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Rutland and the Scandinavian settlements: the place-name evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Barrie Cox
Barrie Cox
Affiliation:
The University of Nottingham
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Extract

A cursory glance at a map of Rutland shows a surprising lack of place-names containing Scandinavian themes. When Rutland's place-names are studied in historical detail, this dearth becomes truly startling, especially when we consider the geographical position of the county, lying as it does between the Danish boroughs of Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford and surrounded by heavy Norse settlement in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire and a not inconsiderable spread in Northamptonshire to its south.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 18 , December 1989 , pp. 135 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 Domesday Book: Rutland, ed. Thorn, F. (Chichester, 1980).Google Scholar

2 Phythian-Adams, C., ‘Rutland Reconsidered’, Mercian Studies, ed. Dornier, A. (Leicester, 1977), pp. 63–84, esp. 67–73.Google Scholar

3 Cox, B., ‘The Place-Names of the Earliest English Records’, Jnl of the Eng. Place-Name Soc. 8 (1975–1976), 12–66.Google Scholar

4 Phythian-Adams, ‘Rutland Reconsidered’, pp. 75–6.

5 Ibid. p. 78.

6 Cameron, K., ‘Scandinavian Settlement in the Territory of the Five Boroughs: the Place-Name Evidence. Part III, the Grimston-Hybrids’, England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 147–65.Google ScholarReprinted in Place-Name Evidence for the Anglo-Saxon Invasion and Scandinavian Settlements: Eight Studies, ed. Cameron, K. (Nottingham, 1975), pp. 157–71.Google Scholar

7 Lind, E.H., Norsk-Isländska Personbinamn från Medeltiden (Uppsala, 1920–1921), pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

8 Clough, T.Mck., Dornier, A. and Rutland, R.A., A Guide to the Anglo-Saxon and Viking Antiquities of Leicestershire including Rutland (Leicester Museum, 1975), p. 80.Google Scholar

9 Cox, B., ‘The Major Place-Names of Rutland: to Domesday and Beyond’, Rutland Record 7 (1987), 227–30, fig. 2.Google Scholar

10 Sawyer, P., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968), no. 1014Google Scholar (Kemble, J.M., Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, 6 vols. (London, 1839–48), no. 784).Google Scholar

11 I agree with Phythian-Adams, ‘Rutland Reconsidered’, p. 81, that Finberg's interpretation of the Ayston bounds (in Hart, C.R., The Early Charters of Eastern England (Leicester, 1966), pp. 108–9) is incorrect. However, Phythian-Adams's alternative solution perhaps needs slight amendment. The ræd weg (bound 6), which is OE ǣde-weg or rād-weg ‘road suitable for riding on’ (and not ‘Red Way’ as per Finberg and Phythian-Adams), I take to be the major route through Uppingham and Preston which appears in Scandinavianized form, with ON gata for OE weg, as le Redegate in Uppingham in 1290 and 1376 (forms collected by J.E.B. Gover from unpublished Forest Proceedings in the Public Record Office). I believe that the boundary followed Phythian-Adams' identified line of holebroc ‘stream in a hollow’ (bound 4) to its confluence with the northern stream at Ayston Spinney at 852016, the site of brocholes ‘the badger setts’ or ‘the burrows at the brook’ (bound 5), thence along this stream to the ǣde-weg at 867014; (into) wenge forde (bound 7) is at 884015 pornham broc (bound I) is the stream separating Wing from Glaston but forking at 888014. Clearly, the present parish bounds of Ayston are not those of the charter.Google Scholar

12 Fellows-Jensen, G., Scandinavian Settlement Names in Yorkshire (Copenhagen, 1972), pp. 189–94, discusses the Norwegian presence in the settlements.Google Scholar

13 Cameron, K., Scandinavian Settlement in the Territory of the Five Boroughs: the Place-Name Evidence, Inaugural Lecture (Univ. of Nottingham, 1965). Reprinted in Place-Name Evidence for the Anglo-Saxon Invasion and Scandinavian Settlements, pp. 115–38.Google Scholar

14 Northampton, Northants. Record Office, Brudenell ASR 562.

15 Sir Thomas Hoby's famous Renaissance translation of Castiglione's Il Cortigiano was published in 1561. To what extent his name would have been widely known some seventy years later is open to question.

16 Cameron, K., ‘scandinavian Settlement in the Territory of the Five Boroughs: the Place-Name Evidence. Part II, Place-Names in Thorp’, MScand 3 (1970), 35–49. Reprinted in Place-Name Evidence for the Anglo-Saxon Invasion and Scandinavian Settlements, pp. 139–56.Google Scholar

17 Pipe Rolls (Pipe Roll Soc.) in progress and Placita de quo warranto, Publ. of the Record Commission (London, 1818).

18 Phythian-Adams, ‘Rutland Reconsidered’, p. 76.

19 London, Public Record Office, Subsidy Rolls for Rutland (from a collection of J.E.B. Gover).

20 The earliest form Ingelthorp of 1189, in a copy of 1332 (Calendar of Charter Rolls) is unique and may be erratic. The usual forms from 1203 onwards are lnget(h)orp(e). Late forms in Inglethorp(e), 1547 and 1553 (Calendar of Patent Rolls) do, however, occur.

21 Fellows-Jensen, G., Scandinavian Settlement Names in the East Midlands (Copenhagen, 1978), pp. 114 and 129 where Manthorpe's grid reference should read SK 9238.Google Scholar

22 Lincoln, Lines. Archives Office, Ancaster 5 Anc 1/6/61/24.

23 London, PRO, Assize Rolls for Rutland (from a collection of J.E.B. Gover).

24 For Barrowden: Belvoir Castle, Duke of Rutland's archives. Add. 98 and Add. 105; Bisbrooke: Rutland 2715, 2732, 5263 and 5385; Caldecott: Oxford, Queen's College 366;Little Casterton: London, PRO, Exch. Augm. Office AD B.B. 16; Lyddington: Queen's 366; Market Overton: PRO, Ministers' Accounts for Rutland (ex-Gover).

25 For Glaston: Northampton, Northants. Record Office, Brudenell E xxi 56; Tolethorpe: Blore, T., History and Antiquities of the County of Rutland (Stamford, 1811), p. 214.Google Scholar

26 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 877: Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, C., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892–9) I, 74; ‘then in the harvest season the army went away into Mercia and shared out some of it and gave some to Ceolwulf’Google Scholar(The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation, ed. Whitelock, D. et al. (London, 1961; rev. 1965), p. 48).Google Scholar

27 ASC 874 (= 873): Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer 1, 73; ‘a foolish king's thane’ (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock et al., p. 48). Ceolwulf had been a thegn of Burgred, king of Mercia. As Dr Simon Keynes has pointed out to me in correspondence, one should bear in mind that unwis is likely to represent a West Saxon attitude current c. 890 as opposed to an attitude current in the mid-870s. Ceolwulf seems to have beentaken quite seriously during his reign and was clearly more than a puppet king. He issued charters in his own name and had a sound coinage, sharing moneyers and coin types with Alfred of Wessex. The precise denotation of unwis as here used by the chronicler is unclear. Professor Christine Fell suggests that perhaps ‘impulsive’ rather than ‘foolish’ would be nearer the mark.

28 ASC 874 (= 87): Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer 1, 73; ‘that it should be ready for them on whatever day they wished to have it’ (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock et al., p. 48).

29 The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Campbell, A. (London, 1962), p. 51. Campbell translates: ‘In the city of York, he contacted the enemy who possessed (pandunt) large territories in the kingdom of the Mercians, on the western side of the place called Stamford. This is to say, between the streams of the river Welland and the thickets of the wood called Kesteven by the common people.’Google ScholarCampbell's rendering of pandunt is questioned in Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M., Alfred the Great: Asser's ‘Life of King Alfred’ and other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983). They offer as an alternative translation of this passage, ‘At the city of York he comes upon the enemy who are plundering no small territories in the kingdom of the Mercians to the west of Stamford; that is, between the waters of the river Weolod (Welland) and the thickets of the wood which is commonly called Kesteven’ (p. 190). They note: ‘The transmitted pandunt is nonsense, and Campbell's translation of it (“possessed”, literally “opened out”) is impossible: pando is intransitive and cannot govern the accusative territoria. We suggest emending to praedantur, “they plunder”’ (p. 337). However, Æthelweard most frequently uses the verb vastare when he refers to plundering and the verb pandere is indeed commonly transitive. Although we may ponder Æthelweard's precise meaning, his verb pandere is correctly inflected in its context and consistent with his style. There the problem of pandunt must rest. Whether the York Vikings already held sway over Rutland at this date or whether they were overrunning it prior to taking it into their possession, the territory appears to be regarded by Æthelweard as English and still part of the kingdom of Mercia. Certainly it does not seem to be a province occupied by Danes. It is most unlikely that York Vikings would be plundering the possessions and settlements of their fellow Scandinavians living in the East Midlands.Google ScholarHugh Pagan has suggested that after the 877 division of Mercia, Ceolwulf still controlled Lincoln (see Anglo-Saxon Monetary History, ed. Blackburn, M. A. S. (Leicester, 1986), p. 63 and n. 33). This is difficult to accept. Even so, the conventional historical wisdom that when Mercia was divided in 877, Ceolwulf retained only the western part of the kingdom and the Danes took the entire East Midlands (as well as land further south and south-east, i.e.dependent land around Northampton, Bedford and London) must at present be held in serious question. At just what date Stamford, whose town lands were once so obviously part of the ancient territory of Rutland, became a Danish borough also remains a problem.Google Scholar

30 We may also note the lost Normandale in Tixover parish on River Welland, six miles south-west of Stamford. Although first recorded as late as 1770 (Lincoln, Lines. Archives Office, Aswarby D/13/4), this is most probably OE Norðmanna-dæl ‘the valley of the Norwegians’.

31 The Domesday Geography of Midland England, ed. Darby, H.C. and Terrett, I.B. (Cambridge, 1954), P. 378.Google Scholar

32 Fellows-Jensen, Scandinavian Settlement Names in the East Midlands, pp. 244–57.