English Place-name Society

Survey of English Place-Names

A county-by-county guide to the linguistic origins of England’s place-names – a project of the English Place-Name Society, founded 1923.

Flitt Hundred

Hundred in the County of Bedfordshire

Historical Forms

  • Flictham 1086 DB
  • Flicte 1179 P
  • Flete 1185 RotDom
  • Flitte 1193 P 1202,1240 Ass 1247 Ass 1284,1316 FA 1327 1328 Fine 1390–2 CS 1428 FA
  • Flitton 1297, 1327 Ipm, Orig
  • Flitten(e) 1297 SR 1327 Fine 1329 Pat 1332 Ipm
  • Fletton 1297 Cl
  • Flytte 1302,1346 FA 1495 Ipm
  • Flett 1310 Misc 1587 D
  • Flittescourt 1316 FA
  • Flite 1327 Orig
  • Flute 1353 Orig
  • Flutt 1408 IpmR

Etymology

For a discussion of the etymology of this name, v. Flitton infra 148. The site of the meeting-place of the Hundred is unknown. It must have been in the neighbourhood of Flitton or along the streams which gave rise to that name. This, as in Manshead Hundred, makes the meeting-place to have been roughly at the middle of its longer axis, very near to the meeting-place of that Hundred itself. The 'Thingrithe' of Tingrith (v. supra 134) is a western extension of the Flitt streams.