Hold (or Hauld) was a title of nobility, used in early medieval Scandinavia and the English Danelaw.
Holds were described as "noblemen of exalted rank" in Viking Northumbria by Frank Stenton, with a wergild of 4000 thrymsas, equivalent to a king's high-reeve.[1] Hold is described as a title just below the earl in Oxford Dictionary of Surnames.
. Frank Stenton. Anglo-Saxon England. 1971. Clarendon Press. 3rd. 978-0-19-280139-5. 509.