According to a charter issued by Eadgifu in the early 960s (S 1211),[4] her father, Sigehelm, had given Cooling in Kent to a man called Goda as security for a loan of thirty pounds.

Goda denied receiving payment and refused to surrender the estate, despite the decision of the witan that Eadgifu could claim it should she swear a public oath as to her father's repayment (which she did at Aylesford).

However, she returned almost all the estates to Goda, an act which Matthew Firth argues was driven by Eadgifu's desire to avoid ongoing conflict with a powerful political rival.

[8] In charter S 562, a grant to her by Eadred of land at Felpham in Sussex issued in 953, she is described as famula Dei, suggesting that she may have taken religious vows while continuing to live on her own estates.

[9] Given that the estate at Felpham had come into the ownership of Shaftesbury Abbey by the time of the Domesday Survey in the 1080s, Susan Kelly suggests Eadgifu may have become an associate of that house.