The Spaldingas were an Anglian

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

 tribe that settled in an area known as the spalda. This divided the fens and marshes of East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

 in what is now the South Holland

South Holland, Lincolnshire

South Holland is a local government district of Lincolnshire. The district council is based in Spalding.It was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the Spalding urban district with East Elloe Rural District and Spalding Rural District...

 part of Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

. As well as establishing the town of Spalding

Spalding, Lincolnshire

Spalding is a market town with a population of 30,000 on the River Welland in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. Little London is a hamlet directly south of Spalding on the B1172 road....

, first mentioned in a charter by King Æthelbald of Mercia to the monks of Crowland Abbey in 716, they also gave their name to the village of Spaldington

Spaldington

Spaldington is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, lying approximately north of the market town of Howden and to the west of the A164 road.According to the 2001 UK census, Spaldington parish had a population of 171....

 in east Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

.

A tribe living in "Spalda" are mentioned in the Tribal Hidage

Tribal Hidage

Image:Tribal Hidage 2.svg|thumb|400px|alt=insert description of map here|The tribes of the Tribal Hidage. Where an appropriate article exists, it can be found by clicking on the name.rect 275 75 375 100 Elmetrect 375 100 450 150 Hatfield Chase...

 (7th century). Eilert Ekwall regarded this name as etymologically obscure. He suggested that the tribe may have brought this name (Spaldas) from the Continent where there may have been a corresponding place-name. It would presumably be related to the unrecorded Anglo-Saxon spaldan (to cleave) (OHG spaltan) so the meaning of the noun would be "cleft" or "ravine". However, as there are no ravines in the fenland, all of the above should be treated with caution.

The Spaldingas appear to have retained their administrative independence into the 9th and 10th centuries, when Stamford

Stamford, Lincolnshire

Stamford is a town and civil parish within the South Kesteven district of the county of Lincolnshire, England. It is approximately to the north of London, on the east side of the A1 road to York and Edinburgh and on the River Welland...

 formed one of the Five Boroughs of the Kingdom of York.