The Spaldingas ("dwellers of the Spald"
[Mills, A. D. (1997) ''Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names''; 2nd ed.; p. 320. Oxford: Oxford University Press]) were an
Anglian tribe that settled in an area known as ''the Spalda''. This divided the fens and marshes of
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included.
The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...
in what is now the
South Holland
South Holland ( ) is a province of the Netherlands with a population of over 3.8 million as of January 2023 and a population density of about , making it the country's most populous province and one of the world's most densely populated areas. ...
part of
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...
. As well as establishing the town of
Spalding, first mentioned in a charter by King
Æthelbald of Mercia
Æthelbald (also spelled Ethelbald or Aethelbald; died 757) was the King of Mercia, in what is now the English Midlands from 716 until he was killed in 757. Æthelbald was the son of Alweo and thus a grandson of King Eowa. Æthelbald came to th ...
to the monks of
Crowland Abbey
Crowland Abbey (historically often spelled Croyland Abbey; Latin: ) is a Church of England parish church, formerly part of a Benedictine abbey church, in Crowland in the English county of Lincolnshire. It is a Grade I listed building.
Histor ...
in 716, they also gave their name to area of
Spalding Moor and the village of
Spaldington in
East Yorkshire.
A tribe living in "Spalda" are mentioned in the
Tribal Hidage
Image:Tribal Hidage 2.svg, 400px, alt=insert description of map here, The tribes of the Tribal Hidage. Where an appropriate article exists, it can be found by clicking on the name.
rect 275 75 375 100 w:Elmet
rect 375 100 450 150 w:Hatfield Ch ...
(7th century).
Eilert Ekwall
Bror Oscar Eilert Ekwall (8 January 1877 in Vallsjö – 23 November 1964 in Lund) was a Swedish academic, Professor of English at Sweden's Lund University from 1909 to 1942 and one of the outstanding scholars of the English language in the firs ...
regarded this name as etymologically obscure. He suggested that the tribe may have brought this name (Spaldas) from the Continent where there may have been a corresponding place-name. It would presumably be related to the unrecorded Anglo-Saxon ' (to cleave) (OHG ') so the meaning of the noun would be "cleft" or "ravine". However, as there are no ravines in the fenland, all of the above should be treated with caution. Caitlin Green has suggested that the Spaldingas were of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Brittonic origin, due to a significant concentration of British Celtic place names in their territory.
[Caitlin Green, ''Britons and Anglo-Saxons: Lincolnshire AD 400-650'', second edition (2020), p. 183]
The Spaldingas may have retained their administrative independence within the Kingdom of
Mercia
Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...
into the late 9th century, when
Stamford became one of the
Five Boroughs of the East Midlands under Danish control.
References
Peoples of Anglo-Saxon Mercia
Spalding, Lincolnshire
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