I have previously proposed that the name Nonington, applicable to the settlement around the village church, had its origins due the location of the settlement on four aratra [sulungs or hides] of land “aet [at, by or next to] Oesewalum” owned jointly in the late 700’s and early 800’s by Aldberht, an earldorman, and Selethryth, his sister and the abbess of the convents of Minster-in-Thanet and Lyminge. During the early 820’s possession of these four aratra of land was disputed between Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cwoenthryth, the then abbess of Minster-in-Thanet and daughter of Coenwulf, the king of Mercia. Eventually Wulfred’s ownership of the disputed land was confirmed. Wulfred also owned the estate known as Oesewalum, which consisted of some ten hides of land that he bequeathed to his kinsman, Werhard the Priest, that I now believe was actually located near modern day Harrow in Middlesex.
The most logical conclusion therefore appeared to be that Nonington evolved from the Old English Nunne-ingtūn, meaning the nun’s or nuns settlement or estate, with the nun or nuns in question being from Minster-in-Thanet and Lyminge.
However, the fact that the settlement site was not actually on the land “aet Oesewalum” owned by Selethryth or either of her convents excludes them as being the nun or nuns in Nunne-ingtūn. It also means that St. Mary’s Church did not, as I have previous proposed, evolve from a chapel founded to provide alms to seven paupers at Oesewalum, an estate of ten hides, as specified in the will of Werhard the Priest.
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A re-evalution of the location of Oesewalum.
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An alternative origin for the name Nonington is therefore required.
However, there is still a connection to nuns, possibly the nuns at Minster-in-Thanet or Lyminge!
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It has long been held by place name scholars that the name Nonington derived from the Old English personal name “Nunna” with addition of the suffix “ingtūn”, thereby meaning Nunna’s farm, village or estate. The prevailing current opinion is that “ing” is a singular suffix which, when paired with “tūn”, meaning a farm, village or estate, had an associative function, i.e. “called after”. The name would therefore translate as “Nunna’s farm, village or estate”. In the case of Nonington it would most likely to have been a small hamlet around Nunna’s farm.
This use of “ingtūn” as a suffix would probably date the naming of the settlement to the late eighth or early ninth centuries as early credible examples of “ingtūn” seem only to begin to appear in Mercia or its West Midlands territories in the second half of the eighth century and do not appear in charter descriptions of estates in Kent until in the late 780’s, around the time that Mercia consolidated its control over the previously independent Kingdom of Kent.
The Old English name Nunna was a masculine personal name originating from the Old English word nunne, meaning “nun” or “holy woman”, which, despite the feminine definition, was used for men. It was most likely to have been used as a nickname to denote a person associated with a religious community or convent life, possibly as a feudal tenant or perhaps as a reeve or bailiff.
Possibly the convents Nunna was associated were Minster-in-Thanet or Lyminge?
An alternative origin of Nonington could be that, as mentioned above, the land on which the settlement was situated was owned by a convent such as Minster-in-Thanet or Lyminge. Nunne-ingtūn would therefore derive, as referred to above, from “nunne”, the Old English for nun, which derived from the Ecclesiastical Latin “nonne”, with the suffix “ingtūn”, thus making it Nunne-ingtūn, the nuns farm, village or estate. As stated above, this use of “ingtūn” as a suffix would probably date the naming of the settlement to the late eighth or early ninth centuries.
Although the name derived from its ownership by nuns, these nuns had no connection with the aforementioned Oesewalum.
Viking raids in the early to mid 800’s destroyed Lyminge and Minster-in-Thanet convents in 804 and 850 respectively, and their lands were appropriated by Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury from 805 to 832, and his successors.
Much of the land in the old parish of Nonington, including the vills of North and South Nonington which included the original settlement and church, belonged to the Manor of Wingham, which was a personal fiefdom of the Archbishops of Canterbury until 1538 when Archbishop Cranmer exchanged the manor and attached lands with King Henry VIII for other property.
A list of mother churches and their subsidiary churches drawn up for Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury soon after his ordination in 1070 recorded a “chapel of ease” at “Nunningitun” that was a subsidiary church “Ad Wingeham” (to Wingham) . The chapel of ease at “Nunningitun” became a parish church in its own right when the Parish of Nonington was founded by Archbishop John Peckam in 1282.
