Early Britain Anglo-Saxon Britain

CHAPTER XIX.

AN­GLO-​SAX­ON NOMEN­CLA­TURE.

Per­haps noth­ing tends more to re­pel the mod­ern En­glish stu­dent from the ear­ly his­to­ry of his coun­try than the very un­fa­mil­iar ap­pear­ance of the per­son­al names which he meets be­fore the Nor­man Con­quest. There can be no doubt that such a shrink­ing from the first stages of our na­tion­al an­nals does re­al­ly ex­ist; and it seems to be large­ly due to this very su­per­fi­cial and some­what un­philo­soph­ical cause. Be­fore the Nor­man in­va­sion, the mod­ern En­glish­man finds him­self ap­par­ent­ly among com­plete for­eign­ers, in the Æthel­wulfs, the Eadgyths, the Os­wius, and the Seaxburhs of the Chron­icle; while he hails the Nor­man in­vaders, the Johns, Hen­rys, Williams, and Roberts, of the pe­ri­od im­me­di­ate­ly suc­ceed­ing the con­quest, as fa­mil­iar En­glish friends. The con­trast can scarce­ly be bet­ter giv­en than in the sto­ry told about Æthelred's Nor­man wife. Her name was Ym­ma, or Em­ma; but the En­glish of that time mur­mured against such an out­landish sound, and so the La­dy re­ceived a new En­glish name as Ælfgi­fu. At the present day our nomen­cla­ture has changed so ut­ter­ly that Em­ma sounds like or­di­nary En­glish, while Ælfgi­fu sounds like a whol­ly for­eign word. The in­ci­den­tal light thrown up­on our his­to­ry by the care­ful study of per­son­al names is in­deed so valu­able that a few re­marks up­on the sub­ject seem nec­es­sary in or­der to com­plete our hasty sur­vey of An­glo-​Sax­on Britain.

Dur­ing the very ear­li­est pe­ri­od when we catch a glimpse of the En­glish peo­ple on the Con­ti­nent or in east­ern Britain, a dou­ble sys­tem of nam­ing seems to have pre­vailed, not whol­ly un­like our mod­ern plan of Chris­tian and sur­name. The clan name was ap­pend­ed to the per­son­al one. A man was ap­par­ent­ly de­scribed as Wulf the Holt­ing, or as Cre­oda the Æsc­ing. The clan names were in many cas­es com­mon to the En­glish and the Con­ti­nen­tal Teu­tons. Thus we find Hels­ings in the En­glish Hels­ing­ton and the Swedish Hels­ing­land; Har­lings in the En­glish Har­ling­ham and the Frisian Har­lin­gen; and Blec­cings in the En­glish Bletch­in­gley and the Scan­di­na­vian Bleckin­gen. Our Thyrings at Thor­ring­ton an­swer, per­haps, to the Thuringians; our Myrg­ings at Mer­ring­ton to the Frank­ish Mer­wings or Merovin­gians; our Wærings at War­ring­ton to the Norse Væring­jar or Varangians. At any rate, the clan or­ga­ni­za­tion was one com­mon to both great branch­es of the Teu­ton­ic stock, and it has left its mark deeply up­on our mod­ern nomen­cla­ture, both in Eng­land and in Ger­many. Mr. Kem­ble has enu­mer­at­ed near­ly 200 clan names found in ear­ly En­glish char­ters and doc­uments, be­sides over 600 oth­ers in­ferred from lo­cal names in Eng­land at the present day. Tak­ing one let­ter of the al­pha­bet alone, his list in­cludes the Glæst­ings, Ged­dings, Gu­menings, Gust­ings, Get­ings, Grundlings, Gildlings, and Gillings, from doc­umen­tary ev­idence; and the Gærs­ings, Gest­ings, Ge­ofon­ings, Gold­ings, and Gar­ings, with many oth­ers, from the in­fer­en­tial ev­idence of ex­ist­ing towns and vil­lages.

The per­son­al names of the ear­li­est pe­ri­od are in many cas­es un­trans­late­able–that is to say, as with the first stra­tum of Greek names, they bear no ob­vi­ous mean­ing in the lan­guage as we know it. Oth­ers are names of an­imals or nat­ural ob­jects. Un­like the lat­er his­tor­ical cog­nomens, they each con­sist, as a rule, of a sin­gle el­ement, not of two el­ements in com­po­si­tion. Such are the names which we get in the nar­ra­tive of the col­oniza­tion and in the myth­ical ge­nealo­gies; Hengest, Hor­sa, Æsc, Ælle, Cy­men, Cis­sa, Bie­da, Mægla; Ce­ol, Pen­da, Of­fa, Blec­ca; Es­la, Gewis, Wig, Brand, and so forth. A few of these names (such as Pen­da and Of­fa), are un­doubt­ed­ly his­tor­ical; but of the rest, some seem to be et­ymo­log­ical blun­ders, like Port and Wi­ht­gar; oth­ers to be pure 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 to have died out, and each per­son bore, as a rule, on­ly a sin­gle per­son­al name. These names are al­most in­vari­ably com­pound­ed of two el­ements, and the el­ements thus em­ployed were com­par­ative­ly few in num­ber. Thus, we get the root _æthel_, no­ble, as the first half in Æthelred, Æthel­wulf, Æthel­ber­ht, Æthel­stan, and Æthel­bald. Again, the root _ead_, rich, or pow­er­ful, oc­curs in Eadgar, Eadred, Ead­ward, Ead­wine, and Ead­wulf. _Ælf_, an elf, forms the prime el­ement in Æl­fred, Æl­fric, Ælfwine, Ælfward, and Ælf­stan. These were the favourite names of the West-​Sax­on roy­al house; the Northum­bri­an kings seem rather to have af­fect­ed the syl­la­ble _os_, di­vine, as in Os­wald, Os­wiu, Os­ric, Os­red, and Oslaf. _Wine_, friend, is a favourite ter­mi­na­tion found in Æscwine, Ead­wine, Æthel­wine, Os­wine, and Ælfwine, whose mean­ings need no fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion. _Wulf_ ap­pears as the first half in Wulf­stan, Wul­fric, Wul­fred, and Wulfhere; while it forms the sec­ond half in Æthel­wulf, Ead­wulf, Eald­wulf, and Cen­wulf. _Be­orht_, _berht_, or _bri­ht_, bright, or glo­ri­ous, ap­pears in Be­orhtric, Be­orhtwulf, Bri­ht­wald; Æthel­ber­ht, Eald­bri­ht, and Ead­byrht. _Burh_, a fortress, en­ters in­to many fe­male names, as Ead­burh, Æthel­burh, Sexburh, and Wi­ht­burh. As a rule, a cer­tain num­ber of syl­la­bles seem to have been re­gard­ed as prop­er el­ements for form­ing per­son­al names, and to have been com­bined some­what fan­ci­ful­ly, with­out much re­gard to the re­sult­ing mean­ing. The fol­low­ing short list of such el­ements, in ad­di­tion to the roots giv­en above, will suf­fice to ex­plain most of the names men­tioned in this work.

_Helm_: hel­met. _Gar_: spear. _Gi­fu_: gift. _Here_: army. _Sige_: vic­to­ry. _Cyne_: roy­al. _Le­of_: dear. _Wig_: war. _Stan_: stone. _Eald_: old, ven­er­able. _Weard_, _ward_: ward, pro­tec­tion. _Red_: coun­sel. _Eeg_: edge, sword. _Theod_: peo­ple, na­tion.

By com­bin­ing these el­ements with those al­ready giv­en most of the roy­al or no­ble names in use in ear­ly Eng­land were ob­tained.

With the peo­ple, how­ev­er, it would seem that short­er and old­er forms were still in vogue. The fol­low­ing doc­ument, the orig­inal of which is print­ed in Kem­ble's col­lec­tion, rep­re­sents the pedi­gree of a serf, and is in­ter­est­ing, both as show­ing the sort of names in use among the servile class, and the care with 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. Ælf­stan, at Tatch­ing­worth, has De­or­swith to wife: and Ealh­stan, Ælf­stan's broth­er, has Golde to wife. There was a man hight Hwi­ta, bee-​mas­ter at Hat­field, and he had a daugh­ter Tate, moth­er of Wulf­sige, the bow­man; and Wulf­sige's sis­ter Lulle has Hehstan to wife, at Walden. Wi­fus and Dunne and Se­oloce are in­born at Hat­field. Dud­ing, son of Wi­fus, lives at Walden; and Ce­ol­mund, Dunne's son, al­so sits at Walden; and Æthel­heah, Se­oloce's son, al­so sits at Walden. And Tate, Cen­wold's sis­ter, Mæg has to wife at Wel­gun; and Ead­helm, Herethry­th's son, has Tate's daugh­ter to wife. Wær­laf, Wærstan's fa­ther, was a right serf at Hat­field; he kept the grey swine there.

In the west, and es­pe­cial­ly in Corn­wall, the names of the serfs were main­ly Celtic,–Grif­fith, Modred, Ri­ol, and so forth,–as may be seen from the list of man­umis­sions pre­served in a mass-​book at St. Petroc's, or Pad­stow. Else­where, how­ev­er, the Celtic names seem to have dropped out, for the most part, with the Celtic lan­guage. It is true, we meet with cas­es of ap­par­ent­ly Welsh forms, like Mac­cus, or Rum, even in pure­ly Teu­ton­ic dis­tricts; and some names, such as Cerdic and Cead­wal­la, seem to have been bor­rowed by one race from the oth­er: while such forms as Wealthe­ow and Walthe­of are at least sug­ges­tive of British de­scent: but on the whole, the con­quered Britons ap­pear ev­ery­where to have quick­ly adopt­ed 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 in Corn­wall a good many En­glish forms oc­cur among the serfs: while in very Celtic De­von­shire, En­glish names were prob­ably uni­ver­sal.

The Dan­ish Con­quest in­tro­duced a num­ber of Scan­di­na­vian names, es­pe­cial­ly in the North, the con­sid­er­ation of which be­longs rather to a com­pan­ion vol­ume. 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, and Ulf­cy­tel. Dur­ing and af­ter the time of the Dan­ish dy­nasty, these forms, ren­dered fash­ion­able by roy­al us­age, be­came very gen­er­al even among the na­tive En­glish. Thus Earl God­wine's sons bore Scan­di­na­vian names; and at an ear­li­er pe­ri­od we even find per­sons, ap­par­ent­ly Scan­di­na­vian, fight­ing on the En­glish side against the Danes in East An­glia.

But the se­quel to the Nor­man Con­quest shows us most clear­ly how the whole nomen­cla­ture of a na­tion may be en­tire­ly al­tered with­out any large change of race. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the Con­quest the na­tive En­glish names be­gin to dis­ap­pear, and in their place we get a crop of Williams, Wal­ters, Rogers, Hen­ries, Ralphs, Richards, Gilberts, and Roberts. Most of these were orig­inal­ly High Ger­man forms, tak­en in­to Gaul by the Franks, bor­rowed from them by the Nor­mans, and then copied by the En­glish from their for­eign lords. A few, how­ev­er, such as Arthur, Owen, and Alan, were Bre­ton Welsh. Side by side with these French names, the Nor­mans in­tro­duced the Scrip­tural forms, John, Matthew, Thomas, Si­mon, Stephen, Piers or Pe­ter, and James; for though a few cas­es of Scrip­tural names oc­cur in the ear­li­er his­to­ry–for ex­am­ple, St. John of Bev­er­ley and Daniel, bish­op of the West Sax­ons–these are al­ways borne by ec­cle­si­as­tics, prob­ably as names of re­li­gion. All through the mid­dle ages, and down to very re­cent times, the vast ma­jor­ity of En­glish men and wom­en con­tin­ued to bear these bap­tismal names of Nor­man in­tro­duc­tion. On­ly two na­tive En­glish forms prac­ti­cal­ly sur­vived–Ed­ward and Ed­mund–ow­ing to mere ac­ci­dents of roy­al favour. They were the names of two great En­glish saints, Ead­ward the Con­fes­sor and Ead­mund of East An­glia; and Hen­ry III. be­stowed them up­on his two sons, Ed­ward I. and Ed­mund of Lan­cast­er. In this man­ner they be­came adopt­ed in­to the roy­al and fash­ion­able cir­cle, and so were per­pet­uat­ed to our own day. All the oth­ers died out in mediæ­val times, while the few old forms now cur­rent, such as Al­fred, Edgar, Athel­stane, and Ed­win, are mere ar­ti­fi­cial re­vivals of the two last cen­turies. If we were to judge by nomen­cla­ture alone, we might al­most fan­cy that the Nor­man Con­quest had whol­ly ex­tin­guished the En­glish peo­ple.

A few steps to­wards the adop­tion of sur­names were tak­en even be­fore the Con­quest. Ti­tles of of­fice were usu­al­ly placed af­ter the per­son­al name, as Æl­fred King, Lil­la Thegn, Wulfnoth Cild, Ælfward Bish­op, Æthel­ber­ht Eal­dor­man, and Harold Earl. Dou­ble names oc­ca­sion­al­ly oc­cur, the sec­ond be­ing a nick­name or true sur­name, as Os­god Cla­pa, Bene­dict Bis­cop, Thurky­tel Myran­heafod, God­wine Bace, and Æl­fric Cerm. Trade names are al­so found, as Ec­ceard smith, or God­wig boor. Ev­ery­where, but es­pe­cial­ly in the Dan­ish North, patronymics were in com­mon use; for ex­am­ple, Harold God­wine's son, or Thored Gun­nor's son. In all these cas­es we get sur­names in the germ; but their gen­er­al and of­fi­cial adop­tion dates from af­ter the Nor­man Con­quest.

Lo­cal nomen­cla­ture al­so de­mands a short ex­pla­na­tion. Most of the Ro­man towns con­tin­ued to be called by their Ro­man names: Lon­dini­um, Lun­den, Lon­don; Ebu­racum, Eo­for­wic, Eu­rewic, York; Lin­dum Colo­nia, Lin­colne, Lin­coln. Of­ten _ceast­er_, from _cas­trum_, was added: Gwent, Ven­ta Bel­gar­um, Win­tan-​ceast­er, Win­te­ceast­er, Winch­ester; Is­ca, Ex­an-​ceast­er, Ex­eces­tre, Ex­eter; Corini­um, Cyren-​ceast­er, Cirences­ter. Al­most ev­ery place which is known to have had a name at the En­glish Con­quest re­tained that name af­ter­wards, in a more or less clipped or al­tered form. Ex­am­ples are Kent, Wight, De­von, Dorset; Manch­ester, Lan­cast­er, Don­cast­er, Le­ices­ter, Glouces­ter, Worces­ter, Colch­ester, Silch­ester, Ut­tox­eter, Wrox­eter, and Chester; Thames, Sev­ern, Ouse, Don, Aire, Der­went, Swale, and Tyne. Even where the Ro­man name is now lost, as at Pevensey, the old form 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 Ake­mannes-​ceast­er, de­rived from the Latin _Aqua_, Cis­san-​ceast­er, Chich­ester, forms an al­most soli­tary ex­cep­tion. Can­ter­bury, or Cant-​wara-​byrig, was cor­rect­ly known as Dwrover­num or Dorober­na in Latin doc­uments of the An­glo-​Sax­on pe­ri­od.

On the oth­er hand, the true En­glish towns which grew up around the strict­ly En­glish set­tle­ments, bore names of three sorts. The first were the clan vil­lages, the _hams_ or _tuns_, such as Bæ­nesin­gatun, Bens­ing­ton; Snotin­ga­ham, Not­ting­ham; Glæstingabyrig, Glas­ton­bury; and Wæring­wica, War­wick. These have al­ready been suf­fi­cient­ly il­lus­trat­ed; and they were sit­uat­ed, for the most part, in the rich­est agri­cul­tur­al low­lands. The sec­ond were towns which grew up slow­ly for pur­pos­es of trade by fords of rivers or at ports: such are Ox­ene­ford, Ox­ford; Bed­can­ford, Bed­ford (a British town); Stret­ford, Strat­ford; and Wealin­gaford, Walling­ford. The third were the towns which grew up in the wastes and wealds, with names of var­ied form but more mod­ern ori­gin. As a whole, it may be said that dur­ing the en­tire ear­ly En­glish pe­ri­od the names of cities were most­ly Ro­man, the names of vil­lages and coun­try towns were most­ly En­glish.