūn; she hypothesised that such names were coined in the later Anglo-Saxon period and often replaced earlier names for the places to which they refer.

Recent work has considered the dating, significance and distribution of three such place-names: biscopes-tūn, ‘tūn of the bishop’; muneca-tūn, ‘tūn of the monks’; and prēosta-tūn, ‘tūn of the priests’. Ecclesiastical names provide a valuable dataset to test this hypothesis for two reasons. Firstly, the historical development of ecclesiastical property conventions can be reconstructed to provide a likely context for the coining of the names. Secondly, as Church lands, an unusually high proportion of the places to which they applied have associated written documentation.

Gabor Thomas' recent excavations at Bishopstone, Sussex

The evidence of Bishopstones, Monktons, and Prestons appears to support Gelling’s hypothesis. It would indeed appear that these names were often coined in the later eighth, ninth, tenth or eleventh centuries. It is possible to argue that they often signified portions of land set aside for the use of bishops, monks and clergy as a result of two parallel processes: royal and episcopal expropriation of religious communities and their estates, and movements to reform religious communities.

The distribution of these place-names is considered to reflect regional differences in the levels of ecclesiastical landholding in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, which seems to add weight to this hypothesis. Finally, two historical implications of these names are discussed: the scale of expropriation and reform, and the nature of ecclesiastical organisation in the Danelaw.

Tom Pickles

Further reading

Pickles, T. 2009: Biscopes-tūn, muneca-tūn and prēosta-tūn: dating, significance and distribution, in E. Quinton (ed.), The Church in English Place-Names, 39-108. Nottingham.

Pickles, T. and Blair, J. forthcoming: Deantune and Bishopstone: the estate and the church under the Mercian kings and the South Saxon bishops, in G. Thomas (ed.), Bishopstone, Sussex: Excavation Report.