The Meaning of Old English Stow and the Origin of the Name of Bristol
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Trans. Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 132 (2014), 67–73 The Meaning of Old English Stow and the Origin of the Name of Bristol By DAVID H. HIGGINS Instances of Old English (OE) stow in the major place-names of England occur frequently in certain parts of the west and south-west of the country: especially in Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire (Fig. 1). It is noticeable that occurrences of the word are only thinly spread in the remainder of the country south of the Humber.1 In counties of the west and south-west of England where the term occurs, 90% of the examples of the ‘generic’ element stow are conjoined with a saint’s name (the ‘qualifier’), i.e. the sacred personage to whom a church or chapel in question is dedicated, such as SS James (Jacobstow in Cornwall), John (Instow in Devon), Edward (Eduuardesstou, later Stow-on-the-Wold, in Gloucestershire), Martin (Marstow in Herefordshire). There is now general agreement amongst toponymists that stow, by the time of its appearance in the west and south-west of the country (i.e. in regions adjacent to, or recently appropriated from, Celtic or early Welsh kingdoms) was the normal Anglo- Saxon equivalent term for Celtic *lann (Welsh llan), meaning originally ‘enclosure’, but soon, in a more specialized and extended sense, ‘(Christian) burial-ground, church-site’. This lexical transposition, *lann>stow, in the west and south-west took place at different times. Documentary evidence for this transposition survives particularly in Devon during the county’s radical ‘Englishing’ by Wessex from broadly the 8th century onwards, while in parts of Cornwall the 8th and 9th centuries are notably flagged. In Herefordshire, particularly in ArchenfieldErgyng ( ), where Welsh and English settlements had long co-existed, the dating of the *lann>stow exchange is fluid, but evidence from available charters suggests an increase in anglicization mostly after the Conquest: for example Lannpetyr (1045) had become Peterstow by 1207, and Lann Sanfreit (1056) was known as Bridstow by 1291.2 1. This countrywide investigation of place-names is based, for ease of reference, on the more than 10,500 or so major entries in total in A.D. Mills, A Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford, 1991). Minor place-names, for example names of hamlets and other small settlements, fields, woodlands and so forth, have had to be omitted on grounds of space, for which the author apologises. But the broad picture is what is sought in this crucial item of research. It is worthy of note, if so far resistant to explanation, that even minor uses of the term stow appear lacking in the west in Somerset (Nether and Over Stowey derive from stan ‘stone’, not stow), Dorset, Worcestershire and Shropshire. 2. The discussion in S.M. Pearce, South-Western Britain in the Early Middle Ages (London, 2004), 142–5, 147–8, is of special interest here. But see also R. Higham, Making Anglo-Saxon Devon (Exeter, 2008), 83–4; O.J. Padel, Cornish Place-Names (Penzance, 1988), 7–9; B. Coplestone-Crow, Herefordshire Place-Names (Hereford, 2009), s.vv; J. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 21, 49. Nicholas Orme in his English Church Dedications, with a Survey of Cornwall and Devon (Exeter, 1996) does not discuss at length the relationship of the terms *lann or stow in his survey at pp. 3–24 but correctly, in this author’s view, accepts stow in the exclusive sense of ‘holy place’, as in ‘Christow’ (Devon) at pp. 144–5. 68 THE MEANING OF OLD ENGLISH STOW Fig. 1. Distribution map (by county) of major English place-names in OE stow and stede. DAVID H. HIGGINS 69 OE stow, in its primitive sense, signified simply ‘a place, a geographical location’, like OEstede (‘stead’).3 The latter’s meanings, except in one signal instance, are shared by stow and are discussed below. The ultimate origin of both stow and stede is the Old West Germanic verb ‘[to] stand’ in the sense of ‘[to] occupy ground’. For stow, recent toponymists (Coplestone-Crow 2009, Pearce 2004, Padel 1998, Gelling 1997: see n. 2) have – reasonably but indiscriminately – proposed the simple sense of ‘a gathering place’: a word which, researched here for the first time in its national spread, in fact conveys specific meanings according to geographical and chronological criteria. This author’s investigation establishes that in the eastern counties, where the earliest instances of stow are to be found (the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain having begun on the eastern side of the country in the 5th and 6th centuries), ‘stow’ or ‘stowe’ as an element of a place-name indicates simply ‘a place or location [of local significance]’, regardless of the ownership of the place, the motivation of those attending the place or the use to which the place was put. As regards ownership, motivation and uses, these aspects are indicated in the eastern counties by a variety of affixed qualifiers. Often the distinguished manorial family in occupation of the ‘stow’ is recorded, as in Stow Bardolph and Stow Bedon in Norfolk, Stowlangtoft in Suffolk or Stow Maries in Essex (these families are post-Conquest but hint perhaps that the names of previous Anglo-Saxon land-owners, now lost to history, have been substituted). In this category of ‘stow’, a shared distinguishing feature would often have been a church or other religious foundation, of which the Anglo-Saxon thegn or subsequent Norman lord of the manor was the owner or patron. In these cases – but relatively rare in the eastern counties – the qualifier may be the saint to whom the church is dedicated, as in Hibaldstow in Lincolnshire (Hiboldestou 1086), a county in which the 7th-century saint in question, St Hygebald, is fondly commemorated also in three other churches there. On the other hand, in High and Lower Halstow in Kent (OE halig ‘holy’) worship at some unspecified church, chapel or wayside shrine is implied. Where there is lay public interest in the ‘stow’ in question, its qualifier specifies the function involved: for example, OE pleg ‘play’, i.e. sport and recreation, as in Plaistow (Sussex); OE burh ‘fort’, as in Burstow (Surrey); OE wıc ‘wick’, indicating a specialized role in farming or other industry, as in Wistow (Cambs. and Yorks.); OE fugol ‘fowl’, for the hunting of wildfowl, as in Fulstow (Linc.); late OE –markett ‘market’, for trade, as in Stowmarket (Suffolk). Such breadth in the social uses of ‘stow’ is indicated only on the eastern side of the country. The semantic quiddity of stow is shared – except in one important instance – with OE stede (‘stead’), which is not a notable lexical feature of English dialects in the toponymy of western and south-western counties. On the other hand, stede is found solidly in the eastern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent and Sussex, with only relatively few instances of stow. Certain Midland counties south of the Humber also employ stede in compound place-names, counties which, if Mills’ critique is reliable, are devoid of major instances of stow: Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. But void of stede altogether are the counties of Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and, as mentioned, all the counties of the west and south-west of the country. Research on the settlement history and dialects of the Anglo-Saxon incomers is required to explain such anomalies. Devon has but one major instance of stede in Mortonhampstead ‘homestead on the moor’; but since the settlement’s name appears as simply Moretone in Domesday, the amplification of the name is both late and virtually tautological (-tone is OE –tun ‘farmstead’, where the family home is already implied). Unlike stow, stede is mostly 3. English place-names in stede here are also based on the selection of major toponymic instances in Mills (1991): see note 2. His published bibliography indicates that in his commentaries he consulted, critically, the study of -stede as a place-name element, published 30 years earlier by I.K. Sandred: English Place- Names in -stead: a thesis, with maps, (Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 2, Uppsala, 1963). 70 THE MEANING OF OLD ENGLISH STOW found as a dependent element in compound place-names: thus in the early modern period one could talk of ‘a stow’ and make sense, but less frequently of ‘a stead’. Place-names apart, the latter survived parasitically into the modern period in very limited phraseology such as ‘instead of’, ‘in my/his/her etc stead’ and, also in concrete circumstances, beyond toponymy, perhaps anomalously in ‘bedstead’. But stede as ‘place, location’, even ‘ground, land, property’, can be encountered as late as the 12th century, for example in the Bristol Charters where Henry II, between 1164 and 1170, is recorded as granting ‘to my men who dwell in my stead in the Marsh near the bridge of Bristol’ the same rights granted to the burgesses of the town in 1155.4 Otherwise, south of the Humber, in the more easterly counties, place-names with stede are invariably compounded with features such as ‘home, farm, tree, crop, fort, market’: Ham[p]stead/Hempstead (Herts., Essex, Middx., Norfolk) ‘homestead’; Tunstead (Norfolk) ‘farmstead’; Elmstead, Elmsted, Elstead (Middx., Kent, Surrey) ‘dwelling(s) in elm woodland’; Greenstead, Grimstead (Essex, Sussex, Wilts.) ‘dwelling(s) in grassland’; Burstead (Essex) ‘dwelling(s) within or by a fort’; Chipstead (Surrey, Kent) ‘settlement with a market place’, and so forth. To this extent, the uses of stede are identical to those of stow. Striking is the fact that out of the 58 examples of stede in approximately 10,500 entries in total in Mills’ dictionary, only one, Saxtead (Suffolk), is associated (possibly) with a personal name, ‘Seaxa’, which is not known as a saint’s name.