EPSOM and HEBBESHAMM: HERE? THERE? WHERE? Rob Briggs
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© Robert J S Briggs 2013 - http://surreymedieval.wordpress.com - email [email protected] EPSOM AND HEBBESHAMM: HERE? THERE? WHERE? Rob Briggs The idea that Epsom appears as Hebbeshamm in a charter of King Alfred of the year 882 (Sawyer 345) is to be encountered in many key works discussing the dramatic events of later ninth-century English history and the relevant documentary sources, so it is no surprise that it has gained traction in some quarters locally too. However, the idea is conspicuous by its absence from any expert-authored analysis of the place-name Epsom, which would be expected to attach considerable weight to the insight provided by such early material. Instead, the late tenth-century personal name “Ælfric of Ebbesham” and the name-form Ebesham found in a number of charters describing (or rather purporting to describe) the landholdings of the important pre-Conquest monastery at Chertsey have been utilised to propose a translation of “Ebbiʼs hām”; the former a male personal name, the latter a habitative term (i.e. one pertaining to a settlement and/or landholding) with possible translations ranging from “homestead” to “estate”. Hebbeshamm, by contrast, would appear to be a combination of the unattested but credible Anglo-Saxon personal name *Hebbi and Old English hamm, a non-habitative element with a variety of possible meanings, none of which overlaps with those of hām. All the same, the above etymologies presuppose that the early forms are fundamentally “pure” and have not been distorted by later scribal amendment. With considerable doubt surrounding the degree of authenticity of the charter which is the source of Hebbeshamm - though it is accepted that at its heart is a genuine late ninth-century text - the separation of the two place-names may not be as straightforward as it seems at first. Last year, I wrote an essay on the subject entitled ʻDid King Alfred really go to Epsom? Historians, linguists and the search for Hebbeshammʼ (available to read and download via my blog at http://surreymedieval.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/ the_search_for_hebbeshamm_february_2012.pdf). My interest in the question of whether Hebbeshamm and Epsom are one and the same arose because I thought the implication that the former was a meeting-place permitted its identification with Nutshambles, part of the assembly site of Copthorne Hundred which lay in the corner of Epsom parish and was the subject of an excellent article by Dorothy Nail published in 1965. I quickly went off this idea when I realised that the equation was the innovation of historians and has received no published support from place-name scholars, a decision I felt was vindicated by my subsequent identification of a trio of references to Heb(b)esham in diverse thirteenth- century sources which at first sight seem to exhibit something of an Essex bias in the geographical locations to which they pertain. Notable among these is a fine of 1234x35 from the county which records a connection between a hundred-acre landholding in White Notley and “the homage etc. of Hugh the Black and his heirs in Hebesham”. Placing Hebbeshamm in the vicinity of White Notley in north-east Essex fits with the admittedly very limited historical testimony of the final third of the ninth century, in particular with the idea that the eastern boundary of the Danelaw was subject to periodic incursion from both sides (thereby accounting for the description of the 882 charter being promulgated by King Alfred and his nobles in expeditione, “on expedition”). Two discoveries made after completing my essay have undermined the credibility of attributing Hebbeshamm to Essex. First came the listing on the National Archives online catalogue of an undated, most likely thirteenth century, deed in which one party is named as William de Lederem (i.e. Leatherhead), “vicar of Hebesham”. The combination of two Surrey place-names with the description of William as a vicar makes it hard to argue that Hebesham here does not represent Epsom, the living of which was appropriated by 1 Chertsey Abbey towards the end of the twelfth century. Indeed, it is to Chertsey and its cartularies that we owe the second piece of evidence suggesting my suggested location of Hebbeshamm is far from secure, namely a reference to one “Hugh Black” renting an estate at Epsom around the same time as the aforementioned Essex fine. This leaves one ambiguous occurrence (Hugh de Hebesham witnessing a grant of land “in the vill of Meadun”, which could just as easily be Malden in Surrey as Maldon in Essex) and a brace of effectively-useless ones (the surname of John de Hebbesham, twice recorded in 1296x97 in association with Wallingford). In light of the above, and published examples of other Surrey place-names like Ockley and Ockham being spelled intermittently with an initial H-, there is a good chance that Epsom is the place-name behind all of the thirteenth- century references I have collected to date. Although it may seem as if my argument has come full circle, aberrant scribal renderings of the thirteenth century cannot be held to prove the episodic addition of H- to the place- name of Epsom previously occurred in the 880s or mid-1100s, the date of the extant text of “the Hebbeshamm charter”. (The loss of the second -m of hamm is commonplace and arguably does not tell us so much as a result.) We are left with three possibilities regarding the identity of Hebbeshamm. First, that it was Epsom, the 882 spelling being the result of distortions which have arisen through the vagaries of later scribal transmission. Second, that it is the name of a lost place (not necessarily a settlement) in Essex, most likely in the Malden area. Third, that it was somewhere else entirely; in this regard, it might be worth noting that at least one of the two estates exchanged in the 882 charter is believed to have been located in Somerset. Unless new evidence is forthcoming, there is no means of deciding which of the three is the most credible. Did King Alfred visit Epsom? Never say never but, if he did, we do not possess an unequivocal record of the occasion. BIBLIOGRAPHY • Briggs, R. ʻUpdate - well, what do you know?ʼ, Surrey Medieval http://surreymedieval.wordpress.com/work/ the-search-for-hebbeshamm/update-well-what-do-you-know/, accessed March 2013 • Chertsey Abbey Cartularies, Surrey Record Society, 12 (Guildford: Surrey Record Society, 1915-63) • E 326/8086 Exchequer: Augmentation Office: Ancient Deeds, Series B, The National Archives http:// discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C4533939, accessed 1st January 2013 • ‘A Brief History of Epsom and Ewell’, Epsom and Ewell History Explorer http:// www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/BriefHistory.html, accessed November 2011 • Dodgson, J. McN., ‘Place-names from hām, distinguished from hamm names, in relation to the settlement of Kent, Surrey and Sussex’, Anglo-Saxon England, 2 (1973), 1-50 • Feet of Fines for Essex. Volume 1 (A.D. 1182 - A.D. 1272), ed. by R. E. G. Kirk (Colchester: Society at the Museum in the Castle, 1899) • Finberg, H. P. R., The Early Charters of Wessex (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1964) • Gover, J. E. B., A. Mawer & F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Surrey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934) • Haslam, J., ‘King Alfred, Mercia and London, 874-886: A reassessment’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 17 (2011), 120-46 • Ministers’ Accounts of the Earldom of Cornwall, 1296-1297, 1, ed. by L. M. Midgley, Camden Third Series, 66 (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1942) • Moore, N., The History of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 1 (London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1918) • Nail, D., ‘The meeting place of Copthorne Hundred’, Surrey Archaeological Collections [SyAC], 62 (1965), 44-53 • Sturdy, D., Alfred the Great (London: Constable, 1995) • Various charters via The Electronic Sawyer http://www.esawyer.org.uk, accessed November 2011 • The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, ed. by Watts, V. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) • Whitelock, D., ‘Review of The Early Charters of Wessex’, English Historical Review, 81 (1966), 100-104 • Williams, A., ‘The Vikings in Essex, 871-917’, Essex Archaeology and History, 27 (1996), 92-101 2.