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Joe Hillaby considered that the local 'Dewi'
names derived from Much Dewchurch being a mother
church to Little Dewchurch,
Dewsall and Kilpeck
and that the dedication may originally 'refer
to another David'. It has been suggested
by Rev.
Michael Mountney, that the three Dewi named
places in the locality – Much Dewchurch,
Little Dewchurch and Dewsall - are named, not
from St David of Wales, but from another Dewi
in LL – Deui summus sacerdos filius
Circan and that this personage is of a much
earlier time. Subsequently
Wendy Davies has suggested that the charters
in which Deui summus sacerdos appears as
a witness (Bolgros – Byecross, Preston-on-Wye
and Lann Guorboe - Eaton Bishop) date from
around 610/615.
In Domesday Roger de Lacy held
Mainure of the king - Roger de Laci
ten Mainaure.
Bruce Coplestone-Crow considers that
this (identified in the Hereford Domesday as Birch)
was a remnant of what had originally been a much
larger land-unit which comprised Dewsall, Aconbury,
Ballingham, Little Birch, Much Birch, Bolstone,
Little Dewchurch, eastern Much Dewchurch, Callow
and Hoarwithy.
Glanville R J Jones considered that this
may have been a maenor wrthir (an upland
maenor) of Ergyng centred on the hill-fort
at Aconbury - the Welsh Caer Rein.
Meiner Reau in Herefordshire Domesday would appears
to be a corresponding lowland manor (maenor
fro) originally identified as Ballingham.
Such large land units appear to have been common,
and probably had their origins in the Iron Age.
Another such unit has been identified at Marden,
14 km to the north, where the focus would have
been the large hill-fort at Sutton Walls.
The
earliest reference to what is believed to be Much
Dewchurch is in around 620 when the abbot of Dewchurch
(Guordoce abbas Lann Deui) appears in a
witness list.
In
about 728 Morheb was abbot at Much Dewchurch
(Lann Deui) and in about 745 Lann Deui
was one of the churches returned to Bishop Berthwyn.
As Lann Deui ros cerion, Much Dewchurch
was still clearly within the Ergyng diocese in
the time of William I when Bishop Herewald ordained
Cinan son of Gritiau to the church there.
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