EARLY HISTORY TO A.D. 100. 19 
nearer the first than the latter date, since by the early part of the 
tenth century the name had become shortened down to Lievesham, 
and its origin forgotten. 
But it is with the year A.D. 918 that the history of Lewisham 
really opens, and connects the place with the man all England 
delights to honour, Alfred the Great, for in that year Elfrida, the 
youngest daughter of Alfred and wife of Count Baldwin of 
Flanders, bestowed her lands ‘‘ Lieuesham, Grenevic and Uulwich” 
on the Abbey of St. Peter, at Ghent. Considerable speculation has 
arisen as to the exact relationship which Elfrida—or Elstrudis as 
the name is latinized in the charters—bore to King Alfred, because 
in subsequent documents she is styled ‘‘neptis” (or niece). King 
Edgar, in 964, calls her ‘‘ daughter of the uncle of King Edward, 
my grandfather,” whilst Edward the Confessor in less round- 
about fashion, simply styles her ‘‘niece of the foresaid Alfred.” 
That she was the daughter of King Alfred seems, however, to 
admit of no doubt, and the connection which Alfred had with Kent 
by his descent, accounts for his possessions in the County. Alfred’s 
great grandfather was Ealhmund, King of Kent, whose son, 
Egbert, was chosen to succeed Brihtric in the Kingdom of Wessex, 
A.D. 800. Ethelwulf, who succeeded Egbert in 836, married 
twice. By his first wife Osburgha, daughter of his cup-bearer 
Oslac, he had Alfred and other children. Oslac was by race a Jute, 
whose forefathers had received the Isle of Wight from Cerdic, and 
probably held possessions in Kent on some of the old Juten lands. 
Alfred, the youngest son, succeeded his brothers on the throne in 
871, and by his wife, Elswitha, daughter of Ethelred, Earl of the 
Gaini, of an old Mercian family, he had Edward the Elder, who 
succeeded him, two other sons and three daughters, the youngest 
of whom, Elfrida, married Count Baldwin of Flanders, who was 
the son of Alfred’s stepmother, Judith. 
Elfrida in the charter speaks of Lewisham, Greenwich and 
Woolwich, as ‘‘her inheritance.” In her father’s will in A.D. gor, 
he left her the ham of Cippenham, which Dr. Drake, in his History 
of the Hundred of Blackheath, suggests was Chippenham, in 
Wiltshire, but which may have been exchanged for land at 
Lewisham, since Cippenham is an old form of Sydenham. It does 
not seem necessary to go so far afield to account for the possession 
of Lewisham by the Countess of Flanders. It is much more likely 
that the greater portion of this part of Kent was looked upon as 
belonging to the royal house. Dartford and Chislehurst continued 
part of the ancient demesne of the Crown at the time of the 
Conquest, and the boundaries would not need to be much enlarged 
to have taken in Lewisham as well. On her marriage Elfrida 
would, no doubt, have received a portion from her father, and what 
more natural than that she should receive property in Kent which 
was nearest to her new home, and may have come to her through 
her Jutish mother. 
Doubt has been cast on the authenticity of many of these early 
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