Anglo Saxon Britain Anglo Saxon Nomenclature

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ANGLO-SAXON NOMENCLATURE. (1).3

CHAPTER XIX.ANGLO -SAXON NmlENCLATURE.

PERHAPS nothing tends more to repel the modernEnglish student from the early history of his countrythan the very unfamiliar appearance of the personalnames which he meets before the Norman Conquest.There can be no doubt that such a shrinking fromthe first stages of our national annals does reallyexist; and it seems to be largely due to this verysuperficial and somewhat unphilosophical cause.Before the Norman invasion, the modern Englishmanfinds himself apparently among complete foreigners,in the ..tEthelwulfs, the Eadgyths, the Oswius, andthe Seaxburhs of the Chronicle; while he hails theNorman invaders, the Johns, Henrys, Williams, and

.Roherts, of the period immediately succeeding theconquest, as familiar English friends. The contrastcan scarcely be better given than in the story toldabout ..tEthelred's Norman wife. Her name wasYmma, or Emma; but the English of that time murmured against such an outlandish sound, and so theLady received a new English name as ..tElfgifu. Atthe present day our nomenclature has changed soutterly that Emma sounds like ordinary English, whiletElfgifu sounds like a wholly foreign word. Theincidental light thrown upon our history by the carefulo


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194 ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.study of personal names is indeed so valuable that afew remarks upon the subject seem necessary in orderto complete our hasty survey of Anglo-Saxon Britain.

During the very earliest period when we catch aglimpse of the English people on the Continent or ineastern Britain, a double system of naming seems tohave prevailed, not wholly unlike our modern plan ofChristian and surname. The clan name was appendeuto the personal one. A man was apparently describedas Wulf the Holting, or as Creoda the JEscing.The clan names were in many cases common to theEnglish and the Continental Teutons. Thus we findHelsings in the English Helsington and the Swedish .Helsingland i Rarlings in the English Harlinghamand the Frisian Harlingen; and Bleccings in theEnglish Bletchingleyand the Scandinavian Bleckingen.Our Thyrings at Thorrington answer, perhaps, to theThuringians; our Myrgings at Merrington to theFrankish Merwings or Merovingians jOur Wrerings atWarrington to the Norse Vreringjar or Varangians.At any rate, the clan organization was one common toboth great branches of the Teutonic stock, and it hasleft its m;:rk deeply upon our modern nomenclature,both in England and in Germany. Mr. Kemble hasenumerated nearly zoo clan names found in earlyEnglish charters and documents, besides over 600others inferred from local nanies iIi England at thepresent day. Taking one letter of the alphabet alone,his list includes the Glrestings, Geddings, Gumenings,Gustings, Getings, Grundlings; G i l d l i ~ g s , and Gillings,from documentary evidence; and the Grersings j


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ANGLO -SAXON NOMENCLATURE. 195Gestings, Geofonings, Goldings, and Garings, with

.many others, from the inferential evid of existingtowns and villages.The personal names of the earliest period are inmany cases untranslateable-that is to say, as withthe first stratum of Greek names, they bear no obviousmeaning in the language as we know it. Others arenames of animals or natural objects. Unlike thelater historical cognomens, they each consist, as arule, of a single element, not of two elements in composition. Such are the names which we get in thenarrative of the colonization and in the mythicalgenealogies; Rengest, Rorsa, LEse, LElle, Cymen,Cissa, Bieda, Mregla; Ceol, Penda, Offa, Blecca;Esla, Gewis, Wig, Brand, and so forth. A few of thesenames (such as Penda and Offa), are undoubtedlyhistorical; but of the rest, some seem to be etymological blunders, like Port and Wihtgar; others to bepure myths, like Wig and Brand; and others, again,to be doubtfully true, like Cerdic, Cissa, and Bieda,eponyms, perhaps, of Cerdices-ford, Cissan-ceaster,and Biedan-heafod.

In the truly historical age, the clan system seems tohave died out, and each person bore, as a rule, only asingle personal name. These names are almost invariably compounded of two elements, and the elementsthus employed were comparatively few in numberThus, we get the root a/hel, noble, as the first half iniEthelred, lEthelwulf, LEthelberht, LEthelstan, andLEthelhald. Again, the root ead, rich, or powerful,occurs in Eadgar, Eadred, Eadward, Eadwine, ando 2


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ANGLO-S AXON BRITAIN.Eadwulf. .,Elj, an elf, forms the prime element inLElfred, LElfric, LElfwine, LElfward, and LElfstan.These were the favourite names of the West-Saxonroyal house; the Northumbrian kings seem rather tohave affected the syllable os, divine, as in Oswald,Oswiu, Osric, Osred, and Oslaf. Wine, friend, is afavourite termination found in LEscwine, Eadwine,LEthelwine, Oswine, and LElfwine, whose meaningsneed no further explanation. Wulj appears as thefirst half in Wulfstan, Wulfric, Wulfred, and Wulfhere; while it forms the second half in LEthelwulf,Eadwulf, Ealdwulf, and Cenwulf. Beorht, berM, orbriM, bright, or glorious, appears in Beorhtric, Beorhtwulf, Brihtwald; LEthelberht, Ealdbriht, and Eadbyrht. Burh, a fortress, enters into many femalenames, as Eadburh, LEthelburh, Sexburh, and Wihtburh. As a rule, a certain number of syllables seemto have been regarded as proper elements for formingpersonal names, and to have been combined somewhat fancifully, without much regard to the resultingmeaning. The following short list of such elements,in addition to the toots given above, will suffice toexplain n!ost of the names mentioned in this work.

Hellll: h elmet.(;ar: spear.Gijz,: gift.Here: army.Sige: victory.CYlle: royal.Leof: dear.

Wig: war.Stan: stone.Eald : oid, venerable.{Veal 'd, waI"d: ward, protection.Red: counsel.Eeg: sword.Theod: people, nation.

By combining these elements with those already given


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ANGLO-SAXON NOMENCLATURE. 197, most of the royal or noble names in use In earlyEngland were obtained.

With the people, however, it would seem thatshorter and older forms were still in vogue. Thefollowing document, the original of which is printedin Kemble's collection, represents the pedigree of aserf, and is interesting, both as showing the sort ofnames in use among the servile class, and the carewith which their family relationships were recorded,in order to preserve the rights of their lord.Dudda was a boor at Hatfield, and he had three daughters:one hight Deorwyn, the other Deorswith, the third Golde.And Wulflaf at Hatfield has Deorwyn to wife. lElfstan, atTatchingworth, has Deorswith to wife: and Ealhstan, lElfstan's

brother, has Golde to wife. There was a man hight Hwita,bee-master at Hatfield, and he had a daughter Tate, mother ofWulfsige, the bowman; and Wnlf,ige's sister Lulie has Hehstanto wife, at 'VaIden. Wifus and Dunne and Seoloce are inbornat Hatfield. Duding, son of Wifus, lives at -Wahlen; andCeolmnnd, Dunne's son, also sits at \Valden; and lElhelheah,, Seoloce's son, also sits at Walden. And Tate, Cenwold's sisler.

Mreg has to wife at '\Velgun; and Eadhelm, Herethryth's son,has Tate's daughter to wife. Wrerlaf, Wrer5tan's father, waS aright serf at Hatfield; he kept the grey swine there.In the west, and especially in Cornwall, the names

of the serfs were mainly Ceitic,-Griffith, Modred,Rial, and so forth,-as may be seen from the list ofmanumissions preserved in a mass-book at St. Petroc's,or Padstow. Elsewhere, ho-.yever, the Celtic namesseem to have dropped out, for the most part, withthe Celtic language. I t is true, we meet with casesof apparently Welsh forms, like Maccus, or Rum,


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ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.

even in purely Teutonic districts; and some names,such as Cerdic and Ceadwalla, seem to have beenborrowed by one race from the other: while suchforms as Weal theow and Waltheof are at least suggestive of British descent: but on the whole, theconquered Britons appear everywhere. to have quicklyadopted the names in vogue-among their conquerors.Such names would doubtless be considered fashionable, as was the case at a later date with those introduced by the Danes and the Normans. Even inCornwall a good many English forms occur amongthe serfs: while in very Celtic Devonshire, Englishnames were probably universal.

The Danish Conquest introduc(;d a number ofScandinavian names, especially in the North, the consideration of which belongs rather to a companionvolume. They must be briefly noted here, however,to prevent confusion with the genuine English forms.Amongst such Scandinavian introductions, the commonest are perhaps Harold, Swegen or Swend, Ulf,Gorm or Guthrum, Orm, Yric or Eric, Cnut, andUlfcytel. During and after the time of the Danishdynasty, these forms, rendered fashionable by royalusage, became very general even among the nativeEnglish. Thus Earl Godwine's sons bore Scandinavian names; and at an earlier period we even findpersons, apparently Scandinavian, fighting on theEnglish side against the Danes in East Anglia.But the sequel to the Norman Conquest shows usmost clearly how the whole nomenclature of a nationmay be entirely altered without any large change of


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ANGLO-SAXON NOl\lENCLATURE. 199race. Immediately after the Conquest the nativeEnglish names begin to disappear, and in their placewe get a crop of Williams, Walters, Rogers, Henries,Ralphs, Richards, Gilberts, and Roberts. Most ofthese were originally High German forms, taken intoGaul by the Franks, borrowed from them by theNormans, and then copied by the English from theirforeign lords. A few, however, such as Arthur,Owen, and Alan, were Breton Welsh. Side by sidewith these French names, the Normans introducedthe Scriptural forms, John, Matthew, Thomas, Simon,Stephen, Piers or Peter, and James; for though afew cases of Scriptural names occur in the earlierhistory-for example, St. John ofBeverley and Daniel,bishop of the West Saxons-these are always borneby ecclesiastics, probably as names of religion. Allthrough the middle ages, and down to very recenttimes, the vast majority of English men and womencontinued to bear these baptismal names of Normanintroduction. Only two native English forms prac-tically survived-Edward and Edmund-owing tomere accidents of royal favour. They were thenames of two great English saints, Eadward theConfessor and Eadmund of East Anglia; andHenry III. bestowed them upon his two sons,Edward I. and Edmund of Lancaster: In thismanner they became adopted into the royal andfashionable circle, and so were perpetuated to ourown day. All the others died out in medirevaltimes, while the few old forms now current, such asAlfred, Edgar. Athelstane, and Edwin, are mere


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200 ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.

artificial revivals of the two last centuries. I f wewere to judge by nomenclature alone, we mightalmost fancy that the Norman Conquest had whollyextinguished the English people.A few steps towards the adoption of surnames weretaken . even before the Conquest. Titles of officewere usually placed after the personal name, as.tElfred King, Lilla Thegn, Wulfnoth Cild, .iElfwardBishop, .tEthelberht Ealdorman, and Harold Earl.Double names occasionally occur, the second being anickname or true surname, as Osgod Clapa, BenedictBiscop, Thurkytel Myranheafod, Godwine .Bace, and.tElfric Cerm. Trade names are also found, asEcceard smith, or Godwig boor. Everywhere, butespecially in the Danish North, patronymics were incommon use j for example, Harold Godwine's son,or Thored Gunnor's son. In all these cases we getsurnames in the germ j but their general and officialadoption dates from after the Norman Conquest.Local nomenclature also demands a short explanation. Most of the Roman towns continued to becalled by their Roman names: Londinium, Lunden,London; Eburacum, Eoforwic, Eurewic, York iLindum Colonia, Lincolne, Lincoln. Often eeaster,from eastrum, was added: Gwent, Venta Belgarum,Wintan-ceaster, Winteceaster, Winchester; Isca, Exanceaster, Execestre, Exeter j Corinium, Cyren-ceaster,Cirencester. Almost every place which is known tohave had a name at the English Conquest retainedthat name afterwards, in a more or less clipped oraltered form. Examples are Kent, Wight, Devon,


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ANGLO-SAXON NOMENCLATURE. 201Dorset; Manchester, Lancaster, Doncaster, Leicester,Gloucester, \Vorcester, Colchester, Silchester, Uttoxeter, \Vroxcter, and Chester; Thames, Severn, Ouse,Don, Aire, Derwent, Swale, and Tyne. Even wherethe Roman name is now lost, as at Pevem,ey, the oldform was retained in Early English days; for the"Chronicle" calls it Andredes-ceaster, that is to say,Anderida. So the old name of Bath is Akemannesceaster, derived from the Latin Aqua. Cissan-ceaster,Chichester, forms an almost solitary exception. Canterbury, or Cant-wara-byrig, was correctly known asDwrovernum 0r Doroberna in Latin documents ofthe Anglo-Saxon period.On the other hand, the true English towns whichgrew up around the strictly English settlements, borenames of three sorts. The first were the clan villages,the hams or tUllS, such as B ~ n e s i n g a t u n , Bensington ;Snotingaham, Nottingham; G I ~ s t i n g a b y r i g , Glastonbury; and W ~ r i n g w i c a , Warwick. These havealready been sufficiently illustrated; and they weresituated, for the most part, in the richest agriculturallowlands. The second were towns which grew upslowly for purposes of trade by fords of rivers or atports: such are Oxeneford, Oxford; Redcanford,Bedford (a British town); Stretford, Stratford; andWealingaford, Wallingford. The third were th townswhich grew up in the wastes and wealds, with namesof varied form but more modern origin. As a whole, itmay be said that during the entire early English periodthe names of cities were mostly Roman, the namesof villages and country towns were rriostly English.

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Anglo Saxon Britain Anglo Saxon Nomenclature