Tombstone Situated At the Foot of the Vestry Wall - St Mary's Church - Duddington!
Dear Adrian
Your query to the Institute for Name-Studies about the name Daringold has been passed to me, as I am Hon Professor there, and you will remember that we corresponded about this name a couple of years ago. I’ve done a little more hunting, mainly online, and the only certain fact that I can come up with is that a daughter of Everard Digby of Stoke Dry in Rutland was also named Daringould in his will of 1508-9. This is transcribed in Leicestershire and Rutland Notes and Queries, III (1893-5): 226, which can be read online at https://archive.org/stream/leicestershirea00unkngoog/leicestershirea00unkngoog_djvu.txt.
It is said by the transcriber that she married Robert Hunt of Stoke Daubney, Northants.
Apart from that will of 1508-9 I can only find unverifiable assertions on family history websites (accessible on ancestry.co.uk) that Daringould Digby was also named 1. Baringold and was the second wife of Thomas Robert Hunt of Stoke Daubney, 2. Darnegold and 3. Dervorguilla.
The identification of Daringo(u)ld with Dervorguilla seems arbitrary and in the absence of any contemporary sources as evidence we could just ignore it. Dervorguilla is, however, a name well known to historians of medieval Britain. Wikipedia has this entry:
Dervorguilla of Galloway (c. 1210 – 28 January 1290) was a 'lady of substance' in 13th century Scotland, the wife from 1223 of John, 5th Baron de Balliol , and mother of John I, a future king of Scotland. The name Dervorguilla or Dervorgilla was a Latinisation of the Gaelic Dearbhfhorghaill (alternative spellings, Derborgaill or Dearbhorghil). Dervorguilla was one of the three daughters and heiresses of the Gaelic prince Alan, Lord of Galloway. She should not be confused with her father's sister, Dervorguilla of Galloway, heiress of Whissendine, who married Nicholas II de Stuteville.
In 1263, her husband Sir John was required to make penance after a land dispute with Walter of Kirkham , Bishop of Durham. Part of this took the very expensive form of founding a College for the poor at the University of Oxford. Sir John's own finances were less substantial than those of his wife, however, and long after his death it fell to Dervorguilla to confirm the foundation, with the blessing of the same Bishop as well as the University hierarchy. She established a permanent endowment for the College in 1282, as well as its first formal Statutes. The college still retains the name Balliol College , where the history students' society is called the Dervorguilla Society and an annual seminar series featuring women in academia is called the Dervorguilla Seminar Series. While a Requiem Mass in Latin was sung at Balliol for the 700th anniversary of her death, it is believed that this was sung as a one-off, rather than having been marked in previous centuries.
I don’t know if the Digby or Wyles families had any connection with Balliol College. I should add that the name Derbforgaill alias Dervorgilla alias Derval was famous in Irish Annals as that of the wife of the king of Meath (she died in 1193). She was a significant actor in the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland. I wonder if the Digbys had property in Ireland.
If Daringould really is an anglicized form of Dervorguilla, then a manuscript spelling of the name as Deruorguilla has been mis-transcribed as Dernoguilla. This would explain the spelling in the earliest antiquarian references that I can find to the wife of John Balliol. She is called Dernorgill in Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum (1655) p. 530, and in Crawfurd’s The peerage of Scotland (1716) pp. 155-6, accessible at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/Eighteenth Century Collections Online .
I can see how Dernogill could be altered in late medieval English to Darnegold and Daringo(u)ld but the 1655 evidence for Dernogill is one-and-a-half centuries later than the birth of Daringould Digby. Where and how would Everard Digby (died 1509) have come across the name in that form? He may have been a very learned man, but I can’t offhand think of what written source he would have got the name from – or why it would have appealed to him.
As for Daringold Wyles, whose tombstone dates her death as 17 December 1668, she might either have been named after a relative or a godparent descending from the Hunt family, or else was freshly named after the medieval benefactress of Balliol College. But this is only speculation, of course.
I’m sorry not to be able to come up with something more definite than this. The name needs more research than I have had time to give it, I’m afraid.
With best wishes
Peter McClure,
Hon Professor of Name-Studies
Institute for Name-Studies
University of Nottingham
Your query to the Institute for Name-Studies about the name Daringold has been passed to me, as I am Hon Professor there, and you will remember that we corresponded about this name a couple of years ago. I’ve done a little more hunting, mainly online, and the only certain fact that I can come up with is that a daughter of Everard Digby of Stoke Dry in Rutland was also named Daringould in his will of 1508-9. This is transcribed in Leicestershire and Rutland Notes and Queries, III (1893-5): 226, which can be read online at https://archive.org/stream/leicestershirea00unkngoog/leicestershirea00unkngoog_djvu.txt.
It is said by the transcriber that she married Robert Hunt of Stoke Daubney, Northants.
Apart from that will of 1508-9 I can only find unverifiable assertions on family history websites (accessible on ancestry.co.uk) that Daringould Digby was also named 1. Baringold and was the second wife of Thomas Robert Hunt of Stoke Daubney, 2. Darnegold and 3. Dervorguilla.
The identification of Daringo(u)ld with Dervorguilla seems arbitrary and in the absence of any contemporary sources as evidence we could just ignore it. Dervorguilla is, however, a name well known to historians of medieval Britain. Wikipedia has this entry:
Dervorguilla of Galloway (c. 1210 – 28 January 1290) was a 'lady of substance' in 13th century Scotland, the wife from 1223 of John, 5th Baron de Balliol , and mother of John I, a future king of Scotland. The name Dervorguilla or Dervorgilla was a Latinisation of the Gaelic Dearbhfhorghaill (alternative spellings, Derborgaill or Dearbhorghil). Dervorguilla was one of the three daughters and heiresses of the Gaelic prince Alan, Lord of Galloway. She should not be confused with her father's sister, Dervorguilla of Galloway, heiress of Whissendine, who married Nicholas II de Stuteville.
In 1263, her husband Sir John was required to make penance after a land dispute with Walter of Kirkham , Bishop of Durham. Part of this took the very expensive form of founding a College for the poor at the University of Oxford. Sir John's own finances were less substantial than those of his wife, however, and long after his death it fell to Dervorguilla to confirm the foundation, with the blessing of the same Bishop as well as the University hierarchy. She established a permanent endowment for the College in 1282, as well as its first formal Statutes. The college still retains the name Balliol College , where the history students' society is called the Dervorguilla Society and an annual seminar series featuring women in academia is called the Dervorguilla Seminar Series. While a Requiem Mass in Latin was sung at Balliol for the 700th anniversary of her death, it is believed that this was sung as a one-off, rather than having been marked in previous centuries.
I don’t know if the Digby or Wyles families had any connection with Balliol College. I should add that the name Derbforgaill alias Dervorgilla alias Derval was famous in Irish Annals as that of the wife of the king of Meath (she died in 1193). She was a significant actor in the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland. I wonder if the Digbys had property in Ireland.
If Daringould really is an anglicized form of Dervorguilla, then a manuscript spelling of the name as Deruorguilla has been mis-transcribed as Dernoguilla. This would explain the spelling in the earliest antiquarian references that I can find to the wife of John Balliol. She is called Dernorgill in Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum (1655) p. 530, and in Crawfurd’s The peerage of Scotland (1716) pp. 155-6, accessible at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/Eighteenth Century Collections Online .
I can see how Dernogill could be altered in late medieval English to Darnegold and Daringo(u)ld but the 1655 evidence for Dernogill is one-and-a-half centuries later than the birth of Daringould Digby. Where and how would Everard Digby (died 1509) have come across the name in that form? He may have been a very learned man, but I can’t offhand think of what written source he would have got the name from – or why it would have appealed to him.
As for Daringold Wyles, whose tombstone dates her death as 17 December 1668, she might either have been named after a relative or a godparent descending from the Hunt family, or else was freshly named after the medieval benefactress of Balliol College. But this is only speculation, of course.
I’m sorry not to be able to come up with something more definite than this. The name needs more research than I have had time to give it, I’m afraid.
With best wishes
Peter McClure,
Hon Professor of Name-Studies
Institute for Name-Studies
University of Nottingham
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