Beath-waldeve
Beath-waldeve * BEA DFL S NT150900 4
terram meam totam de Beeth quam Waldeuus tenuit 1196 x 1203 Dunf. Reg. no. 154 [Saer de Quinci grants to Dunfermline Abbey all his land of Beath which Waldeve has held]
terram de Beeth quam Waldeuus tenuit 1196 x 1203 RRS ii no. 396 [= Dunf. Reg. no. 66; king confirms Saer de Quinci’s grant to Dunfermline Abbey the land of Beath which Waldeve has held]
Beeth Waldef 1278 Dunf. Reg. no. 86 [John of Strachan (Strathechyn’) son of Ranulph of Strachan quitclaims all right in Beath-Waldeve]
Beeth Waldef 1278 Dunf. Reg. no. 87 [Alexander III grants Beath-Waldeve, which had been held by John of Strachan (Strathechyn’), to Dunfermline Abbey]
Bethwaldefe 1451 RMS ii no. 429 [James II confirms the grant to Dunfermline by Alexander III of lands of *Beath-Waldeve and Wester Beath (de Bethwaldefe et de Beth occidentali]
en Beath + pn Waldeve
It is clear from the two earliest references to this place that it is to be interpreted as that part of Beath which Waldeve held of Saer de Quinci. At this time the eponymous Waldeve was either still alive, or had recently died (Dunf. Reg. no. 154, RRS ii no. 396). Waldeve’s descendants, and probably Waldeve himself, also held Strachan KCD (St A. Lib. 276–7), from which lands the family later took its name.[65] Saer de Quinci’s original grant of the land of Beath which Waldeve had held seems not to have been fully effective, and Waldeve’s heirs still retained an interest in the lands until his grandson, John of Strachan, finally renounced all rights to Beath-Waldeve in 1278 (Dunf. Reg. no. 86). In the same year Alexander III (re-)grants Beath-Waldeve to Dunfermline Abbey (ibid no. 87). In James II’s confirmation charters to Dunfermline Abbey, dated 1450 and 1451 respectively, Beth-Waldefe is said to have been one of the lands gifted by Alexander II, obviously an error for Alexander III (RMS ii nos. 434, 429).
The site of Beath-Waldeve is now lost, but we know it was not part of Wester Beath (now Halbeath and Keirsbeath DFL), since this was granted to Dunfermline Abbey in 1274 by Malcolm de Moravia (RRS ii p. 385; and Dunf. Reg. no. 207). It was certainly in the medieval parish of Dunfermline, but it may have been one of the lands that became part of Beath parish in 1643 (see BEA Introduction). For the purposes of this book I am assuming it lay within the modern parish of Beath.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1