Names from the Past

A recent Treasure acquisition for Leicestershire Museums is a very rare ‘Nummular’ brooch WMID-B1C4E3 found in the Hinckley area. These date to the late early medieval period and the brooch design is based on an 11th century coin. This brooch has been linked to coins issued by Aethelraed (ruled AD 978-1016), Cnut (ruled AD 1016 to 1035) and Edward the Confessor (ruled AD 1042 to 1066).

This brooch is important as it names an individual who may have lived in the county and is the first such find for Leicestershire.

The brooch is inscribed
+ P (=W) V L F G Y F E M E A H A G H I R E
Divided into words, the text reads: + wulfgyfe me ah ag hire.
The language is Old English, the P standing for the letter ‘wynn’ and the text is probably to be translated as ‘+ Wulfgyfu owns me; owns (me) for her’. Wulfgyfu is a female name, so the her probably refers to Wulfgyfu.

2012T656 WMID-B1C4E3 small
Late Saxon brooch fragment (WMID-B1C4E3) Copyright: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Licence: CC-BY-SA.

The last such find was made in the early 1990’s in Wardley, Rutland.  In this case the object was a spacer plate from an early medieval linked pin set (rather like the Witham pins in the British Museum). It has a rare runic inscription, which names the owner as Ceolburg. The object is thought to date to the eighth century and is currently on display at Jewry Wall Museum in Leicester.