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Question
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What was Fovant called in the Domesday Book?
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Question asked on
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06 December 2005
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Answer
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Fovant is identified as Febefonte in the Domesday Book. It is listed amongst the holdings of the Church at Wilton. 'Febefonte' is one of several variant spellings such as Fobbefunte, Fobhunte, Fovehunte and Foffount, which occur in records from before the Conquest to the sixteenth century. They all derive from and mean 'Fobba's spring', although as 'fob' meant foam or froth in old English, the name could mean 'the frothing well'. All of these variants - as of all of the other place-names in Wiltshire - are described in \"The place-names of Wiltshire\" which is the most comprehensive of the several books about Wiltshire place-names listed in the bibliography attached.
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Bibliography
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Davey, C.: West Country place-names and what they mean: Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire (Bristol, Abson Books, 1983), p. 22. (This lists names alphabetically).
Domesday Book, vol. 6: Wiltshire; ed. by C. and F. Thorn. (Chichester: Phillimore, 1979), Section 13: Lands of th church of Wilton, subsection 19, p. 68a,b.
Ekblom, E.: The place-names of Wiltshire: their origin and history (Uppsala: Appelbergs Boktryckeri, 1917), pp. 85-86. (This lists names alphabetically).
Gover, J.E.B. and others: The place-names of Wiltshire, by J.E.B. Gover, A. Mawer and F.M. Stenton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), p. 214. (This lists names geographically, in hundreds).
Longstaff, J.C.: Notes on Wiltshire names, vol. 1: place-names (Bradford-on-Avon: W. Dotesio, 1911), p. 130. (This lists names by their meaning).
Tomkins, R.: Wiltshire place names (Swindon: Redbrick Publishing, 1983) (This lists names alphabetically).
