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other OE topographical words, such as those which give paddock and hillock. OE words known in a particular dialectal form may be inferred in another dialect, with appropriate recalculation of the phonology; Smethwick (St) contains an otherwise unrecorded Anglian form of smith, *smeoða (genitive plural), and the known stubb ‘tree-stump’ is unable to account for some north-country names for which only an inferred *stobb will serve.
6.5.4 |
English-language place-names |
|
The most ancient layer of English place-names appears to consist mainly of names which are simply descriptive of the place named, either its physical aspect or its ownership or tenure. It is not possible to say how many names evolved from descriptive phrases of the Newnham ‘the new estate’ type and how many were deliberately created and bestowed. It is generally assumed that the former is the dominant type. This assumption is supported by the fact that the typical OE place-names are very prosaic: ‘shallow ford’, ‘bishop’s tree’, ‘old fort’, ‘churls’ farm’, ‘C¯eol’s island’, ‘west minster’, ‘stone way’, ‘oak wood’ and so on. There is nothing here resembling the types of Miramar or Sans Souci, and few examples even of evaluative names like ‘beautiful X’. It is easy to imagine a Saxon traveller being directed by means of names most of which were transparent in the landscape, and quite strong claims have been made recently about the importance of names as guides on heavily used long-distance ways in the period of earliest settlement (Cole, 1990, 1992, 1993 and especially 1994; Gelling & Cole, 2000: xvi). I shall say more below about the exactitude conveyed by OE topographical terms.
The individual elements that appear in place-names are many, though the generics form a much more restricted class than the specifiers. Some of these are words that have survived to ModE relatively unscathed both phonologically and semantically (brycg/bridge; ford; wudu/wood; hyll/hill; mor/moor¯ ; stan/stone¯ ). Others have survived but undergone significant changes in application, especially those pertaining most directly to human institutions (ham¯ ‘major farm estate’/ home; tun¯ ‘farm’/town; burg ‘defended place’/borough). Some have survived in the vocabulary of the modern dialects (ea¯ ‘river’, now ee or eau ‘minor watercourse’; bece, now batch ‘stream’). Finally, some, even the most important numerically, have disappeared altogether in their original sense, like ofer ‘shoulder-shaped hill’ and leah¯ ‘woodland; woodland clearing’. Where the original application is no longer served by the original English term, modern naming will use borrowed terms, especially from French, e.g. forest (which has lost its original legal sense in favour of a topographical-ecological one), village, river, mount.
A recent significant development has been the recognition of the delicacy and precision of reference in OE topographical vocabulary (Gelling, 1984; Gelling & Cole, 2000, and supporting article literature). Whereas modern English toponymy makes do with the word hill and others serving as loose onomastic equivalents
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(often with a regional, and therefore partly geomorphological basis) such as down, top, pike, law and fell, OE had words that distinguished hill shape subtly and
¯
reliably (the evidence is still visible). Ora and ofer denoted hills with a shouldershaped profile, whilst hoh¯ , literally ‘heel; hough’, had a scarp-dip profile with a slight extra rise at the highest point; dun¯ was a hill with a levellish summit suitable for settlement; hlið was a hillside with a convex profile; the inferred term *ric was a narrow strip of raised ground, for instance a glacial moraine; and so on. Hyll appears to have been a general word for elevations that were hard to categorise. Valleys could be classified with similar delicacy, as could watercourses. Other, non-topographical, elements which have received extensive philological and/or culture-historical discussion recently are worth(y) ‘tenant farm’(Kitson, 1997), w¯ıc ‘dependent settlement’ (Coates, 1999) and the ME lexis for the notion ‘town’ (Svensson, 1997).
The typical English-language place-name consists of two elements, E1 and E2. E2 is a noun serving as a generic term for a category of place. One set of E2 categories is those which are habitative or otherwise indicating the fruits of human activity, e.g. major estate, village or farm, enclosure/curtilage, defended place, church, bridge, landing-place, place of special economic status, burialmound, as illustrated respectively by Seaham (Du), Charlton (K), Tamworth (St),
Peterborough (Nth), Pucklechurch (Gl), Cambridge, Rotherhithe (Sr), Droitwich
(Wo) and Berwick (Nb), and Ludlow (Sa). The other major set of categories is topographical, e.g. hill, valley, stream, ford, wood, moor, heath, field (= open land), head (= promontory), tree. English inhabited places very often bear by metonymy a name which was originally that of a landscape feature, or which at least referred to one, as exemplified respectively by Ferryhill (Du), Rochdale (La),
Blackburn (La), Oxford, Brewood (St), Wedmore (So), Blackheath (K), Hatfield
(YWR), Minehead (So) and Coventry (Wa).
In addition to such two-element names with a generic and a (normally preceding) specifier, there are names consisting of a stand-alone E2 (always an instance of an element found in compounds), e.g. Ash (Sr), Down (K), Leigh (Wo); this is a special case of the normal type which is used as if an E1 can be understood or as if one is unnecessary in the context of use. In such cases, an earlier E1 may have disappeared, as we know for certain in the cases of Chester, Stow (L), Leigh (Wo) and Bridge (K). In pre-Conquest documents, Stow (L) was Marianstowe, for instance, and Leigh (Wo) was Beornodesleah. A name does not necessarily require an act of political will to change it. A change of ownership might suffice, or the place might be salient through being the only one of its kind locally, therefore requiring no specifier in its name. When we consider what the original name of a place recorded only late might have been, we must allow the possibility that a first element might have been lost or substituted before records began. It is possible, for example, that Alfriston (Sx) is a relatively early tun¯ -name, but that it takes its current name from the Ælfric who held it in 1066. Further, one English name may have been entirely supplanted by another, as has happened in the case of Abingdon (Brk), whose name was apparently that of an adjacent
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hill, but which came to be applied to the settlement originally called (in ME) Sevekesham ‘Seofuc’s estate or hemmed-in land’.
E1 falls into a number of different categories.
(a)It may be an adjective strictly modifying E2, as in Langstone (Ha) ‘long stone’, Newcastle (St), Higham (Db) ‘high farming estate’, Blackburn (La), Cromwell (Nt) ‘winding stream’, and the frequent Norton ‘north farm’, with uppe adjectival in place-names like the widespread Upton, and with participles counting as adjectives, as with Brokenborough (W) ‘broken barrow’.
(b)It may be a common noun forming a compound with E2, as in Eton (Bk) ‘island farm’, Fenton (St), Chalkwell (Ess), Bristol ‘bridge place’, Gatwick (Sr) ‘goat farm’, Quy (C) ‘cow island’, Staplehurst (K) ‘post or pillar wood’, Woodbridge (Sf), including those denoting people or categories of people, as in Charlton
(K)‘churls’ farm’, Huntingdon (Hu) ‘hunters’ hill’, Canterbury (K) ‘stronghold of the people of Kent’, Normanton (Db) ‘Northmen’s farm’.
(b ) It may be an earlier place-name (including river-names), of any structure, forming a compound with E2, as in Alnwick (Nb), Severnstoke (Wo), Manchester
(La), Launceston (Co), Quantoxhead (So).
(b ) It may be a personal name, of any structure, forming a compound with E2, as in Edgbaston (Wa), Godmanchester (Hu), Oswestry (Sa), Baltonsborough (So), Grimston (Lei), Edwinstowe (Nt), Cholsey (Brk).
Structures of type (a) may or may not show signs of weak adjectival inflection of E1, giving evidence for the original definite article. Those that do can be assumed to have originated as fully meaningful definite expressions in running speech (as with Foudry Brook, Section 6.1.1 above). Those that do not may have been bestowed in a deliberate act, or at any rate may have been treated as names from their conception, rather than as fully compositional referring expressions requiring explicit definiteness in context. The difference between these types is illustrated by at the long ridge and at Longridge. The modern reflexes of such name types may be identical, but the documentary record will probably show differences in the medieval spellings. Medieval forms of the former type may show a weak inflection on the adjective, showing that the name originated in a prepositional phrase containing a definite NP, and such a trace may survive; Newnham (C), for instance, is ‘(at) the new estate’, where the <-n-> represents the vestige of the dative singular after a lost definite article.
Structures of type (b) may or may not show signs of nominal inflection of E1. Those that do typically have E1 in the genitive case. These are in the great majority in type (b ), though secure instances of a bare-stem compound of a personal name and an E2 are known (Edwalton (Nt)) and in other instances a former attested genitive marker has disappeared (Alwoodley (YWR), Latin of ME period Adelwaldesleia), and sometimes the elements are connected by an -ing which is a derivational suffix but appears tantamount to a ‘genitival’ inflection in such names (Chilbolton (Ha), OE Ceolboldingtun). A relatively rare group of names, typified by Altrincham (Ch), has been identified on phonological grounds as having E1 in other case forms, typically an instrumentalor dative-locative
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(Dodgson, in a series of important articles in the 1960s). These are marked by a palatal consonant at the end of E1. It may be impossible to tell without such phonological effects whether an E1 was originally in the bare-stem form or in an inflected form where the desinence has disappeared through regular phonetic attrition, as is typically the case with OE weak inflections. Type (b) structures with an inflected common noun in the genitive case as E1 include Alresford (Ha), Farnsfield (Nt), Saddlescombe (Sx) – cf. Tengstrand (1940). Type (b ) names with an inflected proper noun as E1 are perhaps the most typical of all English place-name types: Branston (Nt), Harrietsham (K), Livingston (West Lothian),
Wilmslow (Ch), Aldersey (Ch).
A serious issue, which is probably unresolvable, hinges on names where it is unclear whether the first element is a personal name or a related lexical word. Ramsbury (W) may be ‘raven’s fort’ or ‘Hræfn’s fort’ (where Hrœfn is actually the word for ‘raven’ used as a male personal name). A name such as Whitchurch (Do) may have as its first element the known male personal name Hw¯ıta, which is an application of the word hw¯ıt ‘white’, or this word itself. Scholars rarely spell out in gruesome detail the case for ambiguity in each such name. Hrœfn is often found in names for remote and/or high places, which may prejudice one to favour the ‘raven’ interpretation for a name including burg/byrig ‘(hill)fort’, on the basis of modern raven habitat. There are other cases far less clear-cut, and the possible ambiguity should always be borne in mind.
Somewhat harder to classify are those names in which the elements are connected by other formal means. The problem in classification comes from the fact that the same phonological material was called upon to perform more than one duty, and it is not really clear whether some usages coincided or overlapped in time, nor whether the elements involved should be classified as homonyms or as one polysemous item. Principally, this question is about -ing. Sometimes -ing was used to create nouns which denoted groups of people; then, of course, it appeared in the plural form, -ingas. Such names could stand alone as ‘tribal’ names or be used metonymically for the territories these tribal units occupied. The base of such names was usually either a (male) personal name or a pre-existing place-name. Accordingly, such names have been interpreted as ‘followers of X’ or ‘dwellers at X’. This -ing is CGmc, and could be used as an expression of filiation (‘son of’), though clearly the ‘tribal’ names require the interpretation to be a looser one than strict filiation; we might have to do with blood loyalties, or with other kinds of social ties. In the ‘dwellers’ application, the perceived relationship was with the locality rather than with the community. For present purposes, these names are important because they may stand as E1 in an inflected form, almost always the genitive plural, in such names as Birmingham (Wa) ‘estate of the followers of Beorma’, but occasionally a locative singular, as in Ovingham (Nb). They may also stand alone; the best known of these is Hastings (Sx).
There was also a singular use of -ing, where the suffix was attached directly to a lexical root to form a place-name in the singular, as with Deeping (L) and Clavering (Ess) ‘clover place’, and it has been argued recently (Coates, 1997b) that
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this singular -ing could occur in the plural in some names, e.g. the paired villages called (Great and Bardfield) Saling (Ess) (Salinges 1086; ‘places of the sallows’). There is clear evidence that this singular suffix could attach to personal names, as with the lost *Cynewolding (K), which makes it extraordinarily difficult to decide whether a place recorded first in ME in spellings varying between <XingeY> and <XingY> (as often happens), where X is a personal name, are instances of -ingas in its natural genitive plural form, or of -ing in the genitive plural or some other case, or of the connective -ing mentioned in relation to Chilbolton (Ha) (and if the last, whether E1 was originally case marked or not). The matter is complicated still further by the fact that -ing can interchange with other elements; see Smith (1956, I: 282–303).
The overwhelming majority of English names of inhabited places in England fall into one of these categories (a) and the various subtypes of (b). Apparent threeelement names are usually best analysed as being two-element compounds, one element of which is itself a two-element compound, as with the repeated genitival compound Ludgershall (W) and the like, where E1 is believed to be a compound lute¯ -gar¯ ‘trapping spear’ (Tengstrand, 1940: 219–24), and Brockhampton (He), where E2 is the compound ham¯ -tun¯ ‘major agricultural estate’.
Place-names as defined above may themselves be modified. A very limited number of adjectives may be used to pre-modify a name; these are pretty well restricted to the compass-point adjectives, low(er) and high(er) or synonyms of these, inner and outer, middle, the lexical variants great, much and broad, little, long, old and new, and burnt (ME brent, brant), and rarely a topographical term (Fenny Stratford (Bk)). Where such names have become official in their administrative-Latin translation, the Latin or Latin-derived element postmodifies (Rickinghall Inferior (Sf), Ludford Parva (L), Bradfield Combust (Sf)). Premodification by a noun in the genitive case is quite frequent (King’s Worthy (Ha), Bishop’s Nympton (D)), again translated with Latin postmodification (Whitchurch Canonicorum (Do), Rowley Regis (St)). Sometimes an uninflected noun denoting a characteristic building premodifies (Steeple Morden (C), Castle Cary (So)), or a church dedication may postmodify (Stanton St John (O), Horsham St Faith (Nf)). We rarely find some other kind of qualifier, but note Piddletrenthide (Do), which proclaims its fiscal status in Law French, ‘thirty hides of land’. In the great majority of such instances, the modified place-name contrasts with another having a different qualifier (King’s Worthy vs Martyr Worthy (Ha); Sutton St Edmund and Sutton St James (L)). Whether the modern name has English or Latin qualification appears to be a matter of administrative chance. Very rarely, a French modifier persists, though this was less infrequent in medieval records; two including the status or occupation of the feudal overlord are Friern Barnet (Hrt) and Hinton Ampner (Ha) (‘friar’ genitive pl and ‘almoner’, used as borrowed English words) and Owermoigne (Do) (‘monk’), but some of this type were surnames sharing the form of an occupational term, as is certainly the case with Owermoigne. Postmodification by a surname, again indicating feudal overlordship, is frequent in some counties (Norton Disney (L),