Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- Great Britain
(7) A list of the place-names of Derbyshire with philological notes is
commenced by Mr. B. Walker, sometime of Liverpool University, in the
_Proceedings of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society_ for 1913 (xxxvi. 123-284, Derby, 1914); it is to be completed
in a future volume. I venture two suggestions. First, like, many similar
treatises on place-names which are now being issued, this work has too
limited a scope. It deals mainly with certain names of modern towns and
villages; it takes little or no heed of ancient names of houses and
fields or of lanes and roads (as Bathamgate, Doctorgate), or of rivers
(as Noe), or (lastly) of the place-names of the older England which are
preserved only in charters, chronicles, and the like; unless they chance
to come among the select list of modern names which the writer chooses
to admit, they find no notice. Yet it is the older names of all sorts,
irrespective of their survival in prominent fashion to-day, with which
historical students and even philologists are most really concerned.
Secondly, writers on place-names take too little account of facts
outside the phonetic horizon. In the present instalment of Derbyshire,
the one Roman item noted is Derby. Here, in the suburb of Little
Chester, was a Roman fort or village, and past it flows the river then
and now called Derwent or something similar. Yet the etymology of Derby
is discussed without any reference to the river name. No doubt Derby is
not derived by regular phonetic process from Derwent; its earliest
spellings, Deoraby and the like, connect it with either the word for
'wild beast' or the proper name Deor. Still, it is incredible that the
Derwent should flow past Derby and the adjacent Darley (formerly Derley)
and be unrelated. One may guess with little rashness that the invaders
who renamed the site took over the Romano-British name (Deruentio or the
like) and reshaped that after analogies of their own speech. Does not a
form Deorwenta occur (though Mr. Walker has missed it) to show that the
two names interacted? Again, Chesterfield (Cesterfelda, A.D. 955) is
glossed as 'the field by the fort'. What fort? There is none, nor does
'Chester' necessarily mean that there was. Etymologizing without
reference to facts is wasted work.
[Illustration: FIG. 19. NAILS FROM THE CHESTER GRAVES. (p. 42)]
[Illustration: FIG. 20. THE MERSEA GRAVE MOUND. (p. 43)]
[Illustration: FIG. 21. LEADEN CASKET AND GLASS SEPULCHRAL VESSEL FROM
THE MERSEA BURIAL-MOUND. (p. 43)]
_Dorset_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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