Chronicles (1 of 6): The Description of BritaineHolinshed, Raphael
History
Chronicles (1 of 6): The Description of Britaine
Holinshed, Raphael
Great Britain -- History -- To 1485; Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603
land, and the streame betwéene foure fadams déepe, as ship-boies haue
oft sounded, but at a lowe water a man may go ouer thither on the sand.
The Ile of it selfe is verie sandie a mile in compasse, and well stored
with conies, thither also went a sort of supersticious fooles in times
past, in pilgrimage, to our ladie of Hilberie, by whose offerings a cell
of monkes there, which belonged to Chester, was cherished and
mainteined.
The next Iland vpon the coast of England is Man or Mona Cæsaris, which
some name Mana or Manim, but after Ptolomie, Monaoida, as some thinke,
though other ascribe that name to Anglesei, which the Welshmen doo
commonlie call Môn, as they doo this Manaw. It is supposed to be the
first, as Hirtha is the last of the Hebrides. Hector Boetius noteth a
difference betwéene them of 300. miles. But Plinie saith that Mona is
200000. miles from Camaldunum, lib. 2. cap. 75. It lieth also vnder 53.
degrées of latitude, and 30. minuts, and hath in longitude 16. degrees
and 40. minuts, abutting on the north side vpon S. Ninians in Scotland,
Furnesfels on the east, Prestholme and Anglesei on the south, and
Vlsther in Ireland on the west. It is greater than Anglesei by a third,
and there are two riuers in the same, whose heads doo ioine so néere,
that they doo seeme in maner to part the Ile in twaine. Some of the
[Sidenote: Eubonia.]
[Sidenote: Meuania.]
ancient writers, as Ethicus, &c: call it Eubonia, and other following
Orosius, Meuana or Mæuania, howbeit after Beda and the Scotish
histories, the Meuaniæ are all those Iles aforesaid called the Hebrides,
Eubonides, or Hebudes (whereof William Malmesburie, lib. 1. de regibus
(beside this our Mona) will haue Anglesei also to be one. Wherefore it
séemeth hereby that a number of our late writers ascribing the said name
vnto Mona onelie, haue not beene a little deceiued. Iornandes lib. de
Getis speaketh of a second Meuania; "Habet & aliam Meuaniam (saith he)
necnon & Orchadas." But which should be prima, as yet I do not read,
except it should be Anglesei; and then saith Malmesburie well. In like
sort Propertius speaketh of a Meuania, which he called Nebulosa, but he
meaneth it euidentlie of a little towne in Vmbria where he was borne,
lib. 4. eleg. De vrbe Rom. Wherfore there néedeth no vse of his
authoritie. This in the meane time is euident out of Orosius, lib. 1.
capite 2. that Scots dwelled somtime in this Ile, as also in Ireland,
which Ethicus also affirmeth of his owne time, and finallie confirmeth
that the Scots and Irish were sometime one people. It hath in length 24.
miles, and 8. in bredth, and is in maner of like distance from Galloway
in Scotland, Ireland and Cumberland in England, as Buchanan reporteth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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