have not met with it in England, yet Bowditch gives it as the name of a
member of the New York legislature, where it may, however, possibly be
German. It is rather amusing to see how the learned Germans are
occasionally a little mystified by these Old Frankish Scriptural names.
Stark, for instance, sets down Elisaba (Elischeba, the Hebrew form, I
take it, of Elisabeth) as Celtic, and Foerstemann, excusably perhaps, is
posed with Erispa (Rispah, the daughter of Aiah?), though I think he
might have guessed Osanna.
Before concluding this chapter I may refer to the _Roll of Battle
Abbey_, containing the names of the principal Normans who came over with
the Conqueror. This has been severely impugned by some excellent
antiquaries on the ground that some of the names are, on the face of
them, regular English names, and such as could not reasonably be
supposed to have been borne by Normans. And hence it has been supposed
that interpolations must have been made to gratify the vanity of certain
families who wished their names to appear in the Roll. This in itself
does not seem an improbable suspicion, and I do not desire to go into
the question further than to express the opinion that so far as the
names themselves are concerned, there is not one that might not be a
genuine Norman name. Indeed, the undisguised English form of some of
them is to me rather a proof of the honesty of the scribe, for it would
have been so easy to have given them a thin Norman disguise. The
suspicious-seeming names are of two kinds, names which appear to be from
English place-names, as Argentoune, Chaworth, Newborough, Sanford,
Valingford, Harewell; and names which seem to be from English surnames
of occupation, or description, as Hayward, Archere, Loveday. The former
did present a genuine difficulty, and did justify suspicion till now
that Mr. Taylor's discovery of an area in the north of France full of
regular Anglo-Saxon place-names, and no doubt settled by Anglo-Saxons,
has disclosed the source from which they could be derived. I opine then
that the English scribe has done nothing more in the case of such names
than restore them to the original form from which they had been more or
less corrupted. Nor indeed has he done it to as great an extent as he
might have done, for I find several others which may be brought back to
an Anglo-Saxon form, and it may be of some little interest to take a few
of these Norman surnames derived from place-names of the kind discovered
by Mr. Taylor, and compare them with corresponding Anglo-Saxon
place-names in England. I will take the names ending in _uil_, "well,"
of which the scribe has Anglicised one (Harewell), and show how many
more there might have been. We have Bereneuile and Boranuile,
corresponding with A.S. Bernewell (now Barnwell, in Northamptonshire),
from A.S. _brune_, brook, of which the well might be the source. Then we
have Rinuuill, corresponding with an A.S. Runawel (now, Runwell in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account