shire, Sibbestapele and Sibbeslea in Worcestershire, Sibestun in Huntingdonshire, Sibbeswey and Siblingchryst in Hampshire.[1] The word sibry was also an equivalent for kinship, but while in our common tongue the latter survived, the former passed into disuse. Other old names, such as Sipson in Middlesex, Sibley Headingham in Essex, Sibsey in Lincolnshire, Sibthorp in Notts, Sibton Sheales in Northumberland, and Sibbertoft in Northamptonshire, appear to be names of the same kind. Another trace of the old word sippe for kindred may be found in the word gossip, which originally meant a godsip or god-parent, and was so used as late as the seventeenth century.
The sippe, as we have seen, included in all seven joints or degrees, and as a whole, therefore, nine generations, reckoned on the human frame thus: Head, neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, first finger-joint, second joint, third joint, and nail. Within these nine generations it was possible for a family to form a large community, and some settlements were no doubt of one family descent only. There is an interesting reference to the sippe and its joints in the laws of Æthelstan relating to the degree of kinship within which marriages were not permissible. ‘And let it never happen that a Christian man marry within the relationship of six persons of his own kin—that is, within the fourth joint.’[2] The fourth joint was the wrist. A similar reference occurs in the laws of Cnut. In old Frisian law relating to the next of kin, in the case where a man or woman dies and leaves no near relatives to divide the property, the sibbosta sex honda is mentioned—that is, their six next of kin, viz., father, mother, brother, sister, child and child’s child.[3] The first instalment of the wergeld, called the healsfang, which the mægth or kindred, in the case where a member
