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Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies: The Danish Settlement of Eastern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

F. M. Stenton
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Extract

For many years, the Scandinavian place-names of northern and eastern England have been regarded as valuable materials for the historian. Their number is so large, and they present so many features which point unequivocally to their origin, that their general significance has long been apparent. Sixty years ago, the broad outlines of their distribution were already clear enough to be used in the reconstruction of unrecorded history, and, mainly through the work of J. R. Green, they were beginning to pass into the familiar body of knowledge about the pre-Norman age. The concentrations of Scandinavian names on the fringe of Cleveland and in the central plain of Yorkshire, in Lindsey and Leicestershire, and around the estuary of the Yare, are all indicated in the Conquest of England, published in 1883. The essential fact that these names are characteristic of the regions settled by the Danish armies of King Alfred's time was well established, and has lain in the background of most that has since been written about the bearing of this settlement on the evolution of Old English society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 24 , December 1942 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1942

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References

page 1 note 1 As the title of this address shows, it relates almost exclusively to eastern England, and in particular to the country within which successive detachments of the Great Army of 865 found a settlement between 876 and 880. In referring to words and personal names, I have given them, whenever possible, in a West Scandinavian form, partly because of its greater familiarity, and also because English place-names preserve traces of many sounds, especially diphthongs, which can be recognised more easily in Old Norse than in Old Danish or Old Swedish.

page 1 note 2 The fullest modern account of the distribution of these names is given in the chapter on the Scandinavian settlements by Ekwall, E. in An historical geography of EnglandGoogle Scholar, ed. Darby, H. C. (1936), pp. 140–54.Google Scholar

page 2 note 1 Leeds, 1910 (Publications of the Thoresby Society, vol. xviii.).

page 3 note 1 Halle, 1910. In 1912, Björkman published a supplement to this work entitled Zur Englischen Namenkunde, in which the material is largely derived from early forms of place-names.

page 3 note 2 Uppsala, 1912. This work, which contains an introduction and deals with names preserving Old Scandinavian inflexional forms or vowels, was intended by Dr. Lindkvist to be followed by a second part discussing the consonantal side of the evidence, and offering some general conclusions. Unfortunately, this second part has never been published.

page 4 note 1 For the minor Scandinavian names of this district see The place-names of Northamptonshire (E.P.-N.S.), pp. 110–21 and 283.Google Scholar

page 5 note 1 The place-names of Nottinghamshire (E.P.-N.S.), p. 275 et seqq.

page 5 note 2 There are many examples in the Danelaw of a compound of deill and the Scandinavian vǫndr, ‘wand’. It generally occurs in the plural form wandailes, and has produced the somewhat common farm-name Wandales. It denoted a tract of open-field arable in which each individual deill, or strip, was measured by a wand. The custom of preserving the integrity of the strips by periodical measurement against a wand survived until the late 18th century in north Nottinghamshire, where the customary wand was 14 feet 6 inches. (Cf. Thoroton, R., The Antiquities of NottinghamshireGoogle Scholar, ed. Throsby, J., 1796, vol. iii, p. 292).Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 The place-names of the East Riding of Yorkshire (E.P.-N.S.), pp. 319–329.Google Scholar

page 6 note 2 Thus a Rufiord Abbey charter of circa 1200 (Harl. M.S., 1063, fo. 48b) speaks of land in frutectis et haithes at Eakring, Notts, where haith is clearly the Old Scandinavian heiðr, ‘heath’.

page 6 note 3 Another charter from Rufford Abbey has preserved the curious hybrid Aistrengesmedua, in which the English meadow has been added to an earlier compound of eng and eystri, ‘eastern’ (Harl. MS., 1063, fo. 48b).

page 7 note 1 In the aggregate, a considerable number of Scandinavian words are found in field-names outside the Danelaw. There was a certain amount of early Scandinavian settlement in the east of English Mercia, and there was constant intercourse between English and Danish territory. But there is no doubt as to the significance of the contrast between the strength of the Scandinavian vocabulary in Northamptonshire and its meagreness in Warwickshire, on the English side of Watling Street. For its character in the latter county see The place-names of Warwickshire (E.P-N.S.), pp. xxi–xxiv.Google Scholar

page 7 note 2 As in the great collection of Lincolnshire charters contained in the Registrum Antiquissimum of Lincoln cathedral, now in course of publication by the Lincoln Record Society.

page 9 note 1 The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire, p. 77.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 Public Record Office; Ancient Deeds, A.S. 280.Google Scholar

page 10 note 2 On the problems raised by hybrid names such as Skeyton and Thurmaston, in which a Scandinavian personal-name is compounded with the Old English tūn, ‘village’, see The place-names of Nottinghamshire, pp. xviii–xx.Google Scholar

page 11 note 1 Such as Akethorpe, Suffolk (Old Swedish Akatorp), Gunthorpe, Nottinghamshire (Old Swedish Gunillatorp), Hagthorpe, Yorkshire (Old Swedish Hakathorp), Cawthorpe, Lincolnshire (Old Danish Calæthorp), Carthorpe, Yorkshire (Old Danish Caræthorp), Saxthorpe, Norfolk (Old Swedish Saxathorp), Swinthorpe, Lincolnshire (Old Swedish Sunathorpe), Towthorpe, Yorkshire (Old Danish Towæthorp, Old Swedish Tofvetorp), Glassthorpe, Northamptonshire (Old Swedish Klaksthorp).

page 11 note 2 e.g. the Old Swedish and Danish Sune which occurs in Swinthorpe, Lincolnshire.

page 12 note 1 Within these shires, there are approximately 64 names in by which are not mentioned in Domesday Book. There is one such name in War-wickshire—Willoughby near Daventry—which geographically belongs to the Northamptonshire group. There are also 9 names of this type in county Durham, and on the west side of the Pennines there are at least 7 in Cheshire, 19 in Lancashire, 16 in Westmorland, and 56 in Cumberland. When added to the details given in the text, these figures bring the total number of English place-names in by to 715. The actual number must have been larger than this, for in the north-west, many small places had names of this kind, and it is unlikely that all of them have been noted. But it seems safe to say that the total must be well under 750.

page 13 note 1 For the character of the Swedish names of this type, see the detailed study by Hellquist, Elof, De Svenska Ortnamnen på by (Göteborg, 1918).Google Scholar

page 13 note 2 cf. Frederiksborg Amts Stednavne (Danmarks Stednavne, no. 2, 1929) p. x.Google Scholar Hellquist, (op. cit., p. 67)Google Scholar states that he has not found a single undoubted name of this type in Skåne, Halland, or Blekinge.

page 13 note 3 There are a number of names of this type to which there are exact Scandinavian parallels. Hemsby, in Norfolk, , ‘Heimir's by’Google Scholar, is identical with the Old Swedish Hemisby; Hellaby in Yorkshire, ‘Helgi's by’, with the Old Swedish Hælghaby; Careby in Lincolnshire, , ‘Kari's by’Google Scholar, with the Old Swedish Karaby. But coincidences like these are exceptional.

page 14 note 1 Lindkvist, , op. cit., pp. 154–5.Google Scholar

page 14 note 2 When it contained a population of 46 sokemen, 7 villeins, and 3 bordars. Domesday, I, fo. 236.Google Scholar

page 15 note 1 In Lincolnshire, for example, Hawerby on the Wolds—‘Hávarð's by’ —contained a Domesday population of 14 sokemen, or free peasants, 1 villein, and 1 bordar; Sotby near Horncastle—‘Sóti's by’ —contained 16 sokemen and 3 villeins; Hundleby near Bolingbroke—‘Hundolf's by’ —contained 25 sokemen and 12 villeins; Aswarby near Sleaford—‘Ásvarð's by’ —contained 42 sokemen and 4 bordars. In Leicestershire, Welby near Melton Mowbray—‘Áli's by’ —contained 18 sokemen, 7 villeins, and 3 bordars.

page 15 note 2 A manorial origin is equally improbable for the many villages bearing names of this type which in 1066 were divided between a number of different lordships.

page 15 note 3 Robertson, A. J., Anglo-Saxon Charters, p. 76.Google Scholar

page 16 note 1 For these developments see Wessén, Elias, Nordiska Namnstudier (Uppsala, 1927), pp. 47–96.Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 Wessén, , op. cit., pp. 66–70.Google Scholar

page 17 note 2 In England outside the Danelaw a marked reduction in the number of names and name-stems in common use occurred during the tenth and eleventh centuries and seems to have been accompanied by an increased employment of by-names. In course of time, some of them acquired an independent existence as personal, or Christian, names (cf. von Feilitzen, O., The pre-Conquest personal names of Domesday Book, Uppsala, 1937, pp. 13–18).Google Scholar But the development was never carried in England to anything approaching the point which it reached in the Scandinavian countries. For a detailed survey of the Anglo-Saxon material see Tengvik, Gösta, Old English bynames (Uppsala, 1938).Google Scholar

page 18 note 1 For the forms assumed by these names in England see Björkman, , Nordische Personennamen, pp. 16–20, 151–3.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 A remarkably early example of the name Ásketill occurs in an Anglicised form in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where Oscytel appears as the name of one of the three kings who led the Great Army from Repton to Cambridge in 874.

page 18 note 3 For the place-names in which they occur, see below, pp. 23–4.

page 19 note 1 Some of these names seem to have been used in England as by-names until the thirteenth century, if not later. A man named Gamel Orre is mentioned in a charter of Henry Ill's reign in the Coucher book of Selby, ed. J. T. Fowler, i. 220.Google Scholar

page 19 note 2 Wessén, , op. cit., p. 67.Google Scholar For the detailed study of Scandinavian by-names the starting-point is the definitive survey by Lind, E. H., Norsk-Isländska Personbinamn från Medeltiden (Uppsala 1921).Google Scholar

page 20 note 1 These names make their first appearance in England with the Danish earls Þurcytel and Þurferþ (= Þorrøðr), mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS. A, under 918 and 921.

page 21 note 1 Such as Klakkr, Flik, Malte, Kæri, and Eindriði.

page 21 note 2 That a certain amount of such migration occurred in the tenth century is made probable by the pre-Conquest diffusion in Yorkshire of the Gaelic word erg, shieling, and by the appearance of a number of Old Irish personal names in Yorkshire place-names in by mentioned in Domesday Book. The clearest examples are Cairpre, Maelmuire, Maelsuithan, and Dubhghall, which occur in Carperby, Melmerby, Melsonby, and Duggleby. But these signs of Norse-Gaelic influence seem to be confined to the region north of the Humber.