Hereward the wake

[pretty bitch]

Why was Hereward the wak called Hereward the wake?

[Aaralyn]

The epithet "the Wake" is first attested in the late fourteenth-century Peterborough Chronicle. There are two main theories as to the origin of the tag. The usual interpretation is that it means 'the watchful'. A second theory claims that the name was given to him by the Wake family, the Norman landowners who gained Hereward's land in Bourne, Lincolnshire, after his death, in order to imply a family connection and therefore legitimise their claim to the land