The Journal of Scottish Name Studies Vol. 8
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies8, 2014, i–vi The Journal of Scottish Name Studies8, 2014, i–vi The Journal of Scottish Name Studies Vol. 8
edited by Richard A.V. Cox and Simon Taylor
Clann Tuirc 2014
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies8, 2014, i–vi The Journal of Scottish Name Studies8 (2014) edited by Richard A.V. Cox and Simon Taylor
First published in Scotland in 2014 by Clann Tuirc, Tigh a’ Mhaide, Ceann Drochaid, Perthshire FK17 8HT
ISSN 1747-7387
© text: the authors 2014 © book and cover design: Clann Tuirc 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book can reproduced in any form, or by any means, known or otherwise, without the prior consent of the pubisher.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies JSNS is a peer-reviewed journal that exists to publish articles and reviews on place and personal names relating to Scotland, her history and languages.
Editors Professor Richard A.V. Cox and Dr Simon Taylor
Reviews Editor Gilbert Márkus
Editorial Advisory Board Professor Dauvit Broun Dr Rachel Butter Professor Thomas Clancy Mr Ian Fraser Dr Jacob King Mr Gilbert Márkus Professor W. F. H. Nicolaisen Professor Colm Ó Baoill Dr Maggie Scott Mr David Sellar Dr Doreen Waugh
Contributions Prospective contributors to the Journal should refer to the Notes for Contributors, available from the publisher and at
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies8, 2014, i–vi Contents
Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls Alan G. James 1
Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith Peter McNiven 51
The Medieval Parish in Scotland Simon Taylor 93
Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things Alasdair C. Whyte 115
Varia Peter McNiven The Lake of Menteith: Why a lake amongst lochs? 153
Jacob King Aberlady and Abersuainie 158
Bibliography for 2013 Simon Taylor 167
Notes on Contributors 171
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies8, 2014, i–vi The Journal of Scottish Name Studies8, 2014, i–vi Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls
Alan G. James The Scottish Place-Name Society
The status of Latin in Roman Britannia, how widely it was spoken, whether in some parts it may have replaced British as the common vernacular, and for how long and where it may have remained in use after the end of Roman rule, are all questions that are topics of lively current debate.1 Attention has focused, to a substantial and understandable extent, on the evidence from and for the lowland, ‘civil’ south and east of the province. However, a controversial view of the influence of Latin on the British language of the highland, ‘military’ north and west has been put forward in a succession of papers by Peter Schrijver.2 And even in southern Scotland, the presence of fifth- and sixth-century inscribed stones commemorating laypersons in a Latin apparently having vernacular characteristics, raises tantalising questions.3 Such topics are outwith the expertise of the present writer and, while the evidence presented may contribute a little to those discussions, the main purpose in bringing it together is to inquire further into the nature of the Brittonic language of the north, addressing the question, how similar to, or different from, the West Brittonic dialect that evolved into Old Welsh that language might have been. The presence by the time of the earliest substantial records of the Welsh language of quite a wide range of words adopted from Latin is well recognised. Jackson (1953, 78–80) gives a list of nearly 300 Latin words (not counting personal names) that were present in the Brittonic languages by the 12th century. Not all are attested in Welsh, though most are, and Jackson declares them to be ‘only a fraction of the whole’, though as they are mainly nouns, with a few adjectives, they probably represent a fair sample of potential place-name elements. But can we assume that a similar wealth of Latin vocabulary found its way into the related language north of Hadrian’s Wall? In attempting to identify
1 Surveyed and critically examined, by Parsons 2011. 2 Summarised in Schrijver 2007, 166–67. His proposals for the impact of Latin on Brittonic entail a substantial movement of British Latin-speaking refugees from the south and east of the former province into the ‘highland’ west in the immediate post-Roman period, triggering the cascade of major sound-changes that affected Brittonic during the fifth and sixth centuries. Such a population movement seems unlikely beyond Hadrian’s Wall, yet (while there were probably some dialectal differences, see James 2013), the major changes such as apocope, syncope and lenition affected northern P-Celtic between the Walls (ancestral Cumbric), and even north of the Forth (Pritenic > Pictish), much as they did West and South-West Brittonic. For further reservations, see Parsons, ibid., 118–36. 3 See, for example, Forsyth 2009, 33–34 and 36–37.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 2 Alan G. James and interpret Brittonic place-names in the north, we naturally turn for possible elements to the Welsh language as represented by the citations in the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (GPC), but it is well to bear in mind that the earliest of these are typically from Middle Welsh legal or literary sources, products of a culture with a different context and history from that of Yr Hen Ogledd. With regard to words of Latin origin, particular caution is needed: the types and amount of contact with the Roman-ruled south were of course different in the first half of the first millennium AD, and even the ecclesiastical influences that introduced a further tranche of Latin loanwords in the subsequent centuries were by no means identical. So it may be helpful to review just how much, or how little, we can adduce from the place-name evidence in the present, admittedly still far from comprehensive, state of scholarly knowledge.
Ethnic names We begin with two names that P-Celtic- and Germanic-speaking peoples gave to themselves, but which were taken up the Romans and modified in Latin forms which went on to influence the indigenous forms of those names.
*Brïthon4 *Pritanoi, the name the P-Celtic speaking people of the island gave to themselves, may have referred to some kind of body decoration, ‘ornamented, tattooed’,5 though any such origin was probably long forgotten by the time the word was used in the earliest historical sources. It underlies the re-formed Middle Welsh plural Prydein that became Modern Welsh Prydain ‘(Great) Britain’. Romans would presumably have heard the form *Pritanoi used by the Brittonic-speaking people of southern Britain to refer to themselves. This was adopted as Latin Britanni (medieval Latin Brittani), and, influenced by this Latin usage, later Roman-British forms seem to have been *Brit[t]anoi, *Brettanoi. From these, a new formation in Insular Latin, Brittones, underlies Middle–Modern Welsh Brython ‘Briton’.6 *Brettanoi would underlie the Old Irish (plural) Bretain, Middle Irish Breatan > Modern Irish Breathain and
4 The orthographic conventions used for P-Celtic forms are based on those used by Jackson 1953, with some adjustments dictated by the limitations of present-day word-processing programs. 5 IE ?*kwṛ- (zero-grade of *kwer- ‘make, cut’) -t- > eCelt *prit- + -ano- > eBr *Pritano- . For the possible IE root, see Mallory and Adams 2006 §22.2, 371–74. On the etymology and developments in the Latin and Greek adopted forms, see Rivet and Smith 1979, 39–40 and 280–82. The (possibly coincidental) Latin sense ofPicti , ‘painted people’, is of course a wholly different matter. 6 And Cornish Brython.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 3 Scottish Gaelic Breatan[n] ‘Britain’,7 also Manx Bretyn ‘Wales’, along with Old English (plural) Brettas and Old Norse (plural) Bretar (people perceived as) ‘Britons’, as well as the English name for the island. A dialectal variant *Pritenoi8 may have been used fairly widely in the north, coming to be reserved for the people identified as Picti9 as the ethnic and political geography beyond the Antonine Wall developed during the fourth– seventh centuries. This form underlies the Middle Welsh Prydyn ‘Pictland’, vaguely understood and often confused with Prydein,10 as well as the Old to Middle Irish singular Cruithen, plural Cruithin or Cruithni > Irish and Scottish Gaelic Cruithne. These Goidelic forms are generally taken to refer to (people perceived as) ‘Picts’, though this should be regarded with caution, especially with reference to parts of Scotland well furth of Pictland, and to the Cruithni in Ireland.11 Place-names referring to Britons in the north were almost certainly all given by others.12 The citadel of Dùn Breatann, Dumbarton, and the probable boundary-stone, Clach nam Breatann in Glen Falloch DNB,13 are Scottish Gaelic names for landmarks in the territory of the Britons of the Clyde. Apart from these, names given by non-Britons are likely to have referred to folk who, at the time they were so named, were distinguished by neighbours of a different ethnicity as ‘Britons’ in some sense, not necessarily linguistic. Whether such groups were Brittonic-speaking at the time the name was given, rather than ‘Britons’ by ancestry or some other distinctive property, and whether they were indigenous relict populations or (descendants of) later migrants is an open question. Other names probably involving Gaelic Breatann14 include Balbrethan (Maybole) AYR with *baile- ‘farm’,15 Barbrethan (Kirkmichael) AYR,16 with *bàrr- ‘hill’, Culbratten (Penninghame) WIG,17 with *cùil- ‘nook,
7 Watson 1926, 15 and n1. 8 < early Celtic *prit- + -eno-. 9 See note 5, above and *pejth in James 2014a. 10 See Haycock 2013, 10 and 32 n47 on Prydyn in medieval Welsh literature, especially the prophetic genre. 11 See Jackson 1955, 158–60. 12 Morgan 2013, 31, finds no names in Scotland or the border counties formed with*Brïthon . 13 Watson 1926, 15. Morgan 2013, 37. 14 But note that most of these have generics which could have replaced Brittonic cognates: barr, drum, dīn, glïnn, lech, see under each of these in James 2014a; Balbrethan could have had bàrr- (see above), for Culbratten see note 17, below. On the Gallovidian surname MacBratney, from Gaelic Breatannaich, with Bratney Wall (Kirkinner) WIG, see Morgan 2013, 33. 15 Watson 1926, 15. 16 Watson 1926, 191 and 362, Morgan 2013, 37. 17 Maxwell 1930, 27, MacQueen 2008, 23, Morgan, 2013 37, but see discussion under *cūl ‘hut’ and *cül ‘narrow’ in James 2014a.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 4 Alan G. James hollow’, Drumbreddan WIG (Stoneykirk) WIG,18 Drumbretton (Annan) DMF,19 and Drumbrydon (Woodhall) MLO,20 all with either *druim- ‘ridge’, or *dùn- ‘fort’ (cf. Dumbarton), and Glenbarton (Westerkirk) DMF 21 with *gleann- ‘glen’. Legbranock LAN (now in East Kilbride) is *leac-Breatnach ‘British slab’, perhaps a marker like Clach nam Breatann.22 It is doubtful whether any place-names north of Hadrian’s Wall can be derived from OE Brettas or ON Brettar; Morgan 2013, 34, considers Wobrethills (Canonbie) DMF ‘unlikely’, but ibid., 36, notes Bretalaughe CMB/DMF? as possibly referring to ‘what later became the Debatable Lands’.23 Although Brïthon does not occur in any Brittonic place-name formations in the north (and is doubtful anywhere else), the corresponding forms in the Goidelic languages, and in Old English and in Scandinavian, make it likely that it was current among Britons in the north as it was further south. However, north of Hadrian’s Wall, it may well have co-existed with some unrecorded form akin to Prydein or Prydyn.
*Sachs *Sachs was the Britons’ name for an Englishman even in the north. It is uncertain whether the Celtic forms were acquired from Germanic or vernacular Latin speakers using the Latinised form Saxo[n]-, adopted as late British *Saχso-;24 in any case, it would have become *Sejs by the late sixth century.25 Jackson’s view26 that the preservation of /χs/ in northern place-names implies a slightly later date
18 Maxwell 1930, 117, MacQueen 2002, 91, Morgan 2013, 37. 19 Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 2, Morgan 2013, 37. East and West Bretton (Annan) DMF probably reflect a back-formation from Drumbretton (Dr Morgan, pers. comm.). 20 Dixon 2011, 160–61, Morgan 2013, 37. 21 Watson 1926, 184, mislocates this ‘in Annandale’; it is in fact in upper Eskdale and appears also as Glenbertle, see Morgan 2013, 37. I am grateful to Dr Morgan for information and documentation about this place and the neighbouring Wauchope, which is probably OE (Anglian) Wala-hop ‘(remote, closed-off) valley of Welshmen (= Britons)’. See also Glensaxon, below. 22 See lech- ‘slab’ in James 2014a. 23 See Morgan 2013, 31–32 and 36, for names possibly involving these elements in CMB south of the Wall, see James 2008, 191–93, for possible examples in WML, LNC, YWR and DRB, and Parsons and Styles 2000, 26–28, for examples throughout England. On Bede’s usage (mainly Brettones, but in HE I also Brittani), see C. C. Smith 1979, 1. 24 Germanic *Saχso[n]- ; it may well be related to *saχsan > OE seax ‘knife, dagger’. 25 MW Seis > W Sais, MCorn *Seys (in pers. ns, Padel 1985, 208) > Corn Zowz (from pl. Zowzon), MBret Saus > Bret Saoz; see Jackson 1953 §126, 536–40, and §157, 581–83. The Goidelic forms are MIr Sacsa > Ir Sacsa[nach], G Sasannach, on which see Morgan 2013, 112 and 114–20. 26 Jackson 1953, 540.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 5 for its development to /js/ overlooks the strong possibility that it was preserved, or restored, as /ks/ under the influence of English and ecclesiastical Latin; if so, the form Sax may well be a late, Cumbric, usage in the names Glensax (Peebles) PEB27 and Pennersax (an early parish, subsequently in Middlebie) DMF.28 Both of these imply a landholder, not necessarily resident, regarded as in some sense a ‘Saxon’ in a district where, at the time the name was given, this was exceptional, and together they confirm that this term was current in Brittonic, even in ‘Anglian’ Northumbria. What appears to be the Brittonic plural form is seen in Glensaxon (Westerkirk) DMF.29 However, here it suggests a population perceived as ‘Saxons’ in contrast to the ‘Britons’ of Glenbarton nearby, and both these names were most probably given by a third party: Gaelic speakers. In that case, Glensaxon is an anglicised form of early Gaelic (Middle Irish) Glenn Sacsan,30 though it too confirms that Englishmen were perceived as ‘Saxons’.
General adoptions from Latin It is generally recognised that the Celtic group of languages has a relatively close affinity with the Italic group, of which Latin is overwhelmingly the best documented, though it is a question of controversy whether common features between the two groups reflect descent from a common ancestral language distinct from other contemporary Indo-European linguistic groups, mutual influence due to geographical proximity, or a combination of both factors.31 There are consequently, as we shall see, some Brittonic elements where it is uncertain whether they were always part of the Celtic word-stock, or were adopted from Italic (perhaps in the form of early Latin) at some stage in the Early Celtic period (i.e. before the P/Q differentiation, dated towards the end of the first millennium BC). In many cases, the historical context of the meaning makes a Latin origin wholly or reasonably certain, because they reflect practices in such fields as military works, the use of natural resources, building, technology or administration, likely to have been introduced (whether into early Celtic or Brittonic) by the Romans, and of course those from ecclesiastical Latin are in no doubt. But, as is generally the case with adoptions from one language to
27 Watson 1926, 356, Morgan 2013, 114; + glïnn-, gaelicised or anglicised. 28 Watson 1926, 180 and 396, Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 94, Morgan, loc. cit.; + penn-ïr- ‘the headland of the Saxon’. 29 Watson 1926, 356, Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 133, Morgan 2013, 114; the Brittonic plural forms are *Saχsones > *Saχson > W Saeson, Corn Zowzon, Bret Saozon. See note 25, above. 30 On this form see Morgan 2013, 111, though he treats Glensaxon as Brittonic, ibid., 114. 31 Russell 1995, 1.7, 18–20.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 6 Alan G. James another, especially when the source language is perceived as having a higher status than the receiving one (as was surely the case with Latin in relation to the Celtic languages from a date well before the Roman invasion of Britain), there are some borrowings for which there is no motivation clearly discernible to the modern enquirer.
*bas An example of the complexity of such cases is the Modern Welsh adjective bas ‘shallow’. Bazard Lane, a stream name in New Luce WIG, is likely to contain this element,32 a lane being in Galloway Scots a ‘slow-moving, shallow stream’ (from Gaelic lèana). Like the English adjective ‘base’, it is from a Latin word bassus. This word, or maybe a different but homophonic one, is recorded in late Latin sources, but with the meaning ‘thick, fat’.33 However, Isidore, writing between about 615 and 630, uses bassus in the sense ‘shallow’;34 by that time it had probably already been adopted as British *basso-/ā- to become neoBrittonic *bas, surviving as such in both Welsh and Breton, and evidenced in Cornish place-names.35 Isidore associates it with baccea ‘basin’, which itself may be of Celtic origin, though unlikely to have any real connection with bassus; however it does suggest the possibility that bassus had been introduced, possibly in a Christian liturgical context, as an adjective appropriate for a shallow vessel.
*wag A similarly perplexing case is the Latin vacuus ‘empty, vacant’. This must have been adopted from a vernacular Latin variant *vacus to become British *vaco- /ā-, neoBrittonic *wag, Old Welsh guac, Modern Welsh W gwag, Cornish gvak and Breton gwak.36 The borrowing would have occurred when Latin was a spoken, and vernacularised, language in at least part of Brittania, and the original context may well have again involved vessels or containers, whether in trade, domestic or ritual use.37 Troax (Lendalfoot) AYR was probably *trev-wag, at some time an
32 + early Celtic *-aro-/ā- > O-MnW-ar, an adjectival suffix frequently occurring in river names: see Watson 1926, 431–33 and Rivet and Smith 1979, 389. 33 Souter 1949 s.v. 34 Isidore, trans. Barney et al., 2010, Etymologies XIII, xix. 35 Padel 1985, 18. 36 Falileyev 2000, 63. 37 Voicing (lenition) of -c- would have occurred in the second half of the fifth century (Jackson 1953 §142, 560–61), but the sound would have been substituted even if the word was adopted later than this.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 7 ‘unoccupied, vacant farm’.38 I have argued that trev- name-phrases of this type in south-west Scotland are likely to date from the time when older territorial units were giving way to more compact landholdings, probably the 10th to 11th centuries, by which time *gwag (corresponding to Old Welsh guac) would have been current in Cumbric.39
In these two cases it is impossible to be sure whether we have Celtic words or ones adopted early from Latin; if they were Celtic, their meaning would presumably have been similar to that of their Latin close cognates.
Military works While some words may have reached the P-Celtic languages of Britain before the Roman conquest of the south and invasions of the north, and a few may even have passed between early Italic and Celtic dialects at much earlier date, it is reasonable to suppose that the first major source of Latin additions to the vocabulary of the north would have been the Roman military occupation of the Wall Zone and neighbouring areas, with two major invasions, followed by ongoing military, diplomatic and economic intervention in the regions north of Hadrian’s Wall, especially as far as the Antonine Wall.
*mūr Roman building and engineering, mainly military in the north, undoubtedly made an impression on Celtic-speaking people. It is appropriate that one fairly good candidate for a borrowing from Roman military usage into the Brittonic north of Hadrian’s Wall is *mūro-, from Latin mūrus, becoming mūr from neoBrittonic onwards.40 Mur, used for a ‘wall’, more specifically a substantial stone one, occurs fairly frequently in Welsh place-names listed in Archif Melville Richards (AMR), though not in any of the major names listed in Owen and Morgan 2007. We may find this element in Pennymuir ROX (Oxnam),41 on the Anglo- Scottish Border. Perhaps this was an early boundary name with *pen[n]- in the sense of ‘end’.42 There are substantial Roman and other earthworks here, though 38 Watson 1926, 362. Padel 1985, 113, suggests gvak was ‘perhaps used as a nickname’ in Boswague CWL, and the same may be true of Troax, but he is probably thinking of the sense ‘weak’ that seems peculiar to Cornish. The Scots plural -is was added later than 1549, when the earliest surviving record is Trowag. 39 James, forthcoming. 40 MnW mur, not recorded in Cornish, MBret mur; O-MnIr múr, G mùr. 41 Watson 1926, 354, J. Macdonald 1991, 31. 42 On pen in names associated with boundaries, see Higham 1999, 67–68 and 70–71; on the (probably late Cumbric) formation with the definite article, James 2011, 74–75 and 95–96.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 8 Alan G. James the only upstanding stone structures appear to be drystane dykes (including the Border Wall) of unknown antiquity. Carmuirs STL (Larbert),43 the site of a Roman fort immediately north of the Antonine Wall, is a more doubtful case, Kermor 131044 suggesting Cumbric mǭr ‘great’ as the second element. While there are no phonological grounds for dating the adoption of this element to the Roman period rather than later, given its general application to stone walls with no particular ecclesiastical associations, it seems reasonable to regard this as a word picked up from the Romans.
*gwal The more general Welsh word for ‘wall’, gwal, is probably Celtic. The Indo-
European verbal root *welhx- ‘be strong, exercise power’ certainly existed in o-grade form in Celtic, as *walo-/ā- occurs adjectivally in several British personal names such as those of the Cynwal and Dyfnwal kinds;45 one such name, *Lugu- walo-, apparently underlies Luguvalium, Carlisle CMB.46 A lengthened form of the same root, i.e. *wālā-, probably underlies gwal.47 However, the meaning of this and corresponding words in other Celtic languages is likely to have been influenced by Latin vallum,48 either directly or via Northumbrian Old English wall, which itself is probably from a West Germanic adoption of the Latin word.49 The meaning ofvallum was primarily ‘fence’, but as defensive palisades were typically set on top of embankments, the meaning extended to linear embankments like the Antonine Wall and the predecessor of Hadrian’s Wall,
43 Watson 1926, 370, Reid 2009, 31; + cair- ‘fort’ (+ Scots plural -is, referring to Easter and Wester Carmuirs). Seemingly similar names in eight parishes in Wales (AMR) are generally spelt as Cae’r Mur, though *Caer Mur might possibly be the origin in some cases. 44 From John Reid’s ‘Material for a place-name survey of East Stirlingshire’,
48 < IE *walso- ‘post, stake’ (Mallory and Adams 2006 §13.2, 227), which might be < *welhx-s- but its relationship with that root is uncertain. A Germanic element directly < *walso- survives in English ‘gunwale’. 49 Campbell 1959 §143, 55–56, and §539, 212, Green 1998, 213.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 9 and later to monastic valla, as well as to masonry walls, especially the most conspicuous of all, Hadrian’s. Two or three names in the north associated with boundaries are formed with *wāl, ancestor of gwal, qualifying pen-, presumably in the sense of ‘end’. In the case of Kinneil (Bo’ness and Carriden) WLO,50 near the east end of the Antonine Wall, we know that pen- was replaced by early Gaelic cenn-; the early documentation of this place-name is of great interest in relation to the linguistic situation in the Forth valley in the seventh–eighth centuries.51 Penielheugh (Crailing) ROX may preserve a similar formation,52 and Penwhail (Girthon) KCB53 might be another example, though of course neither of these need date from the Roman period.
*pont Lat pont-, in oblique forms of pons ‘bridge’, was adopted as British *pontā- to become pont from neoBrittonic onwards,54 referring initially perhaps to a Roman-style masonry bridge unlike the Celtic *brīwo-/ā-,55 but replacing that as the general term in all the Brittonic languages. It occurs in Penpont DMF,56 formed with a combination of elements that is common in Wales and Cornwall.57 Penpont is on an old routeway from the uplands to the west that joins a probable Roman route up Nithsdale near Thornhill to the east; as A. D. Anderson (2010, 106) says, ‘whether Roman or not, a bridge existed near Penpont from early times’. *Pen-pont was presumably also the origin of Kilpunt (Kirkliston) WLO,58 where pen- was again replaced by early Gaelic cenn-, evidenced as Kenpunt c. 1200 onward; this was subsequently confused with cil‑, and so anglicised as Kil- from 1467 on. However, while it is close
50 Watson 1926, 346–48, Macdonald 1941, 30–31.
51 On the forms Peanfahel, Penneltun in Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica I12, and Pengual, Cenail in Historia Brittonum 23 see Jackson 1955, 143–44, 161 and 165, and Nicolaisen 2001, 211–12 and 219–20. 52 Watson 1926, 354, J. Macdonald 1991, 17 (+ Scots -heuch ‘steep bank’); but note Macdonald’s reservations. Painchellhill in Blaeu’s Atlas indeed raises doubts, though as Macdonald points out, diphthongisation of the vowel in ‘pen’ occurs in other names in ROX. She also observes ‘there is no connection with the Biblical Peniel’ (Gen 32:30), but that could have influenced the early modern development. See also underpen[n ] in James 2014a. 53 Maxwell 1930, 223; it seems to survive now as Penfold Moss at the southern end of the parish, near the parish boundary with Borgue (later Kirkandrews). 54 Sic in the Book of Llandaf, O-MnCorn pons, O-MnBret pont. 55 Falileyev 2010, 12. 56 Watson 1926, 356, Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 107–08, Anderson 2010, 106–07. 57 Padel 1985, 180, Owen and Morgan 2007, 371, and 381 for Pen-y-Bont; several more in AMR. 58 Watson 1926, 348, Macdonald 1941, 43.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 10 Alan G. James to the no doubt ancient route from the Clyde through to the Forth (now the M8 motorway), the existing settlement is (as Macdonald 1945, 43, points out) not near to any known ancient bridge or any substantial watercourse, the Brox Burn being the closest. At Pontheugh (Cockburnspath) BWK59 there is again no bridge, and no reason to suppose there ever was one. Brittonic pant- ‘hollow, valley-bottom’ is likely here, and not impossible at Kilpunt.
*cair Cair, an ‘enclosed, defensible site’, might be derived from a distinctive British usage of Latin quadra ‘square’. That word occurs in later Latin, though in mathematical contexts, there being no indication that it was ever used for an architectural ‘quad’, never mind a fort or parade ground. An etymology based on *cag-, the early Celtic root of Welsh cae ‘field’ is equally possible,60 but the fact that there is no trace of either *cadrā- < quadra or *cagrā from the *cag- root in names recorded in Classical sources leaves the question open. Whatever its origin, several names with this element in the north are sites of Roman forts or other military works (e.g. Cardurnock CMB, Carleith (Duntocher) DNB, Carlisle CMB, Carmuirs (Falkirk) STL, Carriden WLO, Carvoran (Greenhead) NTB, Carzield (Kirkmahoe) DMF, Castlecary (Falkirk) STL, Cramond MLO, Kirkintilloch DNB), while others are, or are close to, hill-forts or other prehistoric defences (e.g. Caerlanrig (Teviothead) ROX, Cardrona (Traquair) PEB, Carfrae (Lauder) BWK, Carwinley (Arthuret) CMB, Carwinning (Dalry) AYR). Indeed, wherever this element occurs as a simplex, or with a specifier indicating an elevated position, distinctive colour, presence of wild creatures etc., the possibility of an ancient defensive site is worth exploring. However it does not necessarily follow that such names were given at an early date, nor that cair was used as a major habitative element any earlier than, say, trev. Such terms were probably current synchronically and may indicate a difference in function rather than antiquity.61 So, while cair might be of Latin origin, and is associated in one of its usages with Roman sites, it can hardly be compared with OE cæster, definitely from Latincastra and very largely reserved
59 Watson 1926, 348. 60 IE(NW) *kagh- + -r- > eCelt *cagrā- > lBr *caɣrā- > OW cair > M-MnW caer, Corn *ker (in place-names, Padel 1985, 50–54), Bret kêr. See Padel, loc. cit., for references. 61 Cair sites in the Solway region, apparently lacking trace of any substantial defences, are likely to be ‘stockade-farms’ or prototypic ‘green villages’ of the Cumbric period (Jackson 1963, Barrow 1973, 65–66, James 2011, 79–81). Taylor 2011, 100–01, takes a similar view of comparable place-names in southern Pictland and considers that cair was adopted into Gaelic and Middle Scots toponymy, at least in that region.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 11 for Roman towns and other sites with substantial Roman remains (Parsons and Styles 2000, 158–62).
*stre-, *striw- Some element of the form *stre- or *striw- may underlie the first part of the very obscure place-name Stirling. It could have been adopted from Latin struo ‘I arrange, construct’. That is likely to have been the case with Middle to Modern Welsh ystryw ‘stratagem’ and also Middle Welsh ystre > Welsh ystref ‘dwelling’ (the Modern Welsh form being influenced by tre[v]). Alternatively it may be from British Latin *strua ‘fence-post, paling’ from the same verbal root, or even from late Latin striga ‘military camping-ground’. Either strua or striga is probably the source of Middle to Modern Welsh ystre in the sense of ‘border, boundary, embankment’, which fell together with ystre in the sense of ‘dwelling’.62 So, even if the first element in Stirling was *stre- or *striw-, the meaning is far from certain. As to the second element, it might have been the lenited form of melïn ‘golden, yellow’, or of the personal name Belin.63 However an early Celtic hydronym from same Indo-European root64 could be involved in a formation such as *striw-lïnn, perhaps implying a shallow, vegetation-filled pool below the rock. And a Gaelic form involving sruth ‘stream’, for example a diminutive *sruthailín,65 is also possible.
*pebïl With *pebïl we come to a word of reasonably certain Latin origin, and probably military associations. Latin pāpiliō means ‘butterfly’, but the Vernacular Latin word papiliō, perhaps soldiers’ slang, is recorded from early third century onward.66 It was used for ‘tent’ and for the wide range of temporary buildings used in classical and medieval times. It was adopted as Br *papil-, which 62 See Jackson 1953 §44, 375–76, and §46(3), 372–73. 63 See A. O. Anderson 1990, 1.150.
64 Probably PrIE IE *ster[h3]-; cf. also Lat sterno ‘I strew’, strāmen ‘straw’, strātum ‘bed’; Gmc *strawja- (< IE zero-grade *stṛ-) > OE strēa[w] > ‘straw’, strewian > ‘strew’, Gk strôma ‘straw, bedding’, Saṅskrit stariman ‘something spread out, bed’ (but note that Gmc *straumaz > OE strēam > ‘stream’, ON straumr, is < IE *sreu-, so not related to struo etc.). On the development of the initial on-glide in West Brittonic, see Jackson 1953§119, 527–28; it was present by the 9th century, but its origins in neoBrittonic are unclear. There is slender evidence for a Celtic hydronym in Breton ster ‘stream’, but this could be from Lat æstuarium > OFr estier ‘canal’; no cognate is known in West Brittonic. 65 Suggested by Dr Peadar McNiven at a meeting of the Scottish Place-Name Society, Stirling, 02.11.13. Modern Gaelic Sruilea is probably a reinterpretation, either *struth-lach ‘laughter-stream’ or *sruth-lann ‘blade-stream, see Watson 2002, 61–62; it is unlikely to help in explaining the origin, though it again implies a hydronym. 66 Souter 1949 s.v, Latham 1980 s.v.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 12 Alan G. James evolved to give the Welsh analogical plural form pebyll ‘camp’.67 In Welsh place-names, AMR shows some 10 examples;68 it seems to be unknown in Cornwall or Brittany. In place-names in the north, it would be likely to refer to temporary bothies used in connection with summer grazing (or, rather, to the sites where these were regularly erected) – either shielings in the hills, or assembly places where livestock was gathered together (and traded) in spring and autumn. The intervocalic -/b/- shows lenition,69 implying that the word was current in Brittonic by the sixth century, but the consonant would have been adopted as a fricative in earlier Northumbrian Old English, it is unlikely that it would have been treated as a stop before the ninth century.70 I have argued (James 2011, 71) on these phonological grounds that these names are unlikely to have been formed earlier than the tenth century, and, on the basis of landscape history, that large-scale transhumance was a feature of the Cumbric period, the tenth and eleventh centuries, so, although this word was probably current in the P-Celtic of the north from the late Roman period, its use in place-names is considerably later. Peebles71 was presumably a ‘camp’ or ‘place where a large number of bothies were erected’. Given the location and the later importance of the fair here, a very early seasonal livestock market might well be implied. Papple ELO (Garvald)72 is likewise not a hill-top site, so perhaps a gathering place. At Pauples Hill WIG (Penninghame),73 Pibble, with Pibble Hill, KCB (Kirkmabreck),74 Cairnpapple
67 OIr pupall > Ir puball, G pubull. The MW plural was pebylleu < *pebïlöu (+ -öü, see Evans 1964 §30c, 29–30), but pebyll was apparently used collectively, ‘camp’, becoming plural in Modern Welsh, with pabell as singulative. 68 See Owen and Morgan 2007, 87, for Cilybebyll GLM. This figure does not include six examples of Babell in AMR (and one of Babel!) as an 18th or 19th century chapel name referring to the biblical Tabernacle, see Owen and Morgan 2007, 20. 69 See note 38, above. 70 See Jackson 1953 §135, 553–54, Campbell 1959, chapter X, especially §530, 210, §545– 46, 214–16, §565, 219–20. 71 Watson 1926, 383; + English/Scots plural -s. Nicolaisen’s (2001, 226) inclusion of this among place-names ‘which were originally names of natural features’ is baffling. 72 Internal i-affection, according to Jackson (1953 §§170–76, 604–18, cf. Sims-Williams 2003 ǂ57, 184–90), was a separate development occurring in proto-Welsh (and so in West neoBrittonic) in the seventh century. I-affected pebïl * is likely to underlie Peebles, Pibble, Dalfibble and Mosspeeble. Jackson 1955 does not mention absence of internal i-affection as a Pictish feature, but in Papple, Foulpapple and possibly Pauples Hill, the -a- is unlikely to reflect a singulative form, and suggests absence of internal i-affection in at least some parts of the north, unless they have Goidelic popull, see James 2013, 42, and note 76, below. 73 Maxwell 1930, 222, MacQueen 2008, 17. The -s implies, interestingly, that the name was heard as a plural by English/Scots speakers. 74 Maxwell 1930, 223, but the location would favour a shieling.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 13 Hill WLO75 and Mosspeeble DMF (Ewes),76 shielings are more likely.77
*mīl Lat mīlia ‘thousands’ was adopted as British *mīliā- to become Welsh mil,78 nowadays meaning ‘thousand’ (and falling together with mil ‘soldier’), but in earlier usage probably ‘thousands, a great number, host’. It has been proposed by Breeze (2000) in Carmyle LAN (Old Monkland) + cair- ‘fort’ or carn- ‘cairn’. If this is Caruil in the Inquisition of David (see Durkan 1986, 279 and 290), it shows the lenition which would be expected with either of these, absent from the present-day form. But Carmyle is gaelicised as An Càrn Maol ‘the bald cairn’, and Brittonic *carn-voel could have preceded this: mę:l > moel is a well- attested Brittonic element in the north.
In this category, then, mūr may have a claim for an adoption from Roman military usage into the Brittonic of the north. The same may be true of pont, though at Penpont and Kilpunt (if that is a pont) the bridges and the usage may have been monastic. *Pebïl is well attested; it must have been picked up at a relatively late date, perhaps by men from the north serving as foederati in Rome’s disintegrating empire. Semantic influence fromvallum might have affected the use of gwal. *Mīl is only a possibility. Both cair and *stre-/*striw- are in the realms of abstruse philology, anything approaching certainty is impossible with them.
Exploitation of natural resources A handful of topographic terms in the place-naming vocabularies of the Brittonic languages are of Latin origin, reflecting the adoption of Roman techniques for exploiting natural resources. Examples in the lands between the Walls are few and far between. föntǭn While there were surely words in early Celtic for springs and wells, including ancestors of Gaelic fuaran and tobar, it is striking that derivatives of Latin fontāna almost entirely replaced them in the P-Celtic languages, both for
75 Macdonald 1941, 3, Wilkinson 1992, 17–18.
76 + maɣes- ‘open land, field’. 77 Though for Pibble Maxwell suggests ‘place of assembly’, associating it (and Welsh pabell) with OIr popull < Latin populus (see McKay 1999, 55 and 112), and this could be relevant to others too. For Cairnpapple, an ‘inversion compound’ formation + OE papol ‘pebble’, as suggested by A. Macdonald 1941, 3, is not impossible. 78 M-MnCorn mŷl, M-MnBret mil; O-MnIr mile, G mile, Mx milley.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 14 Alan G. James natural sources and for dug wells. It became Old Welsh fontaun, Middle Welsh finnaun, now ffynnon.79 Mossfennon (Glenholm) PEB80 is reasonably likely to be *maɣes-fïnnǭn ‘spring-field’, * fïnnǭn reflecting a late Cumbric form, close to that in Middle Welsh. Trarynʒeane (Cumnock) AYR is more tricky: Watson81 took it to be *trev -ï- fïnnǭn with lenition of f, but this would be abnormal in Brittonic; perhaps this mutation, and the palatalisation indicated by -ynʒe-, arose in Gaelic pronunciation. Föntǭn may have been adopted into Old English as funta, but Gelling (1978, 83–86) sees that as a direct adoption from British Latin *funtə < fontis, at least in the south, where it may refer specifically to wells with artificial structures. However, this is unlikely to apply to the Font Burn NTB;82 this seems to represent either a unique Brittonic adoption of Latin fons, fontis, or an anglicised form of Brittonic föntǭn influenced by later Old English font ‘baptismal font’.
*coch The scarlet or blood-red dye made in countries around the Mediterranean from galls on the kermes oak, Quercus coccinifera, would have come to the attention of Celtic-speaking people from an early date. Greek κόκκος ‘berry, gall’ was adopted metonymically in Latin as a name for the colour, and as an adjective coccum it was adopted in Roman-British as an adjective *cocco-/ā-, coch in Welsh from the Book of Llandaf onwards.83 In insular and continental place-names it typically refers to the colouring of water, soil or rocks by ferrous elements. It is very common in Wales, Owen and Morgan 2007 list some 20 examples, many more can be found in AMR.84 In the north it probably occurs in the river name Coquet NTB,85 and it is one of numerous possibilities for the first element in the very obscure name Gogar,
79 Also SW neoBritt *funtǭn > OCorn funten > Corn fenten, OBret funton > Bret feunteun. See Jackson 1953 §11, 295, §204(4), 678, and §205, 681. 80 Watson 1926, 378. 81 Ibid., 360. 82 Mawer 1920, 38, Ekwall 1928, 160. 83 MCorn cogh > Corn cough. See Jackson 1953 §145, 565–66, and §147, 569–72, but note also Sims-Williams 2003 ǂ42, 134 and refs. 84 Less so in Cornwall, where ruth is the preferred term for ‘red’, see Padel 1985, 68. 85 With Coquet Island NTB; Mawer 1920, 52, Ekwall 1928, 93, + adjectival suffixed - ., subsequently re-formed as OE *cocc²-wudu ‘cock-wood’; see Cox 1974–75, 19. Note also, just south of Hadrian’s Wall, Cocken DRH (Chester-le-Street), apparently named from a stretch of the River Wear; suffixed *coch-īn may be preferable to Watts’s (2002, 27) suggestion invoking the OE personal name Cocca, weak genitive singular Coccan, plus a lost generic such as -ēa ‘river’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 15 both in Midlothian (Ratho)86 and in Stirlingshire (Denny).87 ‘Cock’ is common in hill names;88 it is generally OE cocc¹ ‘hillock or heap’89 or cocc² ‘cock’ (in place-names, usually a game-cock of some kind), 90 though in some cases it might replace a similar-sounding Brittonic or Gaelic element. Cockpen MLO91 and Cockrossen KCB (Tongland)92 both have Brittonic generics,93 but Scots cock- from cocc², added to a Celtic name, is still more likely.
*luïn In Modern Welsh, llwyn is a ‘thicket of small trees and bushes, an area of low woody and shrubby growth’. It may be from Latin lignum,94 but an alternative etymology, invoking the Indo-European root *leuk- (‘bright, clear’, cf. Old English lēah ‘clearing’), plus a root determinative -n-, becoming early Celtic *lugno-, was proposed by Jones (1953), and supported, with a preferable *lucno-, by Russell (1985). Either would have become *luïn (luhyn in the Book of Llandaf), but so would *lẹ:n from Latin lignum. If Lenzie, with Lindsay Beg, DNB (East) preserves an anglicised form with both ‑e- and palatalised -n-, i.e. *[lēiɲ], it supports the derivation from Latin.95 Still, if Lenzie really is an anglicisation of a pre-700 neoBrittonic form *lẹ:n,96 the implications for historical geography are striking.97
*mölin Late Latin molīna, as the word for the water-powered mill introduced by the
86 Dixon 2011, 352–53. 87 Watson 1926, 210, Wilkinson 1992, 17, Reid 2009, 40. See under *cog, cor, garth and *wo-gerδ in James 2014a. It may have been primarily a stream name, Gogar Burn in Denny, a lost one in Ratho. 88 Notably in Carrick, see Maxwell 1930, 75. 89 Smith 1956, I.103–04, Parsons 2004, 143–44. 90 Smith 1956, I.104, Parsons 2004, 145–47; the OE personal name Cocca may also be a source of confusion, cf. note 85, above. 91 Dixon 2011, 149. 92 Maxwell 1930, 75. 93 Cockpen has -pen ‘headland’, Cockrossen -rōs- ‘upland pasture’ + suffixan - or -īn. 94 > British Latin *lejnum, adopted as Roman-British *lejno- > late British *lẹ:no- > neoBritt lẹ:n > OW luhyn, pl. loinou, > MW llven > W llwyn; Corn *lon (in place-names, Padel 1985, 153), OBret loin. 95 Note too that Catterlen CMB, Armstrong et al. 1950, 182, has early forms (1158 etc.) with -leng; it is presumably*cadeir-lẹ:n ‘chair-shaped hill with a thicket’. 96 Jackson 1953 §28, 330–35. 97 But see Drummond 2014, 306–08 for an alternative explanation.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 16 Alan G. James Romans, was adopted as late British *molīnǝ- to become Welsh melin.98 It is rare in the north, but may be present in Molendinar Burn RNF (Glasgow) (Watson 1926, 386), though the second element is obscure. Mellingdenor in Jocelin’s life of St Kentigern is a locus, not a stream name, but it might refer to the mill after which the burn was named. A Gaelic origin, or at least influence, cannot be ruled out.
*calch The Romans’ use of calcareous sand in making mortar and plaster for their masonry walls and cement for their floors would have motivated the adoption of Latin calx, calc- as British *calco-, Modern Welsh and Cornish calch.99 It occurs fairly frequently in field names and other ‘minor’ names in Wales, where the reference is either to calcareous rock or to sites where it was processed for lime, cement and plaster, or else to fields where lime or marl was spread.100 The only putative evidence for this element north of Hadrian’s Wall, or indeed anywhere north of Wales, is in Middle Welsh genealogical references to a certain ‘Man of the North’ named Katrawt from a place named calch uynid ‘calcareous upland’. Skene’s view that this was Kelso ROX was accepted (uncharacteristically!) by Watson (1926, 343), though Jackson (1955, 83) was a lot more doubtful. The name Kelso101 is formed with the Old English (Anglian) borrowing from the Latin calc-, qualifying ‑hōh, ‘hill-spur’, cf. C(h)alce(n)ho Cambs. Kelso is toponymically isolated, it seems (to judge from Williamson 1941) to be the only example of OE calc in Scotland, nor does it occur anywhere in England north of Yorkshire. As Cole in her full discussion of this element (1986–87)102 shows, calc and West Saxon ċealc > ‘chalk’ are associated with areas of chalk or Magnesian Limestone; other than at Kelso, it is not found in areas of Carboniferous Limestone or earlier calcareous rock, even in the North Pennines where limestone is a major component of the bedrock. The Chalkheugh at Kelso is indeed a spur of calciferous rock overlooking the Tweed, and a fine example of a hōh as described by Gelling and Cole 2000, 186–88, but it is less clear whether it suits any of the range of meanings of mönïδ, which normally refers to more substantial hills and/or extensive tracts of upland pasture. In the absence of any other evidence for Brittonic *calch in the north, the
98 The status of the plural melinou in MS Angers 477 is uncertain, it could be OBret; otherwise, M‑MnW melin, O-MCorn melin > Corn belin (Padel 1985, 160), OBret molin > MBret melin, millinn- > Bret milin, Vannetais dialect melin; see Jackson 1953, §157, 581–83, §166(2), 595–96, §171, 605, Falileyev 2000, 112. 99 Modern Cornish spelling kalx in Padel 1985, 36. Adopted from Brittonic as OIr cailc > Ir, G cailc, Mx kelk. 100 For an apparently solitary example in CWL, odencolc ‘lime kiln’, see Padel, loc. cit.. 101 Calchou 1126, Calceho 1128, Kelcou 1158, Calcho 1166, Macdonald 1991, 24, Ross 2001, 120. 102 See also Parsons and Styles 2000, 125–27.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 17 location of calch uynid is best regarded as unknown, and the currency of *calch in the P-Celtic of the north not proven. 103
In this section, then, we must conclude that evidence for the influence of Roman exploitation of natural resources is very limited. Föntǭn is reasonably certain at Mossfennon, though of course the name need not be early. Coch is confirmed by the river name Coquet, but otherwise is much less common than in Wales. Lwïn (if that is from lignum) is doubtful. Mölin is conspicuous by its absence, unless it be in Molendinar Burn and Jocelin’s Mellingdenor. *Calch is, on the shoogly basis of calch uynid, not proven. On the other hand, the range of Latin-origin words in this class that occur in Welsh place-names is not great; aur (aurum) ‘gold’ is one example, gold is found in modest amounts in the Lowther Hills, but while aur occurs in a few Welsh place-names there is no reflection of it in the north.104
Boundaries and units of land A number of Latin words relating to boundaries, land-divisions and landholdings found their way into Welsh, though in general, if they were adopted in the north, they are more likely to date from the early Christian period or later than under Roman influence. But, again, their presence is far from certain. fīn Latin fīnis ‘boundary’ was adopted into West Brittonic to become Old Welsh fin in place-names in the Book of Llandaf, and in finnant‘boundary glen’ in Annales Cambriae s.a. 848; the Modern Welsh spelling is ffin.105 A compound *fīn-tre[v], which also occurs in the Book of Llandaf, should be considered as a possibility for Fintry STL. We know from early records that Fintray ABD is a gaelicised form from Pictish *can-trev ‘white farm’,106 and the same may apply here (and to Fintry ABD and Fintry ANG), but the Fintry Hills are part of the Forth/Clyde watershed, the boundary between West Dunbartonshire and Stirlingshire runs along the Campsies on the southern edge of the parish, and the settlement lies where the direct route from Glasgow to the Fords of Frew crosses the Endrick Water, so it may well have been a ‘boundary-farm’ between the lands ruled from Dumbarton and Stirling.107
103 Parsons and Styles, op. cit., 126. 104 See Conclusion, below, for caws. 105 Corn fyn Bret fin; see Padel 1985, 98, on toponymic usage in both CWL and Wales. 106 Watson 1926, 364, also Nicolaisen 2011, 322 107 If so, it would be a ‘loose’ compound formation, without lenition of /t/, so not necessarily early.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 18 Alan G. James *cöfin Latin confīnium ‘(common, shared) boundary’, vernacular Latin *cofinium, was adopted to become Middle Welsh cyffin.108 It has been suggested for Giffen AYR, originally preceded by a definite article ï- causing lenition and subsequently elided;109 compare Gyffin CRN, where Owen and Morgan (2007, 185) observe: ‘Although the def. art. y caused the lenited Gyffin, it has not featured in later usage, but the form was perpetuated by the persistent use of i ‘to’ and o ‘from’ in speech.’
*tervïn Lat terminus ‘boundary-mark’ was adopted to appear as Old Welsh termin, Modern Welsh terfyn.110 In place-names, it means simply ‘boundary’. It might be relevant in Duntarvie, with Duntarvie Craig, WLO (Abercorn),111 Patervan PEB (Drumelzier),112 and Polternan CMB (Brampton, = Castle Beck, Naworth),113 but all of these are susceptible to other explanations. Duntarvie is more likely to involve Gaelic *tarbhaidh, perhaps a lost stream name, or simply an epithet for the fort, though a lost Brittonic stream name *tarw-ed ‘bull (water)’ might be in the background. Patervan and Polternan are perhaps both *pol-tervïn, with pol in the sense of ‘upland stream’,114 cf. Pwllterfyn (Eglwys- Bach) DEN; however, either may involve the interestingly localised stream- naming term *polter, which seems to have been in use in areas of Cumbric- speaking settlement in the 10th to 11th centuries as a term for an upland beck,115 with nant ‘valley bottom’ as specifier.
*līm Latin līmen ‘threshold, lintel’, or līmes ‘boundary, limit’, putatively adopted into British to become neoBrittonic *līm, was proposed by Coates (2003–2004) as the etymon for the district name Lyme down the western side of the Peak District in Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, and extending west into
108 Bret keffin, not recorded in Cornish. For Latin -nf- > -f- see Jackson 1953 §102, 495–96. 109 By Guto Rhys, see Clancy, 2008a, 101 n1. 110 Cf. MIr termonn. See Falileyev 2000, 146, and the discussions of Tarvin CHE in Ekwall 1928, 392, and Dodgson 1972, 281. 111 Macdonald 1941, 16. 112 No early records known. 113 Armstrong et al. 1950, 8; the record perhaps preserves the former name of the Castle Beck. 114 Barrow cited by Todd 2005, 92 n29, in discussing Polternan. 115 Ekwall 1928, 330–31, Armstrong et al. 1952, 487, James 2008, 201.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 19 Shropshire. Although there is no evidence for such an adoption, this seems a more satisfactory explanation than others previously proposed. Limerig STL116 is close to the southern boundary of Stirlingshire, which runs through the Black Loch, and in the parish of Slamannan which is the southernmost trace of the ancient territory of Manaw, so it might possibly contain *līm-, with Scots -rigg ‘ridge’ added later. plẹ:v The oblique form of Latin plebs ‘the common people’, plēb-, was adopted as British *plebo- to become Middle Welsh plwyv, Modern Welsh plwyf.117 Plebs came to be used in Christian terminology for a congregation; in Continental usage it was a unit within a pāgus,118 and so eventually a ‘parish and its inhabitants’. Its derivatives have that sense in Modern Welsh, Cornish and especially Breton, where ploue occurs in place-names and is an important term for ‘parish, local community.’119 However in Cornwall,120 Wales and the north, it is relatively rare as a place-name element, and does not necessarily bear any specific ecclesiastical, legal or administrative sense; it might have indicated common land. It occurs in a ninth to twelfth century Cumbric form *pluïv in Plenploth MLO (Stow),121 with blain- ‘summit’, ‘head of a valley’, ‘limit, remote part’. It is close to areas of hill-grazing and to what became the parish boundary, so it may have referred to common land or to a territorial unit that preceded the parish.
*pǭwẹ:s Latin pāgensēs meant ‘people of a pāgus’,122 which may have been used specifically of a Celtic territorial unit, a ‘canton’,123 or it may have referred more loosely to a rural area, so pāgensēs may just be ‘countrymen, rustics’. In Continental usage, it was applied sometimes to the territory of a civitas, sometimes to a smaller
116 Reid 2009, 42–43. Compare also Limb Brook and Hill, on the border between Deira and Mercia: Cameron 1959, 11, Smith 1961, 7.131, James 2010, 83, but see also ibid. 81–83 for discussion of river names of the ‘Lyme’ type. 117 Jackson 1953, 89. 118 See *pǭwẹ:s, below, and Quentel 1973. 119 OCorn plui > MCorn plu > Corn plêw, OBret pluiu > MBret ploe > Bret ploue. 120 See Padel 1985, 187 s.n. plu. 121 Watson 1926, 355, Dixon 2011, 369; -ploif 1593 implies that this was adopted into Scots from a ninth to twelfth-century Cumbric form *-pluïv. It is identical to Blaen-Plwyf CRD, though that seems to be a modern formation, see Owen and Morgan 2007, 36. 122 Adopted as late British *pǭɣẹ:ses; see Jackson 1953 §75(7) at 443–44, also ibid., 91 and §46(6), 373–74, and Sims-Williams 2003, ǂ18 at 62 and 66, ǂ25 at 85, and ǂ80 at 226 n1418. 123 See Quentel 1973.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 20 Alan G. James district, and in Wales from the 12th century, powys was used for a cantref (see also *plẹ:v, above). There is no evidence for it acquiring in Britain any association with pāgani in the sense of ‘heathens’. It is presumably the origin of the Welsh kingdom name Powys and might have been used as a territorial term in the north. However, matters are complicated by the fact that with reduction of the pretonic vowel, *pǭwẹ:s had fallen together by the seventh century with *powẹ:s meaning ‘quiet, peace, rest’;124 that word is only recorded in West Brittonic in the compound poguisma (*powïsva) ‘place of rest’, with some religious connotation, perhaps a wayside shrine.125 One or other of these may be present in Possil Rnf (Cathcart).126 At Pouis ROX (Castleton)127 with an early Christian inscription in the vicinity some religious usage may be implied, and Posso PEB (Stobo)128 is again not far from the locations of early Christian inscriptions, so might be another poguisma.
*pǭr, *parth Latin pars, partis might be the source of two different words in the Celtic languages relating to land-use and/or landholding; both have quite complex histories and both probably occur as place-name elements well to the north of the Antonine Wall.129 The nominative pars may have been adopted as British *pāro- to underlie Old Welsh por‑,130 Middle to Modern Welsh pawr.131 It was adopted from northern P-Celtic into Gaelic as pòr, pùir.132 In the Brittonic languages, derivatives from *pǭr refer to ‘pasture, grazing land’, but Gaelic pòr means ‘seeds, grain, crops’, so Jackson (1970, 44 and 68–69)133 considers that the word meant ‘cropland’ in Pictish. However, the fact that this element occurs quite frequently in Pictland but only doubtfully south of the Forth reinforces philological reservations regarding a Latin origin. On the other hand,
124 Br *powẹ:so- > OW(Book of Llandaf) poguis-, MCorn powes-, Old-MBret poues > Bret pauouz; ?cognate Lat quiēs. 125 The association of poguisma in the Book of Llandaf with the saint’s name Dewi (David) implies such a connotation. 126 Watson 1926, 383 ? + nominal/locative suffix (later sometimes diminutive)el - , or, less likely, OE ‑hyll. 127 Watson 1926, 383. 128 Watson 1926, 383. 129 See Taylor 2012, 473. 130 Seen in the Book of Llandaf in the verb pory (MnW pori[o]) and in compounds as paur. 131 Also compounds parlas, porfa etc. Br *paro- > OW(Book of Llandaf) -paur (verb), pory (verb) > M-MnW pawr (also parlas, porfa ), pori[o] (verb) etc., Corn *peur (possibly in place- names, Padel 1985, 184), Bret peur; adopted from Pritenic into Gaelic as pòr, pùir (see Jackson 1955, 161). 132 Watson 1926, 376–77, Jackson 1955, 161, idem 1972, 44 and 68–69, Taylor 2011, 105. 133 See also Taylor 2012, 473.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 21 we can say with a little more confidence that Latin part‑, in the oblique forms of pars, was adopted as British *parto-, becoming parth ‘portion of land’ from neoBrittonic onwards.134 Five place-names across Lothian and RNF are apparently of identical origin. Pardivan ELO (Whitecraig),135 Pardivan MLO (Cranston),136 Pardovan WLO (Linlithgow),137 Parduvine MLO (Carrington),138 and Perdovingishill RNF (lost).139 Their first element is not certain. Although Watson’s treatment of place-names with ‘Par-’ north of the Forth140 was superseded by Jackson’s, his suggestion that in these names it is a form related to parth should not be dismissed. Alternatively, *pār, a Pictish (or, as I would prefer, Northern P-Celtic) variant of *pǭr,141 is not impossible south of the Forth,142 though whether it would have meant ‘cropland’ or ‘pasture’ we cannot know. The second element is probably ‑duvn, an adjective meaning ‘deep’, but the meaning of the name- phrase as a whole is obscure.143 Altogether, the status of both *pǭr and *parth in the territory between the Walls remains very dubious.
*peth The Welsh word peth ‘piece, portion’ is undoubtedly of Celtic origin.144 Well known and widely discussed among Scottish place-name scholars, Pictish pett, adopted into early Gaelic as peit, had the specific sense of ‘portion of land’, in particular a division of a former ‘multiple estate’.145 It occurs very frequently
134 Other forms in OW include pard, part, parth. OCorn ‑bard, -barh (in compounds) > Corn par, OBret parth > MBret parz (but also MBret perz > Bret perzh); the Goidelic cognates are MIr pairt > Ir páirt, G pàirt, Mx paart. See Jackson 1953 §148, 570–71, §150, 572–73, and Falileyev 2000, 127, also Taylor 2012, 256–57, on Parbroath (Creich) FIF (misplaced by Watson 1926, 373, in Forfarshire = ANG). 135 Watson 1926, 372–73. 136 Dixon 2011, 190. 137 Watson 1926, 372–73, A. Macdonald 1941, 62, Wilkinson 1992, 29. 138 Watson 1926, 372–73, Dixon 2011, 112. 139 Watson 1926, 372, Wilkinson 1992, 29. 140 Watson 1926, 372. 141 As suggested by Jackson 1955, 161. 142 See James 2013, on ‘Pictish’ features in place-names south of the Forth. 143 Duvn might have borne some cosmological significance in early Celtic world-views, perhaps associated with cultic offerings to powers of the underworld, see Wilkinson 2002, 140 and n7, and discussion under duβïn in James 2014a. 144 Br, Gaul petti- > OW -ped- (Book of Llandaf) peth > M-MnW peth, Corn pyth, pe(y)th, MBret pez > Bret pezh, Vannetais dialect péh; OIr cuit > Ir, G cuid, Mx cooid; also Prit pett adopted as G peit, anglicised pit[t]-. See Falileyev 2000, 128, Watson 1926, 408, Jackson 1955, 148 and 164, Nicolaisen 2001, 195–204. The Indo-European etymology, ? IE*k wesd- > eCelt *kwetti- , is very doubtful, for lack of convincing cognates. 145 Taylor 1997, 5–22, idem 2012, 217–25.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 22 Alan G. James (generally with Gaelic specifiers) in place-names in historic Pictland, between the Firth of Forth and the Dornoch Firth, with very few outliers. Jackson (1955, 164) saw the non-lenition of ‑tt as a Pictish feature, and its use as a place-name element as diagnostic of Pictish presence.146 He drew attention to Latin petia [terrae], apparently from a Gaulish cognate of pett, *petiā-, which is also the origin of French pièce whence English ‘piece’,147 and suggested that the use of this word for a unit of land in Pictish and Gaulish, but not in any of the Brittonic languages south of the Forth, might hint at a relationship between Pictish and Gaulish, even migration from Gaul to northern Britain.148 This suggestion has been generally discarded in recent scholarship, but the question it raises deserves consideration. A more likely reason for the distinctive Pictish use of pett for a unit of land may have been the influence of ecclesiastical Latin usage in Pictland; i.e. petia was the favoured term for a land-unit in (some influential centre of) the church in Pictland and Pictish speakers equated it with what happened to be its cognate, their word pett. In view of the overwhelming predominance of Gaelic toponymic formations, this was probably a relatively late development in Pictish, not long before the rise of Gaelic, and may well have been associated with Latin usage in the context of changes in landholding during that period of transition. However, examples south of the Forth are all name-phrases formed with specifiers that are definitely or probably Gaelic, and, in view of Taylor’s findings,149 they should be ascribed to the period of maximum Gaelic influence in the region, the 11th–12th centuries: they cannot be regarded as evidence of Pictish-speaking inhabitants or settlers at any earlier date, nor as evidence that this word was used as a place-name element (or even necessarily existed) in northern Brittonic. The only case where the specifier could theoretically be Brittonic is Pittendreich MLO,150 with the definite article -ïn- and *-drïch, but drych in Modern Welsh is simply the verbal noun ‘sight’, its status as a place- name element is doubtful; given the frequency of the ‘Pittendreich’ name-
146 See also Wainwright 1955, Nicolaisen 2001, 195–204 and map 17, idem 1975, 3–4 and map 3b, idem 1996, 6–17, and Barrow 1998, 55–56. 147 In 12th-century Anglo-Latin, it was peta ‘allotment of turbary’, which entered Middle English as pete > Modern English ‘peat’. Adopted, probably from Middle Welsh into Middle Irish, it was pit ‘ration, allocation of food or drink’, perhaps influenced by the unrelated Vernacular Latin *pietantia ‘pittance’, in monastic diet ‘light breakfast’. This element might possibly be present, + cors-, in Corstopitum Rivet and Smith 1979, 322–24; see Richmond 1958, 140n, but also under corδ and rïd in James 2014a. 148 See also Nicolaisen 2001, 196. 149 See also James 2013, 65. 150 Dixon 2011, 280–81.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 23 phrase north of the Forth, it is much more likely to be Gaelic, with ‑na driche or ‑an dreacha meaning ‘favourable, usually southerly, aspect.’151 Place-name evidence for Latin-origin words for boundaries in our region is at best tentative. *Fīn is an arguable possibility at Fintry, *cöfin a stronger likelihood at Giffen, tervïn might be relevant at Duntarvie, Patervan and Polternan, though other etymologies are possible. Hypothetical *līm is an interesting consideration at Limerig.
Two terms for units of land are reasonably secure: *plẹ:v is confirmed by Plenploth, though whether it refers to an administrative or tenurial unit, to common land, or to something else, is less certain. *Powẹ:s is likely to be evidenced in Possil, Pouis and Posso, though again the meaning is uncertain, and falling together with the unrelated Celtic word meaning ‘peace, rest’ suggests a possible hagiological significance. *Pǭr, parth and peth present a range of difficulties, and the presence of any of them in our region is doubtful.
Ecclesiastical A substantial proportion of the Latin loanwords in Brittonic languages listed by Jackson are, unsurprisingly, associated with the Church, and a good many more can be confidently ascribed to items, activities and concepts introduced by the clergy and monastic orders during the early Middle Ages. A fair number of ecclesiastical terms occur as place-name elements in Wales and Cornwall; given the archaeological, epigraphic and documentary evidence for the presence of the Church in the lands between the Walls from at least the early sixth century, we might expect this to be similarly reflected in the toponymy.
*eglẹ:s Greek ἐκκλησία was adopted as Latin ecclesia, in British Latin *eclēsia, and this was taken into British as *eclẹ:sjā- to become eccluys in the Book of Llandaf, Modern Welsh eglwys.152 It was adopted from neoBrittonic into Old Irish as eclais, becoming Irish and Gaelic eaglais, and it occurs in Old English place- name formations as *eclēs. This word, in its Brittonic, Goidelic and (especially) Old English manifestations has been the subject of much scholarly discussion, full references will be found in Hough 2009 and James 2009. In her paper, Hough argued
151 See Watson 1926, 413, and Taylor 2008, 99–100, idem 2009, 252, and idem 2012, 356–57, where he refers to ‘at least 13 instances’ of this name-formation. 152 Corn eglos, Bret iliz. On the phonology see Jackson 1953 §28, 335, §61, 412, and §137, 557.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 24 Alan G. James convincingly against the view that the word was adopted into Old English vocabulary in general; from the point of view of English speakers, it was simply a word they heard used by the Britons to refer to particular places, whether or not as an actual place-name (though Hough concurs with Barrow’s view that it was one). In my own contribution, I argued further that the principal meaning in the time of initial contact between Celtic and English speakers would not have been a ‘church (building)’ but a ‘Christian community’, in the fifth to seventh century context, an early monastic community, and that in referring to places, it would have indicated both the home of such a community and its landholding (James 2009, 129–30). So, at Eccles BWK,153 *eglẹ:s may well have been, from the point of view of the pagan Angles, just an unintelligible British name for a desirable piece of real estate. Other simplex ‘Eccles’ incorporated into post-conversion Northumbria may or may not have passed into Anglian Church control, but the name only tells us they were former British Church estates (i.e. by the early seventh century, not necessarily, as Barrow supposed, from the Roman period, or even the fifth to sixth centuries). This would apply to Egglis STL (= St Ninians),154 and Eccles DMF (Penpont).155 Ecclefechan (Hoddom) DMF,156 if it was Brittonic *eglẹ:s-vechan with the lenited feminine form of bïchan, may have been a relatively ‘small’ portion of an extensive Church landholding, perhaps associated with the (British predecessor of the Anglian) monastery at Hoddom. However, a Gaelic formation, *eclais Féchin commemorating one of the Irish saints of that name, is an alternative possibility.157 One more name possibly formed with *eclēs and an Old English generic (which again might or might not have replaced a Brittonic simplex *Eglẹ:s)
153 Watson 1926, 153, and see Barrow 1973, 28–32, idem 1983, 5, and James 2009, 130–31. Eccles Cairn ROX (Yetholm)/NTB (Kirknewton) border (+ Scots/ English -‘cairn’) may be a trace of another such estate, perhaps significantly in the vicinity of the Northumbrian royal centre at Yeavering. 154 See Barrow 1983, 6, MacQueen 1998, 39–53, and James 2009, 127–28; possibly Gaelic in origin, but there is no other evidence for eclais as a simplex place-name. Both Brittonic/ Pritenic and Northumbrian Old English are possible here. 155 James 2009, 137. Regles Tower MLO (Penicuik), Watson 1926, 153, Dixon 2011, 63, might have been + *ïr- eglẹ:s, but this is ‘doubtful’ according to Barrow 1983, 3; a Gaelic descendant of OIr reiclés ‘recluse’s cell, oratory’ is possible, Watson 1926, loc. cit. 156 Watson 1926, 168, Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 55. 157 Less likely still would be -Vechan as an otherwise unknown Brittonic female saint’s name. See Taylor 1998, 4, James 2009, 136.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 25 is the very intriguing Eaglesham RNF.158 The generic hām is the usual term for ‘estate, substantial landholding’ in early Old English toponymy, and *eclēs- hām could have been ‘the estate called “Eclēs”’, or perhaps it was understood as ‘church estate’. It might have been paired with Cunninghame AYR if this was *cyninge-hām ‘king’s estate’.159 Two place-names in our region are likely to reflect the later use of Latin ecclesia and Cumbric *eglẹ:s160 for ‘church building’. In egglesbreth STL (= Falkirk), spellings with ‑t[h] could preserve a P-Celtic form *eglẹ:s-vreith ‘multicoloured church’, still current in the area even in the late 11th to early 12th centuries.161 Terregles KCB162 is certainly *trev-ïr-eglẹ:s; both trev- and the formation with the definite article point to a date no earlier than the 10th century.163 It might be a Cumbric calque on the Anglo-Scandinavian kirkjubý, very important at that time in toponymy south of the Solway.
158 + OE –hām ‘farming settlement, estate’; see Hough 2009, 121 n16, James 2009, 137–38, and idem 2010, 123–24. 159 Eaglesfield DMF is almost certainly a transferred name associated with the Smith family from Eaglesfield CMB (who used Eaglesfield as a male christian name); for the lattersee Armstrong et al. 1950, 378, and James 2009, 135–36 and 144 n16. For Ecclaw BWK (Duns) see ibid., 131: the absence of any trace of -s- makes this a doubtful example. 160 Or *egluïs, we cannot be sure of the vocalism of the second syllable by the ninth to eleventh centuries in the north. 161 Nicolaisen 2011, 60–73, Reid 2009, 32–36. Nicolaisen sees spellings with -t[h] as miscopyings with -t for Goidelic -c, but his apparent assumptions, that P-Celtic had been extinct and Gaelic in regular use in this part of the Forth valley for up to three centuries before the earliest records (Historia Regum and Historia post Bædam), are questionable, even if we agree with him in rejecting the view that these incorporate eighth century annals. Whether P- or Q-Celtic, lenition is only shown in the form eaglesuret (Melrose Chronicle 1185 × 98); elsewhere, -b- probably represents [v]. If any or all of the early spellings do reflect a P-Celtic form, the vowel, whether e, i, or y, represents [ei]; this is quite possible in the context of transcription. Nicolaisen acknowledges, ibid., 68, ‘a reasonable possibility of an earlier Cumbric name’, and a Cumbric or Pictish name transmitted directly or via Gaelic to speakers of early Scots could underlie any of the 12th-century forms. See also Reid, loc. cit. 162 Watson 1926, 359 , MacQueen 1953–54 and idem 2005, 28–29 and 57–58. More doubtful cases are Bareagle WIG (Old Luce); MacQueen 2002, 69, gives this Gaelic form, *bàrr na h-eaglaise associating it with Glenluce Abbey, but in ibid., at 96, and in St Nynia (3rd edn, 2005), 28–29 and 135, he implies Brittonic eglẹ:s; see also James 2009, 139–40 and n34. Dalleagles AYR (New Cumnock) is Gaelic *dail eaglaise but might be compared to English *eclēs-halh, Eccleshall YWR and Ecclesall STF. Dalreagle WIG (Kirkinner) Maxwell 1930, 103, MacQueen 2008, 23, is probably Gaelic and not formed with -eglais. Formations with (probable) saints’ names are likely to be Gaelic, see Taylor 1998: Eaglescairnie ELO (Bolton) Barrow 1973, 10–13, Ecclesmachan WLO Macdonald 1941, 47–48, Barrow 1973, 9, Eglismalesoch LAN (Carluke), Watson 1926,196, and Eglismonichto MLO. 163 James 2009, 146 n37 and idem, forthcoming 2014.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 26 Alan G. James *bassaleg Greek βασιλικόν was adopted (with gender change) as Latin basilica, used of a large, rectangular public hall, typically built alongside the forum in cities of the western Roman Empire. Such buildings were widely adopted or imitated as churches from the time of Constantine onward. In Continental usage, basilica came to mean a ‘major church, possessing relics of a saint’,164 but it is doubtful whether this distinction was observed in Insular Latin, and there is so far no archaeological evidence of any attempt at ‘basilican’ church architecture in Britain before the stone-building campaigns of Wilfred and Benedict Biscop.165 On the other hand, the word seems to have been used of especially grand churches, or simply as a rhetorical variant for ecclesia in the sense of ‘church building’.166 The root relationship with Greek basileús ‘king’ would have been known to literate clergy at least from the circulation of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies (XV.iv.9), by the mid-seventh century, so ‘royal church’ is a possible interpretation. If basilica was taken into West Brittonic before the seventh century, it should have been subject to internal i-affection. The absence of this in Bassalec in the Book of Landaf, Bassaleg MON,167 has led Parsons168 to favour Irish introduction here (bassalec, Modern Irish baisleac), and the same may well apply in the case of Paisley RNF, for which Watson169 favoured a Goidelic origin. In Ireland, Baslick MNG and Baslikane/Baisleacán KRY are likely to be very early, even fifth century, foundations,170 so perhaps Paisley records a trace of an Irish ecclesiastical presence at a date well before the general gaelicisation of Strathclyde.171 However, the presence of the word in the Brittonic of the region cannot be inferred with any confidence.
*cōr Gk χορός was adopted as Latin chorus and possibly thence as British *cōr- to
164 Knight 1999, 142. 165 Thomas 1981, 142, and Blair 2005, 65–73. 166 See eglẹ:s, above, and Brown 1999, 360. 167 T. Roberts 1992, 41. 168 Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland Conference 2012. 169 Watson 1926, 194, and see idem [1904–1905] 2002, 54. 170 Doherty 1984. 171 The devoicing of initial b- would probably have occurred in Brittonic usage. Medieval forms with ‑t[h] are probably scribal miscopyings. A proposal *pasgel- ‘pasture’ + *-lethir ‘slope’ (perhaps *-led ‘broad’ would be better) reported in Ross 2001, 172; but pasgell is not attested in Welsh before 1707 (GPC), and would require miscopying of -t as -c and subsequent replacement by -k in the 1296 form Passelek.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 27 become Welsh côr172 ‘choir’. The metonymic use for the chorus as part of a church building is found in Insular Latin from the 11th century, though in Welsh only from the 13th. As church architecture and liturgical practices developed, it came to refer loosely, as did English ‘quire’, to the chancel and to the sanctuary within the chancel, as well as the space occupied by the singing choir. The extended east end or chancel is a feature of Gothic architecture, no earlier than the 12th century in England or Scotland, the move of the choir into the chancel a still later development, mainly in non-monastic churches, and chancels only became free-standing structures after the Reformation, when they were either the sole parts of churches to remain in use, ‘in quires and places where they sing’ (Book of Common Prayer), or else as ‘bare, ruin’d choirs’ (Shakespeare Sonnet 73).173 This casts doubt on Breeze’s (2000) perception of this element in Carmunnock LAN,174 in the sense of a (free-standing?) chancel, which even in very late Cumbric would be architecturally and liturgically anachronistic. The first element might be cor ‘enclosure’, possibly monastic, but the form Cormannoc 1177 in the Paisley Register is not decisive, other early records show Car- suggesting cair ‘fort’. The second element could be mönach* , but on that element see below.
*crois Latin crux, British Latin *crọx, may have been adopted as British *croχs to become Old Welsh crois in the Book of Llandaf, Modern Welsh croes.175 In place-names, it refers primarily to a monument of wood or stone in the form of, carved with, or surmounted by, a cross. Metaphoric extension to ‘crossing- place’ or ‘place lying across (a boundary etc.)’ is common in Welsh and the
172 Corn cür, M-MnBret cor. However GPC regards côr as a native word. 173 The difficult Welsh place-name Corwen MER has been interpreted as *côr-faen ‘sanctuary stone’, (Owen and Morgan 2007, 98, see also 260–61 for late-recorded Llangorwen CRD), referring to a possible menhir incorporated into the building, but this rests on a misunderstanding: côr means ‘sanctuary’ in the liturgical sense of the sacred space around the altar, not in the wider sense of ‘place of refuge’. 174 Watson 1926, 196 and 367. 175 OCorn crois, MBret *croes (in place-names), croas > Bret kroaz; O-MIr cros > Ir cros, G crois (note also cròsg and, in place-names *crasg-), Mx crois; MIr cros adopted as ON kross, thence as late OE cros > ‘cross’. Note also the parallel development: Lat crux adopted (by more ‘correct’ speakers of Latin) as Br *cruχs> neoBrittonic *crujs > M-MnW crwys, OCorn *cruws > Corn crous (see Padel 1985, 72–73). See Jackson 1953 , 86–87, §5, 274, and §§126–27, 535–40, and Sims-Williams 2003 ǂ14, 23–24. Again, the Latin origin is not certain.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 28 Alan G. James Goidelic languages, though doubtful in Cornish.176 In any case, confusion with Gaelic crois or *crasg ‘crossing-place’, as well as with the Brittonic elements cors ‘reeds, rushes, sedge’, and *cras ‘parched (land)’, and the impossibility (very often) of knowing whether a cross once stood at any particular place, make confident identification and interpretation generally difficult. A few places may be formed with crois and an adjectival suffix. Corsick (Smailholm) ROX177 might have -īg in its diminutive sense, or be an English formation with ‑wic; Corsock KCB (×2: New Abbey and Parton)178 might likewise be suffixed with -ǭg, perhaps ‘crossing place’, but cors could be appropriate at both places; Tercrosset (Kingwater) CMB179 may have been another *crois‑ǭg, with torr- added in a secondary formation.180 Cases where a cross or a crossing, or even both, could have been present include Drumcross (otherwise Crosston, Bathgate) WLO181 with *drum- ‘ridge’, or Gaelic *druim- crois; Glencorse MLO (Penicuik)182 and Glencorse DMF (Closeburn)183 are both topographically crossing-places, though whether Brittonic *glïnn-crois or Gaelic *gleann croiseach is indeterminable; Glencrosh DMF (Glencairn)184 is closer to the Gaelic but could still be Brittonic in origin.
*clas Latin classis, oblique class-,185 was adopted with change of gender to become Welsh clas.186 The root sense of classis is ‘summoned, called up’, so used of a group assembled or conscripted for a specific purpose – a military unit, a fleet, a school form. In early ecclesiastical Latin it was used of monastic communities. As adopted into (West) Brittonic, its meaning extended by metonymy to the
176 Examples in Wales, with page references to Owen and Morgan 2007, include Bwlch-y- groes PMB 60 (‘a fairly common name for such a location’, 333 s.n. Mynydd Bwlch-y-groes BRC), Cefn-y-groes GLM 78, Croes-lan CRD 103, Croesyceiliog CRM 104, Llwyn-y-groes 296, Pen-y-groes ×2, CRM and CRN 383, Tan-y-groes CRD 457, Tŷ-Croes CRM 481 (also ‘cross-shaped house’ YM), Tyn-y-groes CRN 482. All these are reported to be at crossroads with no known standing crosses, though of course there may have been in the past. For doubt regarding such usage in CWL, see Padel 1985, 72–73. 177 Macdonald 1991, 35. 178 Maxwell 1930, 79. 179 Armstrong et al., 97. 180 Breeze 2006, 330, argues for crojs here, but Coates in Coates and Breeze 2000, 284, favours *cras ‘parched, bare land’. 181 Watson 1926, 146, Macdonald 1941, 83 and 87. 182 Watson 1926, 145, 486. 183 Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 15. 184 Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 47. 185 Jackson 1953 §151, 574 n1. 186 Apparently not found in Cornish or Breton, but cf. Ir clas ‘(monastic or church) choir’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 29 buildings and precincts of monasteries, perhaps influenced by the, unrelated, clausa ‘enclosure, close’, and/or by cleis (Modern Welsh clais) in the sense of ‘enclosing ditch, monastic vallum’. By the eighth century in Wales, clasau, rather like English mynsteras, seem to have been recognised as mother churches of extensive territories.187 However, while clas occurs quite frequently in place- names in Wales, it is only in the name of one parish, Y Clas-ar-Wŷ (= Glasbury) RDN;188 to judge by entries in AMR, clas almost invariably stands as a separate word in the Welsh records, either as a simplex (Glasbury is usually just Y Clas) or as generic in a name-phrase that has not become firmly established as a toponym. As a place-name element in the north, it is hard to distinguish from a number of other Brittonic or Goidelic elements, but there are a few places where it is a plausible candidate. An interesting group of names in south-west Scotland includes Glaisterlands (×2, Rowallan and Kilmaurs) AYR, Glaisters (Kirkpatrick Durham) KCB,189 and Rig o’ the Glasters (New Luce) WIG. Welsh clasdir is ‘church land, glebe’ (it is a place-name in Nyfer PMB190); *glās-dīr ‘grey-green land’, or the Gaelic equivalent *glas-tìr are of course possible, but the compound formation favours a Brittonic origin, and *clas-dīr could have been assimilated to *glas-tìr. Clesketts (Farlam) CMB,191 just north of the Wall, appears to be formed with neoBrittonic ‑cę:d (Welsh coed). A loose compound ‘church-wood’ might have been current as an appellative. The earliest record, Claschet c. 1245 (Lanercost Cartulary) favours *clas-, but the name may originally have belonged to Cleskett Beck, so *gleis with initial devoicing, ‘stream’ (Modern Welsh glais), or glas ‘grey-green’ as a river name, likewise devoiced, are possible alternatives. At Clashmahew (Inch) WIG192 the saint might be *Mōha, Machutus, cf. Lann Mocha in the Book of Llandaf. Llandaf’s Machutus is traditionally identified with Maclovius, St Malo of Brittany;193 whether or not the saint at Clashmahew is the same, the generic has been gaelicised to *clais- ‘a ditch’ (cognate of cleis mentioned above), or perhaps ’glais from eaglais, and the first syllable of the name has been interpreted as -mo- ‘my’. Also in Wigtownshire, Clashmurray
187 Pryce 1992, 41–62, Petts 2009, 172–73. 188 Owen and Morgan 2007, 167. 189 Maxwell 1930, 146. 190 AMR. 191 Armstrong et al. 1950, 9 and 84. 192 Maxwell 1930, 71, MacQueen 2002. 193 See Taylor 2009, 71–72, on the (retrospective) association of Machutus with Lesmahagow LAN, and on evidence for his cult in Scotland elsewhere, MacQuarrie 2012, 381–82.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 30 Alan G. James (Kirkcolm) is perhaps Gaelic *clais- or ’glais-Mhuire, but it could have been originally *clas-Meir, St Mary’s.194
*log, *logǭd Lat locus ‘place’ was adopted as British *loco- to become Old Welsh loc > Middle Welsh lloc.195 In the Brittonic languages the meanings follow fairly closely those that developed in Insular Latin: firstly, probably (as in Gaul), ‘the burial-place of a holy person’, then ‘consecrated ground’, then ‘religious house’, and eventually ‘chapel’.196 Secular senses proved generally more dominant in the Goidelic languages and the word fell together in Scottish Gaelic with lag ‘hollow’. Nevertheless, in eastern Scotland north of the Forth, ‘Logie’, ?*log- īn, is an important element in parish- and other names (Clancy 2008b, 307– 08), but it does not occur further south, and although Latin locus occurs on two or three early Christian inscribed stones in southern Scotland,197 there is no certain evidence for log as a place-name element between the Walls. One possible example is Lochmaben DMF, very probably Locus Maponi in the Ravenna Cosmography.198 This is formed with the Celtic deity nameMaponus ; for the generic Rivet and Smith favour *luch ‘marshy lake’, though Padel (1985, 151) sees the British ancestor of log. For Loquhariot (Borthwick) MLO Breeze (2003), suggests *log-wored, the specifier being either an appellative, ‘succour, deliverance, salvation’, or an (otherwise unknown) saint’s name, but the several
194 Maxwell 1930, 71. 195 MCorn *lok (in Luxulyan CWL, Padel 1985, 151–52), MBret lok; OIr loc > Ir log, G lag, Mx lagg; see Falileyev 2000, 106. 196 Lok is common as a place-name element (though not otherwise) in Brittany, where it is associated with minor chapels, and is probably not early. Padel, loc. cit., sees Luxulyan as ‘an outlier of the Breton distribution’, and (while it is hard to distinguish *llog in recorded forms from lloc ‘pen’, llwch ‘pool’, or llech ‘slab’), there seem to be few if any convincing examples in Wales. On Bede’s use of locus (for Lichfield STF), see J. Campbell 1979, 35. 197 CIIC515 (Yarrowkirk) SLK: early-mid sixth century IN LOCO ..., the burial-place of two PRINCIPES, lay Christian aristocrats; CIIC519 (Whithorn) WIG: late sixth to early seventh century, IN LOGI (or LOCI) ... PETRI APVSTOLI may indicate the dedication of the monastery, the stone probably stood by the old road from Whithorn to the Isle of Whithorn, possibly marking a burial-ground and/or the entrance to the monastic precinct. (Craig 1997, 616–17); CIIC2024 (Peebles), lost and undated: LOCVS SANCTI ... EPISCOPI, presumably marking the burial-place and/or religious house of a saintly bishop (the transcription of the third word as NICOLAI is almost certainly anachronistic, amendment of this to NINIAVI is exceedingly speculative). See Jackson 1953 §9, 291, and Sims-Williams 2003 ǂ17, 49 and n174, for discussion of phonological issues arising from these, and ibid., 363 for the dates; see also Thomas 1998, 122–23, on the significance oflocus in these inscriptions. 198 Rivet and Smith 1979, 395.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 31 12th century forms all have ‑wer[t/d] as the second syllable; it seems a far- fetched etymology. The nominalised participial locāta, British Latin *logāda, adopted as British *logādā- to become Welsh llogawd might also occur. In Insular Latin, it was probably a ‘piece of land set aside’ in some sense,199 and in Modern Welsh llogawd is ‘something partitioned off’, but in Middle to early Modern Welsh one sense of the adopted word is ‘monastery’, though when this usage developed, and whether it was contemporary with or later than the use of log in that sense, is unknown. I have suggested (James 2011) that Barlocco, with Barlocco Isle (Borgue) KCB, and Barlocco (Rerrick) KCB with Barlocco Bay and Barlocco Heugh,200 may be *barr-logǭd ‘hill on monastic land’. The close proximity of Barlocco (Borgue) to the early Christian site on Ardwall Isle (Thomas 1967) may be significant,201 as may be the presence of another possible logǭd in Arlecdon CMB,202 just across the Solway Firth in the north- westernmost corner of Roman Britannia, where Coates (CVEP, 285) proposed ar-logǭd, a place ‘opposite or beside land belonging to a monastery’ (+ Old English ‑denu ‘valley’).203
*mönach, *manach Gk μοναχός, originally a ‘solitary, hermit’, was adopted as Latin monachus, and thence as late British *monacho- to become Welsh mynach ‘monk’.204 *Mönach was probably a more ‘correct’ form than vowel-harmonised manach,205 though the preservation of -/χ/ even in the latter reflects ‘learned’ influence.206
199 Cf. Ælfric’s Glossary 115.21 locatus: behyring ‘lease, letting’. 200 Maxwell 1930, 26, 201 Though Gaelic bàrr locha ‘hill by a small loch’ would also be appropriate here, but not at Barlocco (Rerrick), where there is no trace of any loch and the bedrock is porous. At the latter, there is no known trace of any early Christian site either, but there is abundant evidence for long continuity of settlement around Auchencairn nearby, and Hestan Isle in Auchencairn Bay (the parish name Rerrick is ON *hreyr-vík ‘cairn bay’) would have been a prime location for an early monastic settlement. 202 Armstrong et al. 1950, 335. 203 Perhaps this was associated with the monastery of St Bees, which probably originated as an Irish foundation in the 10 century, named after the Irish St Bega (possibly seventh century), and which held land in this parish in the later Middle Ages. Ekwall 1960 s.n., followed by Armstrong et al., 335, proposed OE *earn-lacu ‘eagle-stream’, but note Watts’s doubts, 2004 s.n. I am grateful to Mrs. Mary Todd for information about this village. 204 And the comparable forms in Cornish, manah, Breton monac’h, manac’h, O-MnIr, G manach, Mx managh. 205 Jackson 1983, 83; cf. OW(Book of Llandaf) plural meneich. 206 Jackson 1953 §62, 412.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 32 Alan G. James ‘In place-names, the singular seems to stand for the plural’ (Padel 1985, 156); indeed, it generally indicates a possession of a monastery. We may have this word in three northern place-names: Barmulloch RNF is gaelicised but perhaps not Gaelic in origin in view of ‑monoc in 12th-century forms.207 It might possibly have been Cumbric *bod-[ï]-mönach. Romanno (Newlands) PEB,208 could have be Cumbric *rǭd-[ï]-mönach rather than Gaelic *ràth- manach, with rǭd- here meaning ‘estate’.209 This was a grange of Holyrood Abbey from the mid-12th century, and Newbattle Abbey held land here at the Reformation, but a ‘Celtic’ monastic property may have preceded it.210 The first element in Carmunnock 211 LAN, has been discussed above; whatever the correct interpretation, the second could still be mönach, but alternatively bannǭg ‘hilly’ or mannǭg ‘spotted’.212
Of the place-name elements explicitly associated with the church, *eglẹ:s is clearly the best-attested adoption, though precisely what it meant and what its use in place-names tells us about Christian presence at different times during its currency remain matters for debate. On the other hand, *bassaleg at Paisley RNF may well be an early Irish introduction; *crois is hard to distinguish from its Gaelic equivalent or other possible elements; *cōr can be dismissed. Of the specifically monastic terms that occur in Welsh place-names, *clas is a possibility in several places, but far from certain in any; its uncertain status and meaning in Welsh toponymy add to the doubt, and the possibility that cleis (Modern Welsh clais) might have contributed to its use for a ‘monastic enclosure’ complicates matters further. *Logǭd is no more than a speculative possibility in the two Barloccos KCB, *mönach rather than Gaelic manach might have been present at Barmulloch RNF, Romanno PEB and Carmunnock LAN.
207 Recording a grant of Malcolm 1V 1153 × 65. 208 Watson 1926 , 153–54. 209 ECelt *rātis > Br, Gaul *rātis > MW rawt > W rhawd, Bret -ret (in a compound); apparently adopted from Brittonic into Old-MIr as ráth ‘ring-fort’ > eG ràth, Mx raath, and re-adopted from MIr into MW as rath > W rhath; cognate Lat prātum ‘meadow’. See Jackson 1970, 78, and Rivet and Smith 1979, 443–44. For the etymology, see Mallory and Adams 2006 §11.3, 179 and 181, Falileyev 2000, 136–37, and idem 2010, 28. For Continental examples, see Sims-Williams 2006, 98–101. The basic meaning is ‘earthen rampart’, thence ‘fortified enclosure’. In Wales and Pictland, the term came to be used for the home of a chieftain, and thence for a district or ‘multiple estate’ administered from a chieftain’s fort, influencing Gaelic usage; Aidan Macdonald 1982, T. James 1998, 106–08, Taylor 2011, 107–08, and idem 2012, 477. 210 See Watson 1926, loc. cit., Durkan 1986, and Hall 2006, 157. 211 Watson 1926, 196, 367. 212 Mannog occurs in historical forms of topographic place-names in three parishes in Wales (AMR), though in none of these is the sense ‘spotted’ certain, maenog ‘stony’ may be involved.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 33 Overall, then, the range of overtly ecclesiastical elements to be found in northern P‑Celtic place-names is pretty small; only one certain, up to five more just possible.
Metaphorical uses in topographic names A more miscellaneous group of words in the Brittonic came from Latin as words associated with artefacts or processes introduced by the Romans, but their meanings, especially in place-naming, extended metaphorically. Their presence in place-names would be evidence that they were current in the P-Celtic of the north, and they would probably have been so for some considerable time in more primary senses before they were used imaginatively to name natural features. But again, there is room for doubt.
*cadeir *Cadeir ‘chair’ is a case in point. Gk καθήδρα ‘chair, throne’ was adopted as Latin cathēdra, British Latin *catērra, thence into late Roman British as *catērrā- to become cateir in the Book of Llandaf, Modern Welsh cadair.213 This is generally taken to be present in several place-names in the north, but it presents problems. It seems surprising that a word that had been adopted, probably only in high- status circles, into British Latin and thence Brittonic, should have been taken up at all quickly as a term for naming hills or other landscape features. Yet a name like Catterton (Tadcaster) YWR214 seems to imply a Brittonic simplex *Cadeir established by the time it was adopted by speakers of Old English, here hardly later than the early sixth century, a time when such a piece of furniture was unlikely to be familiar to most Britons. Moreover, the meaning ‘chair’ is not obviously appropriate in all cases, though most, unsurprisingly, have hills in their vicinity. Ekwall in early editions of his Concise of Dictionary of English Place-Names, s.n. Chadderton LNC, proposed a British cognate of OIr cathair ‘fort, fortified settlement’,215 *catērā-, falling together with OW cateir, though he abandoned this in the fourth edition (1960). Owen and Morgan (2007, 61) say cadair
213 Corn cadar, MBret cadoer > Bret kador; OIr cathaír > Ir, G cathair, Mx caair. See Jackson 1953 §71, 429 and n1, and §136, 554–55, DIL s.v. 2 cathair, and on its restricted use in Cornish place-names, Padel 1985, 35. 214 Smith 1961, IV 236, and see idem 1956, I 75 and Jackson 1953, 555; Förster’s suggestion of a personal name, such as one from *Catuwiros, should be taken into consideration at least in cases like Catterton; also Coates’s observation, 2013, 36, that names in Scandinavian territory with ‘Catter-‘ or similar may involve kattar, genitive singular of *katt(u)- (ON kǫttr) ‘cat’. 215 Which may or may not be related to cair discussed above under Military works. He originally published this proposal in Ekwall 1922, 50. See DIL s.v. 1 cathair.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 34 Alan G. James ‘occasionally refers to a hill shaped like a chair but is more commonly extended to include “fortress, fortified settlement”’. They give no explanation for this semantic extension (and Cadair Idris, which they are discussing, surely does qualify as ‘chair-shaped’), but the influence, if not an actual cognate, of Old Irish cathair might still have been involved. That word certainly fell together in Middle Irish and Scottish Gaelic with cathair ‘chair’,216 so it has to be taken into account in Scotland; cathair of either origin could underlie some names with ‘Car-’.217 Either *cadeir or cathaír is possible at Catter DNB (Kilmaronock), where ‘fort’ is appropriate,218 and also in Cathures, which Jocelyn in his Life of St. Kentigern identified with Glasgow, but which might in fact have been the Antonine Wall fort at Cadder RNF.219 And the possibility that, for whatever reason, cadeir meant ‘fort’ rather than ‘chair-like feature’ has to be borne in mind when considering other names in southern Scotland and northernmost England that are unlikely to be Gaelic but which appear to include this element,220 such as Cateran Hill NTB (Old Bewick)221 and Pirncader MLO (Stow).222
*trōn Another ‘chair’ word, Greek θρόνος ‘high seat’ was adopted as Latin thronus, which would have been *tronəs in British Latin, thence Roman-British *tronā-, possibly the origin of Middle to Modern Welsh trôn223 ‘throne’. It occurs in Welsh place-names referring to prehistoric monuments of various kinds, not necessarily at all throne-like.224 At Cardrona PEB (Innerleithen), the meaning
216 Thurneysen 1993 §318, 202. 217 See discussion under cajr in James 2014a. 218 Watson 1926, 223. 219 Chadders 1170 favours P-Celtic *cadeir; Durkan 1986, 278 and 285–86, MacQuarrie 1997, 128–30. 220 Not far south of Hadrian’s Wall, Blencathra CMB (= Saddleback, Threlkeld; Armstrong et al. 1950, 253, Whaley 2006, 289), is formed with blain- ‘summit, head of a valley’. Forms like Blenkarthure 1589, showing assimilation to the legendary Arthur, have obscured the original form. Coates, in Coates and Breeze 2000, 281, suggested a MIr personal name Carthach here, ‘but the implications of that with a Brittonic generic need exploring’. Such a formation is not inconceivable in the context of early 10th- century settlement in this area. *Cathro from the personal name Caturugos recorded on CIIC379 (see also note 214, above) would be another possibility. Nevertheless, Blencathra is undoubtedly chair-shaped! Another a possible formation in the early 10th-century context is Caterlaising CMB (Threapland), Armstrong et al. 1950, 271, + ON personal name ‑Leysingr. For Catterlen CMB see note 95, above. 221 Early forms are lacking: see Watts 1979, 123. 222 Watson 1926, 352, Dixon 2011, 368; + prenn- ‘tree’ or brïnn- ‘hill’. 223 Cf. Corn trôn, seemingly not found in place-names. See Jackson 1953 §55, 401–02. 224 E.g. Maestran (Llanycil) MER.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 35 ‘circle’ was suggested by Watson,225 but that sense was probably only adopted into Middle Welsh from similar usage in Middle English, and indeed even with the sense ‘throne’ trôn may be a Middle Welsh adoption.226 However, Pharaoh’s Throne KCB, a standing stone on the Tongland/Twynholm boundary, might be a folk-etymologised version of some name formed with this word in either its Cumbric or its Older Scots form. 227
*cest Latin cista ‘container’ was adopted as Roman-British *cistā- to become Middle to Modern Welsh cest,228 commonly ‘basket or bag’, but also, figuratively, ‘belly, paunch’, which is in turn applied either to a hill or a bag-shaped hollow in a fair number of Welsh place-names.229 Breeze (2002b) proposed this in Prenderguest BWK (Ayton).230 However, both Hanks and Hodges (1988 s.n.) and Reaney and Wilson (1997 s.n.) derive the surname Prendergast from Brontegeest near Ghent in Flanders, saying that Prendergast Castle and parish PMB are named from this family. Hanks and Hodges add that the BWK place ‘apparently’ also takes its name from the family, while Reaney and Wilson (1997 s.n.) state more bluntly that it ‘takes its name from the Welsh Prendergast’. There was Flemish settlement in south-eastern Scotland as early as 1165 × 74 when this place-name is first recorded. Flemington is two miles to the north-east, and Burnmouth, another mile east, was formerly Port Fleming, so a derivation from Brontegeest, perhaps via some branch of the Prendergast family, is likely, though there seems no good reason to assume a direct connection with the place in PMB.
225 Watson 1926, 369, + cajr- ‘fort’ and the plural suffix -öü, or else Gaelic *cathair-drothanach ‘fort of the winds’ (Ross 2001, 44). 226 See GPC s.v. trôn. 227 As suggested by Watson 1926, 369. 228 Corn and Bret kest. See Jackson 1953 §7, 282–83, Padel 1985, 55; on the OE equivalent, see Parsons 2004, 33. 229 Owen and Morgan 2007, 42 and give ‘paunch’ in Borth-y-Gest CRN and Brongest CRD; several of the 25 or so distinct examples to be found in AMR are hill-names, but Padel 1985, 55, gives ‘cavity’; Cwm-gest in various spellings occurs in three places (in Aber-nant CRD, Llandysul CRD, and Colfa RDN), and Padel’s only example in CWL is Lankeast, ?*nans-kest. 230 + prenn- ‘tree’ or brïnn- ‘hill’ + -trev- ‘farm’ with lenition.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 36 Alan G. James *cīb Latin cūpa was adopted to become Welsh cib,231 a word for any rounded receptacle, ‘bowl, cask, coop, cup etc.’ It occurs in place-names in Wales, presumably with a topographic sense, though for Bwlchycibau MNT Owen and Morgan (2007, 59) give ‘pass of the husks’, cibyn, alongside possible cibau ‘referring to hollows in the local topography’. If Minnygap DMF (Johnstone)232 is formed with this element, lenited ‑/g/- implies feminine gender as in Latin, though cib is masculine in Modern Welsh. The generic is eithermönï δ- ‘upland’ or mönju- ‘scrubland’, with the definite article ‑ï‑.233
*cï:n Lat cuneus ‘chisel, wedge’, in later Latin *cunjəs, was adopted as late Roman- British *cunjo- to become Middle Welsh cin, Modern Welsh cŷn.234 It probably occurs in the Welsh stream name Cynlais,235 presumably alluding to a gorge or stream-bed apparently carved as if with a chisel. It might be a lost stream name in both Gorgie MLO236 and Pinkie MLO (Inveresk),237 but the evidence in both cases is scanty.
*cïf Latin cippus ‘block, stock or stump, tree-trunk’ was adopted as Roman-British *cippo- to become Middle to Modern Welsh cyff.238 Gaelic ceap is used of a small, pointed or lumpy hills on top of high ground (Drummond 2007, 27, Taylor 2012, 326). However, cyff in Welsh place-names, like its Cornish and Breton cognates, seems not to be a hill name, but typically refers to sometime conspicuous tree-stumps or stump-like stones.239 In Scots (Lothian and Borders) kip is used of a projecting point on a hill, as well as for jutting facial features
231 Breton kib; seems to not be recorded in Cornish. See Jackson 1953 §15, 302–03, and §23(1), 317–19. Anglo-Latin cuppa can mean ‘fish-trap’ (Latham 1980 s.v.), as can OE cy:pe from cūpa; one wonders whether the Brittonic loanword could have had that meaning at Inskip LNC, Ekwall 1922, 164, Kenyon 1984–85, 94, Breeze in Coates and Breeze 2000, 227–28. 232 Johnson-Ferguson 1935, 65. 233 Breeze 2004, 121–23. 234 See Jackson 1953, 83, also ibid. §44, 366 and §102, 495. 235 Owen and Morgan 2007, 504. 236 Dixon 2011, 125; + wor- ‘over, above’, also ‘by’, or intensive ‘very’. 237 Dixon 2011, 249–50; + pant- ‘hollow, valley-bottom’. 238 Corn *kyf (in place-names, Padel 1985, 58), MBret queff > Bret *kef (in place-names); OIr cepp > Ir, G ceap, Mx kip; cf. OE ċipp > ‘chip’, Smith 1956, I 94. See Jackson 1953 §§145–47, 565–70. 239 Owen and Morgan 2007, 391, Padel 1985, 58.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 37 etc. The Oxford English Dictionary compares this to, and the Scottish National Dictionary (kip n¹) derives it from, Middle Dutch or Low German kippe ‘point, peak, tip’, but a Gaelic origin or influence might reasonably be expected (cf. Watson 1926, 137). The unlocated Kepduf in the Herbert fragment of the Life of St. Kentigern is presumably Gaelic *ceap dubh ‘black block’, but a neoBrittonic *cïf-dūv might underlie it.240 Surviving place-names with ‘Kip’, e.g. Kip Hills MLO, Kipp KCB (Colvend), are likely to be Gaelic or Scots in origin. The status of *cïf in northern Brittonic toponymy is therefore doubtful.
*tavl, *tabl Latin tabula or tabella, in British Latin *tab’la, was adopted as British *tablā- to become Middle Welsh tafl.241 In the Celtic languages, *tab’la had the specialised sense of ‘catapault, sling’, in Welsh developing to a verbal root ‘throw’ (tavlei in Canu Aneirin A78/LXXXIII A), and a specifier in compounds, ‘(something) thrown, projectile’. However, tabula re-entered Middle Welsh (probably from Middle English, via Old French table) as tabl ‘board, panel, table, tablet or anything flat’.242 So is Cairntable LAN243 a ‘heap of sling-stones’ or a ‘flat- topped cairn’? Recorded forms from c. 1315 favour the latter, which would imply a very late Cumbric formation, but ‑/vl/- > -/bl/- could have occurred in Scots, especially given the influence of ‘table’, so a Brittonic or Gaelic ‘cairn of sling-stones’ cannot be ruled out.244
*trǭstan Trostan or Troston occurs frequently in south-west Scotland: Bartrostan WIG (Penninghame),Trostan Hill AYR (Straiton), Trostan, with Little Trostan KCB (Minigaff), Troston Knowe, Trostan Burn and Hill, and another Troston Hill at the head of the Shinnel Water, which are separate locations to the NW, NE and SE of the Cairnsmore of Carsphairn KCB, Troston with Troston Rig DMF (Sanquhar), Troston Hill and Loch DMF (Tynron), Troston with Troston Burn and Rig KCB (Dalry) and Troston KCB (New Abbey). All these are on or close to ridges. Watson (1926, 350) asserts that at ‘Troston in Glencairn parish’
240 Watson 1926, 345 n1, identifies it as Kilduff ELO, but see Jackson’s objections, 1958, 273–357. 241 MnW tafl- in compounds, Corn towl, MBret taoul > Bret taol; OIr táball > M-MnIr tabhall, G tabhal. The syncope may have occurred in British Latin or late British, see Jackson 1953 §2(1), 268 and §196, 651–54. 242 Cf. also OE tæflin place-names, Smith 1956, II 174. 243 Watson 1926, 203. John G. Wilkinson tells me this is a flat-topped hill. 244 Tafl- seems to be very rare in Welsh place-names, the only reasonably likely example, Heol Taflaw MON, suggests ‘stones’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 38 Alan G. James (recte Tynron) ... ‘W[elsh] tref has been translated by English tun’, but this is unlikely to have happened so frequently. Trostan is quite common in Irish hill-names (e.g. Trostan mountain near Cushendal in Layd, Co. Antrim) and has been taken there as a metaphoric use of trostán ‘staff, crozier’. MacQueen gives the same explanation for Bartrostan WIG245 but that too seems far-fetched for an element so frequently used. An adopted form from Latin transtrum, British Latin *trāstrum246 ‘cross-beam’ would make more sense in such names, indicating a ‘cross hill, transverse ridge. *Trāstrum became neoBrittonic*trǭst, Welsh trawst,247 so a Brittonic formation with the nominal suffixan - could explain these, but McKay sees an Irish cognate in the Ulster hill names,248 and a Gaelic origin is possible for the Scottish ones too.
None of these proposed metaphorical uses of Latin-derived terms in northern place-names inspires very much confidence. Cadeir seems reasonably likely at Catter, Cathures, Cateran Hill and Pirncader, though nagging doubts remain as to whether these really have the ‘chair’ word or a lost Brittonic word for a fort; *trōn and *cīb are possibly evidenced by Cardrona and Minnygap, but are far from sure; *cï:n as a hydronym in Gorgie and Pinkie is even more speculative; *cïf ,*tavl and *trǭstan are all cases where a Gaelic equivalent is probably evidenced in surviving forms, Brittonic predecessors are possible but not necessary; *cest can be eliminated. This may serve to remind us that, for such metaphorical usage to arise, a word needs to have been pretty widely current in its primary sense for some time. Even such (to our eyes) everyday objects as tables and chairs were not necessarily so familiar to the inhabitants of our region in the first millennium AD as to suggest the application of their Latin-derived names to features in the landscape. The fact that the names of such things came to be so used in medieval Wales and Cornwall cannot be taken as a sure indication that they were so used in the Old North.
Miscellaneous and doubtful A number of other Welsh words of Latin origin have been proposed from time to time by scholars seeking to explain difficult names in the region north of Hadrian’s Wall, but caution is called for. The assumption that the Brittonic/ Cumbric of the north was more or less identical to proto-/Old Welsh is one I have questioned on other grounds (James 2013), and our survey so far suggests
245 MacQueen 2008, 96. 246 Jackson 1953, 86. 247 Jackson 1953, loc. cit. Corn troster, Bret treust. 248 McKay 1999, 142.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 39 that the range of Latin words adopted in the north may have been more limited than that evidenced in Welsh. Moreover, such proposals tend to invoke words first recorded in GPC in citations from later medieval Welsh sources, and to be poorly evidenced – if at all – in Welsh or Cornish place-names. Phonology may indicate that a word was adopted relatively early, but it is an unsure guide in the case of loanwords; while Jackson’s chronology (1953, 694–99) remains the essential guide to the order and probable dates of sound-changes within Brittonic, it is hard to be certain when such changes ceased to affect newly-adopted words. Even where the phonetic conditions that motivated the change no longer applied, analogy would surely have persisted in encouraging, for example, intervocalic lenition. And of course phonology alone cannot tell us whether such words were current in the P-Celtic of the north in the first millennium, or, if they were, that they were used there in place-naming. Even if we allow for that possibility, their use in later Middle Welsh literary registers is a poor guide to their meaning in northern toponymy.
*dragon Lat dracon- was adopted to emerge in Middle Welsh as dracon ‘a dragon’.249 The formdracon is used in Middle Welsh as an honorative for ‘prince, warlord, great warrior’.250 Poltragon, north of the Wall in Bewcastle CMB,251 seems to be *pol-dragon ‘dragon-pool’ or ‘dragon-stream’.252 However, the earliest form Poltraghaue 1485 leaves this etymology (proposed by Breeze, Coates and Breeze 2000, 287) in doubt; later forms (Polcragane 1538, Poltraghan 1552, Poltragon c. 1560) show progressive assimilation to ‘dragon’ and may derive from successive miscopyings of a name suffixed with Middle Englishhowe - . gïnt Latin gens, gentis was adopted as late British *gento- to give -gint in Old Welsh personal names, Welsh gynt.253 In medieval ecclesiastical usage, it can be ‘heathen, gentile’ or ‘heathens, gentiles’, the singular and plural being identical, in Modern Welsh ‘tribe’. At Pennygant Hill (Castleton) ROX (Watson 1926,
249 IE *dṛk ̂ - (zero-grade of *derk ̂ - ‘see’) + -ont- > Greek drákōn, adopted as Latin draco[n]-; draco was also adopted into Brittonic as *draci- > MW draic > W draig, OCorn druic. 250 Whether its use in this sense in CA (A22, A25) is evidence that it was current in neoBrittonic or even in Old Welsh is a matter for debate (but note the use of the Latin word in the story of Emrys in HB42). 251 Armstrong et al., 62. 252 The -lt- might reflect late Cumbric devoiced -[ɫt]-, see Jackson 1953 §54(1), pp. 400–01 and n1. 253 See Jackson 1953 §6(2), 278–79 and Sims-Williams 2003, ǂ27, 97 and ibid., 181; cf. the Celtic cognates, e.g. W geni ‘be born’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 40 Alan G. James 354), formed with pen[n]- ‘headland’ and the definite article-ï- , Breeze (2007) proposes -gïnt in its Modern Welsh sense as ‘(foreign) tribe’, ‘(alien) nation’, stating that it was so used ‘of the English and then the Vikings’, and that this was on the boundary between Strathclyde and Northumbria in the ninth century. Both these assertions are questionable. The boundaries of the polity known as Strathclyde in the second quarter of the tenth century are unknowable (beyond what is implied by the name itself, and Pennygant Hill is well to the south of the Clyde basin watershed), and while the Britons of the Clyde may well have had several impolite terms for the Northumbrian English, they knew perfectly well they were not ‘heathens’. If the name refers to pagans, the likely suspects would be the East Norse-speaking settlers responsible for place-names in -bý and -bekkr in Liddesdale and Eskdale.254 The hill is close to the Liddel/Esk watershed, so cant ‘boundary’ should not be ruled out in spite of what appears to be irregular lenition, and the definite article does favour a relatively late, Cumbric formation.255
*grif Greek grúps, grúpos was adopted as late Latin gryp[h]us, and thence as late British *grifo- to become Welsh grifft,256 ‘a gryphon/griffin’, the eagle/lion beast of Classical mythology and later medieval heraldry. It is used in the Celtic literatures of birds of prey and carrion, and metaphorically of warriors, in Irish and Gaelic as gríobh. River Gryfe (or Gryffe) LAN/RNF (Watson 1926 , 470) seems to be based on this word in either Cumbric or Gaelic: Watson suggests Gaelic grìobh, the meaning of which extends by synecdoche to ‘talon, claw’, ‘from the claw-like shape of the stream’, but such ‘bird’s eye view’ interpretations of place-names are rarely persuasive from the days before maps. Breeze (2000) on the other hand suggests Cumbric *grif in the sense of ‘tadpole’; there is a Pwll-y-grifft in Penbryn CRD first recorded by the Ordnance Survey (AMR), which might well be a ‘tadpole pool’, but that curious usage in Modern Welsh (also ‘frog or toad spawn’) is recorded in GPC only from 1547. Whether the Brittonic or the Goidelic form is the source, the reference in the Scottish river name was more
254 Likewise in the vicinity of Penyghent YWR, Smith 1961, 6.219–20 and xi–xii, where Breeze 2006 again sees a reference to pagans. On East Norse names in eastern DMF see Nicolaisen 2001, 127–33 and Fellows-Jensen 1985. 255 James 2008, 197–99; in Penyghent too the formation is likely to be late. Three place- names in AMR, Nant-y-gynt (Abercarn) MON, Pant-y-gynt (Llangynwyd) GLM and Rhyd Gynt ANL, are all late documented and doubtful. 256 OIr gríb > Ir gríobh, G grìobh, cf. Mx griffag. On -p-/-ph- in British Latin and late British, and epenthetic -t, see Jackson 1953 §51, 396.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 41 probably to a bird of prey, perhaps the osprey (cf. Dwelly s.v. grìobh), than to the shape of the river on the map, or to tadpoles. Cairngryffe (Carmichael) LAN (Watson 1926, 470), with Cairn Gryffe Hill overlooking the upper Clyde, is all the more likely to involve a large bird; it likewise could be Brittonic or Gaelic.
*meδgǭd Coates257 has proposed Latin medicāta adopted as Br *medicātā- as the etymon for Metcaud, Medcaut, NTB (= Lindisfarne, HB 63 and 65), cf. Modern Welsh meddyg ‘doctor’. This is phonologically unobjectionable, though the meaning is somewhat opaque: the expected sense would be passive, ‘healed’, Coates suggests that ‘might be regarded here as a conceptual parallel, though not a precise one, to “holy”’ (as in Holy Island). It is unparalleled in Celtic toponymy.
*tavarn Latin taberna ‘shop, hostelry’ was adopted to give tauarn in the Book of Llandaf, Modern Welsh tafarn. If St Patrick’s birthplace bannavem taburniae was located in the north and really contained that word, it could be counted as a very early instance in what appears to be a Brittonic toponymic context. However the name is evidently garbled, and the location of the place a matter of endless, and fruitless, speculation.258 Tafarn occurs quite often in Welsh place-names, but only in its modern sense, from the later Middle Ages onwards.
*trulliad Latin trulla ‘wine-ladle’ was adopted to become W trull, from which was formed Middle Welsh trulhiad > W trulliad ‘cup-bearer, butler, steward’. Trull occurs in Canu Aneirin A57/B18 (LXI AB), and trulhiad in Welsh Laws from 12th century, but it is uncertain how early this formation was. Breeze (1999) suggests that Trailtrow (Hoddom) DMF is *trev-ï-truliad. The elevation of offices like this to aristocratic, hereditary titles (with grants of land and arms) is a feature of the emerging feudal nobility of the twelfth century onward (Oram 2011, 299), so if this etymology were correct this would be an interestingly late Cumbric name. However, the word seems not to occur in any Welsh or Cornish place-names.
Among the elements discussed in this part of our survey, grif cannot be distinguished in place-names from its Gaelic equivalent and the remainder are no more than speculative possibilities.
257 Coates and Breeze 2000, 241 258 Rivet and Smith 1979 511–12, Thomas 1981, 311–12, and Dumville 1993, 134 and n11.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 42 Alan G. James Conclusion This paper has focused, intentionally, on the Northern P-Celtic place-naming vocabulary insofar as that can be retrieved from the surviving toponymic evidence. A similar exercise might be undertaken with regard to Latin-derived elements in personal names, from the earliest inscriptions through to the Harleian Genealogies, though caution is needed in drawing inferences for the language in general from the specialised vocabularies of either kind of naming. Unless we subscribe to the very questionable hypothesis that verses concerned with the matter of the Old North preserved in later medieval Welsh manuscripts may contain traces of the P-Celtic of that region, the non-onomastic evidence for that language is vanishingly small.259 Moreover, as with any consideration of place-names in Scotland and northernmost England, the usual cautions apply: every name mentioned had passed from one language to another at least once, and in many cases twice, before the earliest surviving record, which in many cases is late medieval or even early modern. However, allowing for these reservations, the toponymic evidence for introductions from Latin in the Brittonic of the north seems pretty thin. The number of such elements whose presence in P-Celtic place-names is reasonably secure amounts to no more than 10.260 Of course, more thorough and detailed surveys of the counties of southern Scotland and of Northumberland may bring to light a wider range of possible examples, but it seems unlikely that any Latin- origin elements will be found to occur with sure enough early documentation, or in sufficiently multiple locations, to add substantially to this small number. On the face of it, there seems to be no toponymic support for the idea of any widespread acquaintance with Latin in our region in the Roman and immediate post-Roman periods, even though the inscriptional evidence might suggest some use of the language among the secular elite. I have argued elsewhere (James 2011)261 that there may have been substantial replacement of place-names during the ninth to twelfth centuries
259 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for the reminder that one of the two (doubtfully three) apparently Cumbric words preserved in the Latin and Scots texts of the so-called Leges inter Brettos et Scottos, kelchyn might be of Latin derivation, if it is associated with Welsh cylch, and if that is from Latin circulus (GPC, and see Falileyev 2000, 31). Cylch, primarily ‘circuit’, occurs in specialised senses in the Welsh Laws and in place-names in five parishes in Wales (AMR). However, in the Leges, kelchyn has nothing to do with ‘circuits’, or with any of the legal senses derived from that, it refers to compensation for injury or insult, and in the French text (which may reflect an early version of theLeges ), the word is gelchach, so it remains one of several intractable puzzles in that perplexing document. 260 *Coch, *cöfin, *eglẹ:s, *föntǭn, *mūr, *pebïl, *plẹ:v, *pont, *pǭwẹ:s and *Sachs. 261 And cf. now Hall 2012, comparing data sets from south and east England and south-east Wales.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Elements of Latin Origin in P-Celtic Place-names between the Walls 43 due to changes in patterns of farming, settlement and landholding, as well as the impact of Northumbrian Old English, Scandinavian and early Gaelic, so perhaps it is unsurprising that relatively few traces of Roman influence survive in the toponymic record. Nevertheless, as we have seen, apart from eglẹ:s and crois, even post-Roman ecclesiastical Latin is not much more in evidence. Merthïr (martyrium) ‘church, chapel or shrine housing the remains of a saint’, an important indicator of ecclesiastical presence in the post-Roman period in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, is conspicuous by its absence from the north. 262 Further research would entail more systematic comparison with the early toponymicon of Wales and Cornwall. Among elements derived from the words identified by Jackson (1953, 78–80), porth (portus), is the only one which is common as a generic in Welsh and Cornish place-names263 but seems not to occur in P-Celtic names in the north, either in the sense of ‘door, entrance, gateway’ or of ‘cove, harbour’ (which is feminine in Welsh toponymy).264 Other elements derived from Latin words in Jackson’s list occur likewise in Welsh place-names but are not found in the north, though research is needed to ascertain (mainly on phonological grounds) whether these were current in Proto-Welsh or Old Welsh, or were later introductions.265 So the main, tentative conclusion must be one of caution regarding the currency of words of Latin origin in the P-Celtic toponymicon of the north. The assumption that words evidenced from later Middle Welsh were necessarily current in speech of the Britons of the north is a risky one. As we have seen, such proposals are at best plausible possibilities, and in most cases less than that; they should certainly not be taken for definitive solutions to tricky etymologies.
262 Jackson 1953 §166(2), 595. AMR shows at least 20; see Owen and Morgan 2007, 318– 19, and Petts 2009, 128 and 168, with Padel 1985, 164, on merther in CWL. A good many other ecclesiastical terms of Latin origin occur in Welsh place-names, such as aradur, abad, capel, cell, disert, ermid and menechdid, but they may not have entered toponymic usage until the central or later Middle Ages, so their absence from the north is less surprising. 263 Owen and Morgan 2007, lxiii, Padel 1985, 190–92. 264 The Goidelic equivalent port is fairly common in Ireland (Flanagan and Flanagan 1994, 130, McKay 1999, 155), and likewise in Galloway, where Maxwell 1930 226–29 lists around 40, not counting analogical English or Scots formations like Port William, but there is no good reason to suppose any of these had Brittonic predecessors; elsewhere in southern Scotland, Portmore ELO (Watson 1926, 142) seems to show the sense ‘fort’, also seen in Irish names (Flanagan and Flanagan, loc. cit.); longphort, as at Longfort (Old Luce) WIG (Maxwell 1930, 203, is a distinct, appellative, formation. 265 For example, caws (cāseus) ‘(solid, rennet-based) cheese’, which occurs as a specific in about 33 place-names in AMR (most relatively minor), was probably being produced in the north, but is not reflected in toponymy; Chisholme (Roberton) ROX has OE (Anglian) ċēse- (Williamson 1942, 23, J. Macdonald 1991, 33); Padel 1985 does not findkês in any Cornish place-names.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 44 Alan G. James Still, a good deal more research needs to be done, both on the detailed questions surrounding the probable or possible Latin-origin elements discussed in this paper and on the broader questions concerning the nature of P-Celtic in the north of Britain – especially in the zone between the Walls – and the impact of Latin and subsequent incoming languages on its development. These notes are offered as an aid and a stimulus to critical consideration and further study, they make no claim to offer definitive answers to any such questions.
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The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 1–50 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith1
Peter McNiven University of Glasgow
Introduction Historians and archaeologists of medieval Scotland have long recognised that place-names are an important source for the study of social and landscape history, and are a way of examining aspects of medieval Scottish rural society which are otherwise hidden from view. Place-names have the potential to offer unique information about many aspects of historical and archaeological research. One such aspect concerns the medieval Church. While it is true we know a great deal about how the Church was run in medieval Scotland and who many of the main players were, it is still unclear how the Church interacted with the laity and the land at parish level. Place-names are one way of helping us understand more about that interaction. Archaeologists and historians hoping to understand medieval rural society are often confronted with issues such as the uneven survival of archaeological remains, often due, at least in the Lowlands, to the rearranging of the landscape during the agricultural ‘improvements’ and industrialisation of the 18th and 19th centuries, or sparse documentary evidence, perhaps due to wars, the destruction of monastic libraries at the Reformation, or just plain carelessness. While some areas of Scotland have an abundance of historical material due to being centres of institutions, such as the medieval Church (St Andrews) and crown and government (Edinburgh), other areas have a dearth of such material. One such area is Menteith, that area of central Scotland situated between Stirling and Loch Lomond. It encompasses the towns and villages of Aberfoyle, Callander, Doune and Kippen (for a detailed definition of Menteith, see below and McNiven 2011, 18–26), and is perhaps most famously known for including the Lake of Menteith, the only lake in Scotland (see this volume, pp. 115–20). Menteith straddles the Highland Boundary Fault, where the land to the north and west is classic Highland Scotland, all mountains and glens, while to the south and east, the land consists of the gently rolling hills of the Teith valley, the flat carse-lands of the upper River Forth and the farmlands mostly reclaimed from the mosses such as Flanders Moss in the 18th century.
1 This is a fully referenced and slightly updated version of an article which appeared in two parts in History Scotland: Part 1 titled ‘Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith’, Vol. 12, No. 6, 36–43 (November–December 2012), 36–43; and Part 2 titled ‘Place-names of Menteith’, Vol. 13, No. 1 (January–February 2013), 36–41. Thanks to the editor, Dr Alasdair Ross, for allowing the article to be published here.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 52 Peter McNiven The Catholic Church was the most significant institution in medieval Europe; its influence extended to all parts of the Scottish kingdom and Menteith was no exception. Menteith had a multi-layered religious experience and many of the place-names there contain the remnants of numerous aspects of religious life including early Christian establishments, saints’ cults, diocesan organisation, parishes churches and chapels, monasticism, church officials ranging from bishops to relic-keepers, and places that provided food, fuel, shelter and livings for priests and other churchmen, as well as places of those who provided services for the Church, the parishioners and others, such as pilgrims (see McNiven 2013b, where it is argued that most of the spittal-names in this area and the neighbouring earldom of Lennox were crusading endowments belonging initially to the Knights Templar and then to the Knights Hospitaller). The importance of religion can be appreciated by the number of place-names in Menteith that have, or potentially have, a religious element to them. There are at least 66 place-names in the earldom of Menteith that have elements with ecclesiastical connotations, including two elements that may denote lands belonging to the priory of Inchmahome: arn-, deriving from Gaelic earrann ‘share, portion of land (possibly belonging to a monastic institution)’, of which there are 18, and 13 names containing Scots offers/offerance-names or Gaelic aifreann ‘offering; Mass’. Menteith was one of the ancient earldoms of Scotland – its name possibly derives from a British cognate of Welsh mynydd (borrowed into Gaelic as monadh) ‘mountain, muir’, combined with the obscure river name Teith (Watson 1926, 113). Medieval Menteith was in the diocese of Dunblane and consisted of eight parishes – Aberfoyle, Callander, Kilmadock, Kilmahog, Kincardine, Kippen, Leny and Port of Menteith; only Kilmahog and Leny have not survived as parishes into the modern era, having been incorporated into Callander by the early 17th century.2 All the parishes were in Perthshire until 1975 and lie to the north of the River Forth, with the exception of Kippen. For reasons that are not clear but, as we shall see, may have much to do with the priory of Inchmahome, Kippen was divided between Perthshire and Stirlingshire until 1891. It is often written that the parish of Dunblane was in Menteith (Fraser, Menteith i, xvii; Hutcheson 1899, 2; Cockburn 1959, 7), but this is erroneous. Dunblane was in Strathearn (Rogers 1992, 345), but seems to have been included in the medieval deanery of Menteith, perhaps for administrative reasons, or, more likely, to prevent the cathedral from coming under the direct influence of the earls of Strathearn who were patrons of many of the churches in the deanery of Strathearn (McNiven 2011, 22–23). Another possibility is the 2 For full details of these parishes, see McNiven 2011 (see also PNPER 1, McNiven with Taylor, forthcoming)
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 53 relationship between Dunblane and Muthill, the latter of which may have been the episcopal see at some periods (Cowan and Easson 1976, 204; MacQuarrie 1992, 128–29; Semple 2009, chapter 5). It is possible that Dunblane, as a more important church, might have been associated with Menteith as a kind of mother church of the southern part of the diocese, leaving Muthill further north with the more northern churches.3 The place-name Dunblane commemorates Bláán, an obscure saint who is supposed to have founded a bishopric at Kingarth on Bute (Yorke 2006, 115; Márkus 2012, 49; Macquarrie with Butter 2012, 330). Nothing is known of him beyond the legends described in the Aberdeen Breviary and these will not concern us here.4 Thomas Clancy has put forward the idea that the Bláán dedication at Dunblane is part of a movement eastwards of the cults of Cowal saints in the eighth century as Gaelic speakers moved out of their Dál Riata heartlands and into Pictish and British territories (Clancy 2004, 140; Woolf 2007, 102, 116). Dunblane first appears in theChronicles of the Kings of Alba as Dulblaan,5 and the context is an attack on Dunblane by the Britons: ‘also the Britons burned Dunblane’ (Britanni autem concremauerunt Dulblaan) in the second quarter of the ninth century (Anderson 1980, 250; ES i, 288; Woolf 2007, 194), showing that Dunblane was already a significant place (Macquarrie 2001, 112). Dunblane is also found in the notes added to Félire Óengusso Céli Dé, probably in the 12th century, as ‘Dunblane his [Blane’s] chief monastery’ (Dul Blaan a primhchathair) (Stokes 1905, 184, 185). These early forms contain Pictish or British dul* or *dol ‘haugh, water- meadow’, which often combine with saints’ names, perhaps meaning that the produce of a water-meadow containing a saint’s dedication may have gone to the upkeep of a church devoted to that saint (Watson 1926, 418). The *dul/*dol in this case may be the flat land immediately west across the Allan Water from the cathedral, or perhaps on the eastern side of the river, just to the south of the cathedral. There is no record of the generic dùn ‘fort’ until 1161, when it is Dunblain (RRS i, no. 182), and in a 14th-century copy of an English manuscript6 dating to 1155 it is Dubblan (Cockburn 1938, 15).
3 My thanks to Gilbert Márkus for this suggestion. 4 For the cult of Bláán (or Blane), see Macquarrie 2012, 328–30. 5 ‘perhaps altered to Dulblain’ (Anderson 1980, 250 footnote 128). 6 British Museum Cottonian Manuscripts, Cleopatra C IV. The document is a Papal Bull by Adrian IV to the bishops of Scotland in 1155. It is also printed in Hadden and Stubbs, Councils, vol. ii, pt 1, 231–32, but they seem to have wrongly identified the bishop of Dunblane as La (for Laurence); Cockburn (1938, 6), Somerville (1982, 40–41) and Fasti (Watt and Murray) have M. The identity ofM . is not known, although Cockburn suggests that Malise, a common Strathearn aristocratic name, is possible (1938, 6).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 54 Peter McNiven Inchmahome While the diocesan centre was at Dunblane, the ecclesiastical focus of Menteith was undoubtedly Inchmahome. The priory was founded around 1238 by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, possibly due to the settlement between Comyn and Bishop Clement of Dunblane over rights in a number of Menteith churches (Inchaffray Liber xxix–xxxii; Young 2005, 75). However, a reason more sympathetic to Comyn might emphasise the fact that prior to the Reformation of 1560 the founding a monastic house was an indication of his piety. There are other examples in Scotland of magnates founding religious houses, including Inchaffray by Gilbert, earl of Strathearn, in 1200. Another reason why Comyn might want to found a monastery in his new earldom is that by founding a religious house where he was honoured as founder and patron, he had a symbol of territorial stability (Southern 1970, 244), which was important to someone coming from an immigrant Anglo-Norman background and who was, through marriage to the heiress of the earldom of Menteith, taking over a ‘native’ earldom (see McNiven 2011, 69–79 for a discussion of the politics of this period in Menteith). Here was a belief that God would help defend what one eminent historian has called a ‘weak title to land’ (Davis 1998, 253). Inchmahome was home to a group of Augustinian canons from 1238, and it made an ideal retreat from the secular world while remaining near centres of population which enabled the priory to be in close proximity to those to whom it offered pastoral care, and to its source of wealth, i.e. the land and the people who worked upon it. However, there had been some kind of religious structure, possibly a parish church (Cowan and Easson 1976, 91), on Inchmahome before the foundation of the priory in 1238. Between 1189 and 1198,7 ‘Malcolm, parson of Inchmahome’ (Malcolmo persona de Insula Macholem) witnessed a charter of Cambuskenneth Abbey, near Stirling (Camb. Reg. no. 122). It is often stated by earlier writers that there was a ‘Culdee settlement’ on the island before the Augustinians built their priory (e.g. Hutchison 1899, 133), but there is no medieval evidence for this, and in any case many earlier historians were writing in an age when any group of clerics not of the reformed orders tended to be labelled ‘Celtic’ or ‘Culdee’. However, what is not clear is whether Malcolm the parson was the only cleric on Inchmahome at this time or whether he was part of a group of clerics like the personae mentioned in the Augustinian’s Account of the St Andrews Foundation Legend (PNF 3, 602,
7 In Camb. Reg. the date of this charter is 1210, but Gilbert Márkus (pers. comm.) has recently dated it to 1189 × 1198.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 55 608).8 The combination of island and religious house has parallels elsewhere in Scotland, for example Iona, Inchcolm, Isle of May, Isle of Loch Tay priory and at St Serf’s Island in Loch Leven where a Céli Dé establishment was taken over by Augustinians from St Andrews (Veitch 1999). Nevertheless, while there are certain similarities between places such as Lochleven Priory and St Andrews regarding the combination of Céli Dé, personae and Augustinians, the evidence for this combination at Inchmahome is at best only circumstantial and analogical. The name Inchmahome commemorates an early medieval saint. It had been thought that the island and the church on it were named after St Colmán of Druim Mór (Drumore) in County Down (Forbes, Kalendars, 304–05; MacKinlay 1904, 298–99; MacKinlay 1914, 93; Watson 1926, 279). This belief may have been based on the Aberdeen Breviary and the Martyrology of Aberdeen, liturgical books dating from the 16th century. In the Aberdeen Breviary, for 9th of June, it is written: In cuius eciam honore monasterium quod Inchemaholmoch dicitur, Dunblenensis dioceses, solenniter dedicatum est (The monastery called Inchmahome in the diocese of Dunblane is also solemnly dedicated in his honour) (Macquarrie 2012, 128–89; Aberdeen Breviarium fol. cii)
TheMartyrology of Aberdeen states vij. Idus Junij.—In Scotia Sancti Colmoci episcopi et confessoris apud Inchmahomo – sepultus de quo in insula monasterium canonicorum regulare vita patrocinante Colmoco Deo famulancium vbi tanto iocun- dius celebrantur sua natalicia quanto salubrius claruerunt eius miracula (7th day of the Ides of June: In Scotland (the feast) of St Colman bishop and confessor buried at Inchmahome; in the island there is regular mon- astery of canons serving God under the patronage of this Colmocus, where the more joyfully his birthday9 is celebrated, the more beneficially his miracles will shine) (Aberdeen Martyrology in Laing 1854–57, 264).10
As well as being dedicated to saints (and objects) culted locally, e.g. Inchcolm and Columba, St Andrews and Andrew, and the Holy Rood or Cross at 8 Rogers (1997, 77–79) discusses this problem of the definition of persona and states that ‘it seems that persona or parson was adopted into Scottish legal terminology [in the 12th century] only with the precise meaning of parish priest …’ Simon Taylor (PNF 3, 608, n336) discusses more recent thinking. 9 Note that a ‘birthday’ of a saint is actually their death-day, the day they are born into eternal life. 10 Thanks to Dr Simon Taylor for his help with this translation.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 56 Peter McNiven Holyrood, an Augustinian establishment was usually dedicated to either Christ, Mary or the Apostles, and Inchmahome, like Cambuskenneth, may have been dedicated to Mary. I have found no written evidence for a Mary dedication for Inchmahome, but a drawing of the seal of the priory shows Mary with the infant Jesus on her knee (MacGregor Stirling 1815, 111; Hutchison 1899, 131; MacKinlay 1910, 161). It was not unusual for Mary to be associated with another saint at Scottish monastic houses; she was, for example, paired with Cuthbert at Coldingham and Machutus at Lesmahagow (Hammond 2010, 74). In the later Middle Ages, at least, the Augustinian priory was also dedicated to Colmán, which indicates that the Augustinians wished to commemorate the saint they saw as the founder of the original religious establishment on the island. The seal mentioned above also shows the figure of a bishop, which is probably meant to represent St Colmán. In reality, however, the allegiance to Colmán is actually evidence of a late dedication, as it post-dates the foundation of the priory in c.1238. Indeed, the Bollandist scholar, Paul Grosjean, called it ‘une inventione médiévale’ (Grosjean 1961, 345), and Ronald Black believes that it was ‘unlikely that popular tradition distinguished Colmán from St Columba’ (Black 1999, 19), although Márie Herbert believes Colmán is the ‘likeliest candidate for patron of Inchmahome’ (Herbert 2008, 263). It was believed that St Colmán to be the founder and bishop of the see of Druim Mór possibly in the fifth century (Muhr 1996, 104), although according to a Life of Colmán composed in the 12th or 13th centuries, he was a contemporary of St Patrick, Colum Cille and a teacher of St David of Wales (Herbert 2008, 255). There is no link with Scotland in the Life (Grosjean 1961, 344; Herbert 2008), and the cult of Colmán is probably a fragmentation of the cult of Colm Cill (Ó Riain 2011, 188). The Colmán connection seems to come through the influence of St Malachy, the 12th-century Irish reformer (Barrow 2003, 163–65; Duncan 1975, 150). Malachy, bishop of Down, the diocese where Druim Mór is located, and a papal legate (Herbert 2008, 258), had visited the Augustinian abbey of Arrouaise, and then David I at Carlisle on his journey back to Ireland from Rome in 1140. It is surely significant that shortly afterwards David founded an Augustinian house based on the Arrouaise model at Cambuskenneth. It is possible that Cambuskenneth, the nearest Augustinian house to Inchmahome, was the source of clergy to populate Inchmahome, and from the monastery near Stirling came the idea that Colmán of Druim Mór was the saint behind Inchmahome (Herbert 2008, 261). However, if the original dedication is not Colmán of Druim Mór, then who is the saint behind Inchmahome? Simon Taylor has argued cogently that the saint in question is probably St Columba (Taylor 2000, 114). There are several Columba dedications on the route from Iona to Lindisfarne, and one of these,
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 57 Taylor suggests, is Inchmahome, the ‘island of Mo-Cholmóc’ (Taylor 2000, 114–15). What seems to have happened is that the Augustinians had arrived at a place with a saint embedded in its name, and perhaps not being entirely sure who it was, consulted with their Irish counterparts who suggested Colmán of Druim Mór based on evidence from their calendars of saints (Herbert 2008, 262–63). This is a good opportunity to debunk a myth which still has currency today. In 1815 William MacGregor Stirling, minister of Port of Menteith, wrote that he had been ‘informed by good authorities’ that Inchmahome ‘signifies Isle of Rest’ (MacGregor Stirling 1815, 32). He added ‘this etymology11 harmonising so well with monastic retirement, the writer has, by poetic licence, availed himself’ (loc. cit.). What is most interesting regarding the meaning ‘Isle of Rest’ is that while toponymists such as MacKinlay, Watson and Taylor do not mention or consider this derivation, and thereby implicitly reject it, the 2003 edition of the official guide to the priory produced by Historic Scotland, mentions it three times within its 32 pages (Carver 2003, 3, 17, 19).12 The irony is that MacGregor Stirling retracted this dubious derivation himself in the early 19th century. A. F. Hutcheson, in his book on the history of Inchmahome, published in 1899, states that Mr. M’Gregor Stirling himself eventually gave up his cherished deriva- tion from Innis-mo-thamb, and with it, of course, the poetical interpreta- tion Isle of my Rest. In a manuscript addition to his Notes on Inchmahome … he says, ‘This etymology [Innis-mo-thamb] must give way to Isle of St. Columba, or St. Cholmoc’ (Hutcheson 1899, 76–67)13
11 In a footnote he states ‘the Gaelic, in which the t is quiescent, is Inschemathamhe’. It is worth citing fully his comments from later in his book regarding the name Inchmahome: ‘Insche- ma-chame, or Innis-mo-thamh, “Isle of my Rest” was probably the name in pagan times. We may account for the subsequent change to Inchmahome, or Inchmahomo, by supposing it a latinised and monkish corruption of the original Gaelic. Or say, it is a corruption of Saint Colmock, which might have been translated, ma, ‘good’ and chamhe, ‘Colmocus’; we may admit the possibility of a corruptive coalition of the pagan and Christian, the Gaelic and the Latin names. It seems impossible to say which of them might, or might not, by the negligence of a Saxon scribe, have been transformed into Inchmaquomock (sic). [The writer] not being a Gaelic scholar, he submits to the forgoing conjectures with due diffidence. They may be so far useful, should they lead to discussion among competent judges’ (MacGregor Stirling 1815, 119–20). 12 See p. 3 ‘… Inchmahome, otherwise known as “the isle of rest”; p. 17 ‘THE STORY OF INCHMAHOME: The Isle of Rest’; p. 19 ‘Known also as the ‘Isle of Rest …’ 13 MacGregor Stirling was not convinced about the Columba dedication being Columba of Iona, but rather he thought it was ‘A saint of the name of Columba, and whose birth was English and noble, is mentioned by Fordun as having been buried at Dunblane about the year 1000 AD (Scotichronicon, sub anno 1295)’ (Hutchison 1899, 77). See Scotichronichon (Vol. 6,
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 58 Peter McNiven MacGregor Stirling confirms this in a report which became the basis for the New Statistical Account for Port of Menteith parish,14 writing ‘... the island of St Columba, as Inch-ma-home is supposed to signify …’ (NSA x, 1097). Only once in the 2003 Historic Scotland guide is there a reference that the island priory may be dedicated to a saint, St Colmán. While the 2010 edition of the guide is an improvement in only mentioning ‘Isle of Rest’ once (Owen 2010, 22),15 it remains the case that if place-names are to be taken seriously, then toponymists need to try and ensure the guardians of Scotland’s heritage do not mislead the public with what is nothing more than spurious romanticism. There were apparently four chapels attached to the priory (NSA x, 1105; Hutchison 1899, 141; Carver 2003, 19): one at Inchie PMH, where there is a chapel marked on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map; the second at Arnchly PMH (now lost, but it was on the western edge of Lake of Menteith, south of Malling), which may have as its second (specific) element Gaelic claidhe ‘burial’, and where there is an old burial ground marked on the 1st edn OS map; the third at Chapelarroch DRY STL (NS517958), from Gaelic caibeal làraich ‘ruined chapel’. It is 300 metres north of Dalmary DRY STL, dail Màiri ‘the haughland of (St) Mary’, and 400 metres west of Arns DRY STL, derived from G earrann ‘portion, share, division’, which, as we shall see, may denote lands belonging to Inchmahome. The fourth chapel was Chapel of Boquhapple KMA. Boquhapple is said to be ‘house [or toun] of the chapel’ (NSA x, 1105; Hutchison 1899, 141; MacKay 2003, 24), but Gaelic both chapaill (earlier both chapuill [Bucopill 1317, Buchchoppill 1330; see McNiven 2011, 371–74 for discussion]) ‘hut, sheiling of the horse/mare’ is to be preferred. This is not to say that there was no chapel of Inchmahome at Boquhapple, or indeed at the other three places mentioned above, but I have been unable to find references to them as chapels in medieval texts, although Chapelarroch and Arnchly contain references to an ecclesiastical function in their names.
60–61 [Book XI, chapter 21]): ‘Habet enim ecclesia Dumblanensis justum titulum ad totum dominium de Appilbi, de Congere, de Troclingham et de Malemath in Anglia ex donacione reguli et domini eorundem cuius filium a mortuis resuscitavit Sanctus Blaanus (nepos ex sorore Sancti Katani), quem baptizavit Blaanus et Columbam eum nominavit; uterque mirabilis in vita et miraculis coruscans, Columba in Dumblan’ et Blaanus in Botha insula tumulantur’ (Indeed, the church of Dunblane has just title to the whole lordship of Appleby,”Congere”, “Troclingham”, and “Malemath” in England, as gift of the under-king and lord thereof whose son St Blane (nephew by his sister to St Chattan) raised from the dead. Blane baptised him and named him Columba. Each of these was admirable in life and spectacular for his miracles. Columba is buried at Dunblane and Blane on the Isle of Bute)’. 14 MacGregor Stirling died in 1833 (Fasti iv, 360). 15 ‘… it was also known as Isle of Rest’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 59 There were, as we have seen, eight parishes in Menteith. I do not intend to give a full history of each parish here, for we are more concerned with the place-names of an ecclesiastical nature within each parish (see McNiven 2011 and PNPER 1 for details of each parish and its development). However, as a brief outline we should note the locations of the medieval churches and when each church comes on record.
Aberfoyle Aberfoyle is said to have been a monastery of Berach in an 11th- to 13th- century Life of Berach (for whom, see below). The church, which sits next to the Pow Burn, 500 metres south of the present day village of Aberfoyle, is first noted as ecclesi de Abirful in 1260 (Fraser, Menteith ii, 213). The parsonage was a prebend of Dunblane Cathedral by 1500 (RSS i no. 595; Cowan 1967, 3), and may have been appropriated to Inchmahome at a date unknown (Fasti iv, 334).
Callander, Kilmahog and Leny Callander is the largest parish in Menteith stretching from the watershed between Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine in the west to Uamh Bheag on the border with Kilmadock (KMA) in the east, a distance of 35km. It is also 13.5km wide at its widest. Yet the three medieval parish churches of Callander, Leny and Kilmahog were within 2km of each other at the eastern end of this extensive area near the modern town of Callander. This may have much to do with density of population, itself influenced by geography.16 Callander was given to Bishop Clement of Dunblane as a mensal church for the cathedral by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, in 1238 (McGregor Stirling 1815, 113–16; Inchaffray Liber, xxxii; Fraser, Menteith ii, no. 74; Cockburn 1959, 52). The medieval church of Callander stood near the mound marked on the current OS Explorer map as Tom ma Chisaig ‘mound of my Kessog’ at the northern end of the bridge of Callander. In 1771, despite wishing to ‘have the stance of the Kirk continued in the present Kirkyard’, the parishioners saw their church moved to the centre of modern day Callander (Thompson 1985, 18). Callander came to include the much smaller parishes of Kilmahog and Leny, both of which are discussed below.
Kilmadock First on record in Bagimond in 1274 as Kylmadoc (Bagimond’s Roll (Dunlop),
16 For a similar situation, see parish maps of Kilmorack and Kiltarlity INV in Crawford and Taylor 200).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 60 Peter McNiven 53, 72), the remains of the old church of Kilmadock are situated on a bluff above the confluence of the Annat Burn with the River Teith at NN706025. The church remained at the junction of the River Teith and Annat Burn until 1756, when a new church was built in Doune (OSA xx, 41). The church was appropriated to Inchmahome before 1429 when the vicar’s teinds were appropriated to the chancellorship of Dunblane Cathedral (CSSR iii, 16; Cowan 1967, 102–03; Cockburn 1959, 52).
Kincardine in Menteith Kincardine first comes on record in 1189 × 1195 when it was appropriated to Cambuskenneth Abbey as a gift of the king (RRS ii, no. 371). A graveyard near the modern church is the resting place of the Muschets, who first came to the area in reign of William I, and is probably the site of the original church. It has been speculated recently that the burial enclosures in the churchyard today may contain the remains of the medieval nave and chancel (Oram and Fawcett 2008, KRD). The parish of Kincardine consisted of two parts prior to 1891. The parish of Kilmadock reached the River Forth leaving the main, or eastern, part of Kincardine, centred on the parish church and the area around what is now Blair Drummond, separate from the western part, centred on Boquhapple, and later, Thornhill. In 1891 the parish boundaries of Kilmadock and Kincardine underwent a dramatic change in the south in 1891 in order to make a unified parish of Kincardine which had previously been split into two parts: Kincardine was joined together by transferring a portion of Kilmadock to Kincardine (Shennan 1892).
Kippen The church of Kippen was thought to have been the ancient burial grounds of the indigenous earls of Menteith (Camb. Reg. cxxix; Hutchison 1899, 123). This may go some way to explaining why the parish, entirely south of the Forth and divided between Perthshire and Stirlingshire, was in Menteith, although exactly when it came into the possession of the earls of Menteith remains unknown.17 It may be that Kippen was assigned to the earldom much earlier to supplement the arable land, which, given the upland and boggy nature of much of the earldom, must have been in short supply. The location of the original church is puzzling. It may have been within the village where the ruins of the pre-Reformation church stand, or it may have been, as local tradition states, on the Keir Hill of Dasher just north of the village of Kippen (Begg 2000, 17 The River Forth was the boundary between Perthshire and Stirlingshire, but Menteith was divided between the two counties prior to 1891 (see McNiven 2011, 411 for details of this division; a map can be found at p. 564).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 61
Map 1: The Parish of Kincardine in Menteith: medieval period–1891 N Stirling
1 km
h t r o F
r
e v
i R DLE PER medieval period-1891 ater Course County boundary W Parish boundary Parish kirk Settlement mentioned in text
Kilmadock
Stirlingshire th
The Parish of Kincardine-in-Menteith ei T er Abbreviations: DLE Dunbland and Lecropt GGK Gargunnock KMA KPN Kippen PER Perthshire PMH Port-of-Menteith SNI St Ninians STL + Riv SNI STL KRD PER Blairdrummond + Kincardine Kirk fers KMA PER
th r o Arnieve The Of F r e v i
R
GGK STL
eith
T KMA PER
er
iv
R
ater W
die o h
rt
Chapel of Boquhapple Go o Boquhapple F KRD PER (det.) er v i
R KPN STL KMA PER PMH PER
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 62 Peter McNiven
Map 2: The Parish of Kincardine in Menteith: 1891–1975 N Stirling
1 km
h t r o F
r
e v
i R 1891-1975 DLE PER DLE ater Course County boundary W Parish boundary Parish kirk Settlement mentioned in text Kilmadock
Stirlingshire th
The Parish of Kincardine-in-Menteith ei T er Abbreviations: DLE Dunbland and Lecropt GGK Gargunnock KMA KPN Kippen PER Perthshire PMH Port-of-Menteith SNI St Ninians STL + Riv SNI STL KRD PER Blairdrummond + Kincardine Kirk fers
th r o Arnieve The Of F r e v i
R KMA PER
GGK STL
eith
T KMA PER
er
iv
R
ater W
die o h
rt
Chapel of Boquhapple Go o Boquhapple F
er v i
R KPN STL PMH PER PMH
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 63 29). This keir18 may have been the ceapan ‘small lump or hill’ from which the church, parish and village took their name. The church of Kippen was granted to the bishop of Dunblane by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, as a prebend of Dunblane Cathedral in 1238 (Cowan 1967, 116; Inchaffray Liber, xxix–xxxii), although the earl retained the rights to patronage (RMS ii no. 2306).
Port of Menteith After the priory of Inchmahome was built the parish church was re-located to the hamlet of Port of Menteith, where its successor still stands. There is a reference to the church of Port by the mid-15th century (CSSR v no. 1158). The kirk was still annexed to the priory at the Reformation (Assumptions, 544, 548).
Early ecclesiastical elements: cill, annaid and *eglēs In Menteith there are three notable early church elements: cill, annaid and *eglēs. Indeed, the parish of Kilmadock has all three within 4km of each other. We will deal with the element cill first. There are two places in Menteith containing this element – Kilmadock and Kilmahog – with another, Kilbryde, just over the border from Kilmadock in Dunblane and Lecropt parish. All three were parish centres in the medieval period. Only one, Kilmadock, has survived as a parish into the modern era. Nearby, in Lennox, is one other cill-name, Kilmaronock parish, Dunbartonshire.19 It is thought that these belong to a group of early Gaelic church-names found in many parts of Scotland, although more often in the west. Cill is the dative of Old Gaelic cell, deriving from the Latin cella, meaning ‘cell, church’. The exact dating of their foundation is not clear, but Simon Taylor has said that there is evidence for cill-names in eastern Scotland ‘by the mid-eighth century’ (Taylor 1998, 3). We should be clear, however, that the date of a church’s foundation and the acquisition of its name need not always be the same, and also remember that cill-names continued to be formed into the late medieval and early modern periods, as long as Gaelic was spoken locally (Butter 2007, 5–6).
18 Note that keir is not Brit. caer ‘fort’ here, but rather a borrowing into Scots and applied to a small hill with fortifications or resembling a fort (seePNF 5, 414–15). 19 Killearn parish in Stirlingshire (and also in Lennox), is not a cill-name, but instead contains G ceann ‘head, end’. The earliest forms are: church of Kynerine 1234 × c.1270 Lenn. Cart., 36 [with half plough of land on which it stood erected, and which in Scottish (i.e. Gaelic) was called Lecheracherach, given by earl of Lennox to Stephen of Blantyre (Blantyr)]; Ricardo Setone rectore ecclesie de Kynherine 1272 × 1286 Lenn. Cart., 41 [date from POMS]; apud Kylhern 1423 RMS ii no. 165 (see
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 64 Peter McNiven One of the two cill-names in Menteith is Kilmahog. This church first comes on record in 1259 as a mensal church of the bishop of Dunblane (CPL i, 367; Fasti iv, 339; Cockburn 1959, 20, 70). The church does not appear on record again until 1494 (Fraser, Grandtully i, no. 25). Note that the identification with ecclesia De Sancto Maghot and ecclesia De Sancti Mathoco in Bagimond (Bagimond’s Roll (Dunlop), 54, 71) for Kilmahog is a mistake by Dunlop; these forms refer to St Madoes, east of Perth (Taylor 2005, 15). The territory of Kilmahog is difficult to define with any accuracy. However, there are at least two documents that give some indication as to the extent of the parish. In a charter of 1572, Donald Dewar held the lands of Garrindewar in dominio de Stogartnay (RMS iv no. 2092; Márkus 2009, 125, 139–40). The same charter tells us that ‘the lands of Garrindewar [were] founded for the ringing of a bell before dead people in the parish of Kilmahog in the time of papistry’.20 The whereabouts of Garrindewar are seen on a plan made by John Leslie, a surveyor for the Annexed Estates in 1775, who shows Gartenjore in the lands of Portnellan on the northern shores of Loch Venachar at approximately 0.5km north-west of Portnellan.21 Both Garrindewar and Gartenjore are forms of Gaelic *Gart an Dèoraidh ‘enclosed field or settlement of the relic-keeper’. Another charter dating to 1620 shows that other lands in Kilmahog included Landrick (now Lendrick Lodge at NN549064), Offrance # (NN542060), and Choischambie # (NN546062), all given as being ‘in the parish of Kilmahog’ (in parochia de Kilmahwg) (RMS viii no. 172).22 These tounships are shown as being at the western end of Loch Venachar, but since Kilmahog and Gartenjore were at the eastern end of the loch, it may be that the parish of Kilmahog consisted of the lands on the northern shore of Loch Venachar.23 There is an ambiguity here, however, since an Annexed Estate plan of 1775 shows that some of the lands, including Milton of Callander CLD and Blairgarry CLD along the northern shore belonged at that time to the Earl of Moray, whose lands were not forfeited after the rebellion of 1745; the lands lying at the eastern and western ends of Loch Venachar belonged to the Earl of Perth, whose lands were forfeited (NRS E777/313/2). It seems these lands had been divided in the later medieval
20 The text of which reads ‘que olim pro pulsatione unius campane coram mortuis personis infra parochiam de Kilmahug tempore papismatis fundate erant’ (Márkus 2009a, 139–40). This document is also in NAS as GD112/76/30. 21 NAS E777/313, pp.176–77. 22 The relevant part of the text of the charter reads ‘annuum redditum 300 merc. de terris de Lanerk (per Pat. Fergussoun alias Murdochesone occupatis), Offrance (per Arch. M’Claren occupat.), et Choischambie (per Jo. M’Kerres et Jo. Buchannane alias Leany occupatis), in parochia de Kilmahwg, senesc. de Menteith, vic. de Perth’. 23 For discussion of these lands and their early forms see the survey of the parish of Callander in McNiven (2011).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 65 period, since they were all grouped together within the barony of Strathgartney in the Rentalia Domini Regis (Rental of the Lord King) (see ER vols ix–xv). But it may be that Kilmahog was a fragmented parish and included those lands along the northern shore of Loch Venachar, ranging from Bochastle in the east to Duncraggan in the west, that later belonged to the earl of Perth and which were forfeited after the 1745 Rebellion. It is not known exactly when Kilmahog was subsumed into Callander parish, but it may have been as late as the first quarter of the 17th century, when in 1620 there is mention of ‘the parish of Kilmahog’ (parochia de Kilmahwg) (RMS viii no. 172). Earlier place-name scholars have said this is Cill Mo-Chug; a church dedicated to St Cug (MacKinlay 1904, 111; MacKinlay 1914, 502; Watson 1926, 315). Cug is possibly Cuaca from Meath in Ireland. Her name is found in Kilcock, County Kildare, and in Kilquhochadale, Kirkcowan parish WIG (Kyrkecok 1214–49, Holyrood Liber no. 69) in the reign of Alexander II (1214–49); see also Watson 1926, 167. The fair day of Kilmahog was 15th November, which is problematic, for Cuaca’s day is apparently 8th January; 15th November is Machutus’s day. In an act of Charles II in favour of Alexander Stewart, earl of Moray, for changing his fairs at Doune dating to 1669, where we are told that ‘upon the fifteinth day of November called St Mahans day, which wes of old keept at the kirk of Kilmahong’ (NAS PA2/29, f.115v–116). St Mahan has been identified here by the editor of theRecords of the Parliaments of Scotland website with Machutus.24 If Machutus was the patron saint of Kilmahog, then we may be seeing the dedication of a British saint, who was identified as the saint in Lesmahago, Lanarkshire, by the monks of Kelso Abbey (Taylor 2009, 71–72; Watson 1926, 197). There is a possibility he could also be the saint in Loch Mahaick KMA, although what connections there were, if any, between Loch Mahaick and Kilmahog are unknown. The Machutus connection in Menteith might be strengthened by the fact that an island in Loch Ard AFE is apparently named after St Mallo (Geog. Coll. i, 343); Machutus is the Latin form of the name, most famously found in Brittany as St Mâlo. Nevertheless, whatever the possible circumstances of how Machutus may have become associated with Kilmahog, it may be considered doubtful that the name Mahog and its variants originally represented that saint. Kilmadock may be named after St Cadoc or Docus of Llancarvan or Docgwin of Llandough in northern Wales. Either way, the saint being commemorated here is probably a British saint from the sixth or seventh century (Brooke 1963, 298; Watson 1926, 327; Watson 1927). The name Kilmadock means ‘church of my Doc’, the ma, from mo, being an honorific prefix, a Gaelic equivalent
24
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 66 Peter McNiven to ‘saint’. James MacKinlay, writing in 1914, thought the church could have been dedicated to St Aedh, who was ‘better known perhaps under his honorific disguise as St Madoc or St Modoc’ (MacKinlay 1914, 147). The old church is marked St Aedh’s Church on the current 1:25,000 OS Explorer map, possibly under the influence of McKinlay. W. J. Watson disputed this dedication, saying that in this case it would have been M’Aedóc, which is stressed on the first syllable rather than on the second like Madoc (Watson 1926, 327). It is notable that the church is simply marked as ‘Kilmadock Church (ruins of)’ on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1863. The confusion may have arisen due to the fair day of Kilmadock. An Act of Parliament in 1669 allowed the earl of Moray, the main landholder in the parish, to change the fair days of Kilmadock and Kilmahog. In Kilmadock, the fair had been held on the feast day of St Mittans, which was 31st January (NAS. PA2/29, f.115v–116). Cadoc’s feast day was 24th January (Watson 1927, 12); the feast day of Aed of Ferns, an Irish saint, better known by his hypocoristic form Maedóc (Mo-Aedóc), was 31st January, and it is possible that St Mittans could be a garbled hypocorism for Mo-Aedóc (Márkus, pers. comm.). What may have happened is that Kilmadock was originally dedicated to Docus the Briton, but as with Columba at Inchmahome, people had lost sight of the original commemoration by the later middle ages. It may be that, as they cast around for an explanation as to who the saint in Kilmadock was, Maedoc, and the nearness of his feast day, was sufficient for him to be commemorated in the parish.25 There was a chapel at Lanrick, around 2km west of the old church of Kilmadock, implied by the Chapelland mentioned in 1509 (RMS ii no. 3347). It has been written that this was one of six chapels belonging to the ‘ancient monastery of St Madocus, now called Kilmadock’ (OSA xx, 89), but there is no medieval evidence for any monastery at Kilmadock. Another indication of the cult of Cadoc or Docgwin or similar, is the surname Doig. Deriving from Gille Doig ‘the Servant of St Cadoc’ (Black 1946, 212), the name is first mentioned as Dog in 1463, when Walter Dog is named as Keeper of Doune Castle (ER vii, 189). This seems to be the same Walter who became Chamberlain of Menteith in 1467 (ER vii, 572). Sir Thomas Dog was prior of Inchmahome from 1469 to 1477 Glas( . Mun. vol. ii, 76; Stirling Protocol Bk (Scot. Antiquary x, 117, 140); Watt and Shead 2001, 109). Alexander Dog, canon of Inchmahome, resigned the lands of Achnabana (Auchounbannow 1491; Auchinbanno 1628, possibly achadh na beannachd ‘the field of the blessing’; see McNiven 2011, 272–73), just north of Dounein 1491 (RMS ii no. 2059), while by that date Wat Dogg had given his name
25 My grateful thanks to Gilbert Márkus for his assistance here.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 67 Remains of the Parish Kirk of Kilmadock Kirk of the Parish Remains 1 Fig. Fig. Photo: The Author The Photo:
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 68 Peter McNiven (along with Wat Smyth) to Watston, 1km south-west of Doune (NAS, PA2/6, 1st part, f.28v). The name Dog or Doig is found throughout Kilmadock in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period (see Black 1946, 212, for a summary). Another early Gaelic ecclesiastical name in Kilmadock parish is Annet, from annaid, Old Irish andóit, often having the sense of ‘mother church’, but also a place where the relics of the patron saint of the parish were kept; the possession of relics would give an annaid the authority and status that would enable it to act as the mother church (Márkus, pers. comm.). It is unknown for an annaid to contain a saint’s dedication (MacDonald 1975, 137). We need not think of a name containing annaid as an early church site, but the element is an important indicator towards there being one in the surrounding district (Clancy 1995, 102; Taylor 1998, 8). Annaid place-names are generally in remote places, although in the case of Annet in Menteith (and possibly other Annats in Scotland) that may simply be because we have been blinded by the modern road network. The fact that we know there were a number of tounships in the vicinity in the Middle Ages suggests that the area was not so isolated. Annet is on the lower, gradual slopes of the Braes of Doune, only 3km north-west of the site of the old church of Kilmadock. Marked on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map almost half-way between Annet and the old church of Kilmadock is the Kirkton Knowe, a small rise said to contain ‘a chapel and graveyard’ (RCAHMS Canmore NMRS no. NN60SE 5). There may be a proprietorial aspect concerning Annet (Clancy 1995, 102), in that it could be the lands that supported a nearby church, possibly Kilmadock, i.e. the old church. Although evidence for this site only dates to the early 16th century, it seems that annaid dates in other parts of Scotland from the ninth to eleventh centuries (Clancy 1995, 111). Archaeological excavation of a long cist cemetery at Balnahanait (baile na h-annaid ‘the settlement of the annaid) on the northern side of Loch Tay has produced radiocarbon evidence dating to 640–780 AD (Lelong 2003, 7). However, it may be that the annaid in Kilmadock was the old church at Kilmadock – the Annet Burn, which flows past the church, was originally called *Allt na h-Annaide (Watson 1926, 251). The name of the burn may then have been transferred to a settlement that appeared on the banks of the burn sometime later.26 The whole question of early church sites in Kilmadock is complicated by the fact that there is another early church name nearby: Aiglesteinston (Eglysdissentyn 1267). This place-name is now lost, but Roy appears to show it on the banks
26 This is where Part 1 of theHistory Scotland article ends.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 69 Fig. 2 Roy’s Map of c.1750: showing the position of Aiglesteinston in relation to Annet and other tounships
Image Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland:
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 70 Peter McNiven of the Annat Burn, north of the tounship of Annet. However, Geoffrey Barrow (1983, 12) tentatively placed it in grid square NN6706, around 2km west of Annet, and the place-names on Roy’s map show that Barrow is indeed correct. What appears to be the Annet Burn on Roy is actually the Coillechat Burn, unless the tounships have been placed alongside the wrong burn on the map. If we take the tounships as reliable indicators of the whereabouts of Aiglesteinston, it was between Craigtoun27 and Ballachraggan.28 Two other names appear on the course of the burn shown on Roy; Balkorist (Balvorist) and Ballcanich (now a field name called Balmacansh).Aiglesteinston would seem to be at approximately Ordnance Survey grid reference NN679058, or perhaps it has been replaced by the name Drumloist29 or incorporated into the lands of that tounship. A confirmation charter of Alexander III in 1267 states that Broculy (i.e. Brackland, Callander parish) had a border with Eglysdissentyn (Fraser, Menteith ii, 217);30 this suggests that Aiglesteinston was a major estate, bigger than later medieval sources imply. It may be that the lands of Aiglesteinston went up to the Sruth Geal ‘white stream’, the burn that now defines part of the western border between Kilmadock and Callander. British *eglēs derives from the Latin ecclesia ‘church’ (Barrow 1983, Hough 2009). The second part of Aiglesteinston perhaps contains the saint’s name Iast or Iestyn, possibly an early Welsh saint; Iestyn son of Geraint seemingly founded churches at Llaniestyn in Anglesay and Caernarvonshire (Smith and Wace 1877–87 iii, 209). What connection he could have with Kilmadock is not known. In the place-name we may also have the possessive pronoun do ‘thy’ (Barrow 1983, 7). The possessives mo and do are often interchangeable as can be seen in Mobhì and Dabhì, saints names based on the name Berchán (Butter 2007, 104, 114). Another possibility is that the specific element is not Iast or Iestyn, but a Pictish cognate of Brit. seintyn ‘little saint’. The early forms for Aiglesteinston are remarkable.31 The differences in these early forms led Geoffrey Barrow initially to think that there were two eccles* - names in the area (see Barrow 2003 [1973], 52 and McNiven 2011, 273–74), but from 1456 to c.1750 this place is intimately connected with Ballachraggan in the source material. Barrow only has one *eccles-name in this area in his 1983 article; he had obviously come to the conclusion, correctly in my view, 27 Now lost, but was at NN680054 (RCAHMS Canmore NN60NE 42). 28 See, for example, ER ix, pp. 564 (1480), 597 (1484), 625 (1486), where Eglisdisdane is mentioned with Balnegregane, i.e. Eglisdisdane et Banegregane. 29 NN682061. 30 … medietate ville de Broculy cum pertinenciis, videlicet, illa medietate que iacet in parte uersus marchias de Eglysdissentyn (… half the toun of Brackland with pertinents, namely that half which lies in part against the marches of Aiglesteinston). 31 The early forms are set out in the Appendix to this article and in McNiven 2011, 173–74.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 71 that, despite the myriad of differing early forms, these related to the same place. From 1267 to 1502 they follow a recognisable pattern similar to its earliest form. However, once we reach 1528 the name changes and the specific becomes -chechynauche, before it becomes more like its earlier forms again in Roy. Quite what is happening here is not at all clear. It may be that another saint’s name, albeit now unrecognisable, had replaced Iestyn or seintyn, assuming of course the people of the area knew they were dealing with the *eglēs ‘church’ element. There may be a tenuous naming connection here between Kilmadock and Aggischechynauche, since in the Middle Ages it was believed – whether it was true or not – that Cadoc taught the Irish saint, Cainnech of Achadh Bó, at Llancarvan in North Wales. But why three early church terms in the one parish, and why so close to one another? It cannot be assumed that all three names were coined at around the same time. As well as being a mother church, annaid can also be a place in which a saint’s relics were kept (see DIL under andóit). This was thought to be the meaning of annaid in the late-19th century: Duncan Campbell, author of The Book of Garth and Fortingall, writes of the ‘annait or relic chapel’ in Glenorchy (Campbell 1888, 48–49). The case for Annet KMA being a ‘place where a saint’s relics were kept’, might be strengthened if we take into account W. J. Watson’s comment that he received information about Severie in Kilmadock from a ‘Miss Margaret Dewar, of the old family of Dewars of Severie and Annat [sic]’ (Watson 1926, 261 note 1). It has been noted above in the discussion of Gartenjore that a ‘dewar’, from G dèoradh, was a relic-keeper. There have been Dewars in Kilmadock since at least 1402, but Watson suggests they may be much older than that. If the Dewars had been long established in Kilmadock, then it may be that Annet was either a place where the relics, presumably thought to have been those of Cadog (or whoever the patron saint was) were kept or perhaps it was the original dwelling place of the keeper of his relics. Near Annet is Severie, Suidhe a’ Bhritheimh ‘the seat of the judge’ where oaths were taken on the relics (Watson 1927, 9). We have already noted that an important part of the dewar’s duty was ceremonial, such as ringing a bell in a burial procession in the case of the parish of Kilmahog. Relics were used in other ceremonies such as the granting of land and swearing of oaths, as was the case in Carolingian France and early medieval Wales and Ireland (Ganshof 1964, 30, 77; Márkus 2009, 118–24). We have no evidence of such use in Menteith, but it must rank as another task of the dewar. Aiglesteinston remains an enigma. If it is not lands of an early British or Pictish church, as has been argued by Alan James for the element *eglēs in England (James 2009a; see also idem, this volume, pp. 23–25), then Aiglesteinston may have been an early church which had been supplanted by or transferred to the
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 72 Peter McNiven site of the old kirk of Kilmadock. Ultimately, however, we may simply have to take Geoffrey Barrow’s advice and admit that we may never know why some chapels and churches never made it to parochial status, but instead are among the ‘very large number of ecclesiastical place-names in cill, *eccles, cladh etc. which have survived in the record, tradition and current use, far in excess of the total known parishes’ (Barrow 1989, 10).
Saints commemorated in Menteith place-names There are a number of places which contain saints’ names; one Kil-name on the borders of Menteith, Kilbryde, Dunblane and Lecropt parish, was dedicated to St Brigit. W. J. Watson states that the original saint, Brigit (Bridget) of Kildare, who died in Ireland in the first half of the sixth century, was so popular that at least 15 other saints took her name (Watson 1926, 161), although these are probably local manifestations of the cult of Brigit of Kildare. The ancient church of Abernethy, also in Dunblane diocese, was dedicated to St Brigit of Kildare (ES i, cxx–cxxi). North of Callander there are the remains of St Bride’s Chapel at the southern end of Loch Lubnaig, which must be the ‘chaplaincy and hermitage of Lubnaig’ (capellania et Hermetage de Lupnow) mentioned in 1503 (RMS ii no. 2751).32 St Bride’s Chapel is undoubtedly old for two stone cross slabs were found in work carried out at the site in 1934 and 1971 (RCAHMS Canmore NMRS no. NN50NE 3). They have been dated to between the 11th and 13th centuries. There are two place-names associated with the chapel; Creag a’ Chaibeil and Àth a’ Chaibeil ‘the rock’ and ‘the ford of the chapel’ respectively. The former is opposite the chapel next to the A84 main road, while the latter is a ford across the Garbh Uisge to Coireachrombie. In Kilmadock there are two chapels dedicated to St Fillan: one within Doune Castle and the other 1km south-east of the castle. Both these chapels are mentioned in a charter of 1581 to Sir James Stewart, lord of Doune, later earl of Moray, ‘the advocatioun, donatioun and rycht of patronage of the cheplanrie of Sanct Phillane, situatit within the said castell of Doun, and [the chepell of] the cheplanrie of Sanct- Phillane, situatit without the samyn’ (NAS, PA2/12, ff.79v–80r). When these chapels were built is unknown, but the one inside the castle presumably must post- date the building of the castle c.1380,33 making it probable that Robert duke of
32 See McNiven (2011, 258–59) for my argument that this is not a hermitage or chapel of Lipney, Logie parish STL, as seen in RCAHMS (2001, 16), McGloin (1967, 58) and McRoberts (1965, 213). 33 Although, as Gilbert Márkus (pers. comm.) points out, ‘one can imagine that a castle was built at a site where a chapel existed, and that the service of the chapel was maintained. Indeed, this might explain the presence of another chapel of the same dedication outside the castle – the people who once had access to the original one, now inside a castle and not open to the public, must make do with a new one outside’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 73 Fig. 3 A Cross Discovered at the Site of St Bride’s Chapel
Photo: The Author
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 74 Peter McNiven Albany was responsible for the dedication, for Fillan was a favourite saint of Robert I and the early Stewart kings (Taylor 2001, 191). The chapel outside the castle was extant in 1518 (NAS GD224/906/1), but seems to have been in ruins by 1568 (Mackay 2003, 76). According to the Ordnance Survey Name Book in 1863, local tradition states it was one of six erected by Robert I to commemorate the victory of Bannockburn (NAS OS1/25/37/61). Just over 1km south-east from the chapel of St Fillan outside Doune Castle, on the estate of Row, was ‘Priest’s Croft’ (RCAHMS Canmore NS79NW 11), which may relate to the croft of a priest connected with the chapel.34 The cult of Fillan was also evident in Leny;35 in an account of the families of Leny and Buchanan of Leny, written c.1560, Robert Buchanan wrote that ‘the Lanyis of that Ilk hes bruikit that leving without any infeftment, except ane litill auld sourd, gauin to Gilesicmvir be the King, and ane auld relict callit Sant Fillanis tuithe, quhilke servit thaim for thar chartour quhyle Alexander his dayis’ (Fraser, Stirling, 414). This is a reference to a time when lands were held prior to the introduction of charters. The church of Leny (Lanyn) was appropriated to Inchmahome in the agreement between the earl of Menteith and the bishop of Dunblane of 1238 (Inchaffray Liber, xxxi). Leny was still a separate parish in 1576 when Duncan M’Kynnair is named as ‘vicarii de Lanye’ (RMS iv no. 2524). Like Kilmahog, the territorial extent of Leny is difficult to determine, all that we can be sure of is that it consisted of the estate of Leny on the north side of the Garbh Uisge. However, it must have once been larger, for in 1615 a charter to John, earl of Mar, Leny was divided between the three parishes of Callander, Kincardine and Port of Menteith (RMS vii no. 1222; see also McNiven 2011, 153–54). John Leslie, in his survey of CLD for the Commissioners of the Annexed Estates in 1775, wrote ‘At this place where the Old Kirk [of Callander] stood is a pretty little Mount called Tamakessok retaining its name from St McKessock Bishop and confessor here anno 520 whose Anniversary is kept the 10th day of March by a market held that day’ (NAS E777/313/3). This fair was called Latha Fhéill Mo-Cheasaig (Black 2000, 19). Kessog is especially associated with Luss DNB, where he is supposed to have been martyred and buried, and is
34 The Canmore reference given states ‘Mrs Row-Fogo, Row House, in whose family the Row estate has been for the past 500 years … states that the field centred on NN74359960 is known as “Priest’s Croft” ’. 35 It is possible that Kippen also had a dedication to St Fillan. In 1536, Margaret Wilson was granted the lands of Arnbeg in Kippen Parish, with mill and lands, reddendo ‘pro molendino et ejus terris dimediam celd. farine capellano capelle S. Phillani’ (RMS iii no. 1574). However, it is not clear where this St Fillan’s Chapel, associated with Arnbeg’s mill, was located. It may be it was the chaplain at, for example one of the chapels of St Fillan at Doune, who held these rights in Kippen.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 75 The Original Site of Leny Kirk Original The 4 Fig. Fig. Photo: The Author The Photo:
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 76 Peter McNiven also associated with Auchterarder and Comrie PER (Watson 1926, 278). In Glenfinglas is Gleann Casaig (Glenkassik 1451 ER v, 476), which probably commemorates Kessog. Nearby is Cladh nan Casan (or ‘Ceasanach’ as W. J. Watson has it), which seems to mean ‘graveyard of Kessog’s people’ (Watson 1926, 278). Kessog’s name also appears in personal names in Menteith: Murtho Kessokissone and Kessok Murthauson are both mentioned as tenants in the lands of Cessintullie KMA in 1486 (ER ix, 627). The church at Kincardine was dedicated to St Lolanus: the 16th century Martyrology of Aberdeen mentions ‘In Scotland St Lolanus bishop and confessor of Kincardine near Stirling’ (In Scocia Sancti Lolani episcopi et confessoris de Kyncardin prope Stirling) (Laing 1854–57, 268). The Martyrology and the Aberdeen Breviary have his day as ‘x Kl. Octobris’, i.e. 22nd September (Laing 1854–57, 268; Macquarrie with Butter 2012, 377–78).36 The story of how Lolanus came to Scotland is marvellously absurd, not only in its telling of how the saint cut off his arm to give back a key that would open a door back in Rome only if his hand was attached to it, but also in the fact that he is meant to have been a nephew of Serf and died in 1054. Given that Lolanus was said to be a contemporary with St. Serf (died possibly c.614), he would have been long lived indeed (Macquarrie with Butter 2012, 415). In a charter dated to 1189 × 1195 Kincardine was granted to the Augustinian abbey of Cambuskenneth. The abbey was to have ‘thirteen acres of arable, a brewer’s toft with a garden, a toft for St Lolanus’s Bell with a garden, and a toft for St Lolanus’s Crosier with a garden’ (RRS ii, no. 372).37 Richard Oram proposed that the tofts mentioned above were for the keepers of Lolanus’s bell and crosier, and he suggested that these keepers may have been dèoraidhean ‘hereditary keepers’ (Oram and Fawcett 2008, KRD).38 While there is no other evidence for this type of what Oram called ‘quasi-religious officer’ in Kincardine, they existed elsewhere in Menteith, as we have seen in Kilmahog and the discussion of Dewars in Kilmadock, and we also know that dèoraidhean looked after the relics of St Fillan in the medieval parish of Killin (Taylor 2001, 186). Amazingly, after being lost for 250 years, what is thought to be the bell of St Lolan was discovered by a fisherman in the River Forth in 1929, and is now in the Museum of Religious Life, Glasgow (Appleby 1961, 133–38).39 However, it is possible that this bell 36 This was originally printed in Forbes,Calendars , 134. 37 ‘… ecclesiam de Kincardin cum capellis et decimis et oblationibus omnimodis et tresdecim acras terre arabilis et unum toftum brasiatoris cum uno orto, et unum toftum ad campanam Sancti Lolani cum uno orto, et unum toftum ad baculum Sancti Lolani cum uno orto …’ 38 See also Márkus 2009, 138, who mentions this passage regarding crofts pertaining to St Lolan’s bell and crosier in the context of dewars receiving lands elsewhere in Scotland. 39 The bell is 25cm × 14cm. The bell is also described in TGAS, New Series viii (1933), 144–46.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 77 Tom ma Chisaig: a regular, flat-topped mound in the parish of Callander ma Chisaig: a regular, Tom 5 Fig. Fig. Photo: The Author The Photo:
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 78 Peter McNiven is not authentic; it has recently been argued by Gilbert Márkus that ‘[t]here is no reason to suppose that the iron handbell now on display in St Mungo’s Museum, Glasgow, is St Lolan’s Bell, in spite of a rather hopeful tradition that it is. It was supposedly found in the River Forth, in the 1920s, but it is in far too good a condition for it to be a medieval bell which has lain in water for several centuries’ (Caldwell et al 2012, 238–39). It is well understood that place-names with saints’ names attached to them often take a hypocoristic form.40 It has been argued that the saints’ dedications of Aberfoyle and Kippen, which, as we shall see, seemingly contain different names, probably represent the same saint. Aberfoyle was dedicated to the Irish saint St Berach or Berchán (Watson 1926, 194, 225). Berchán is simply Berach with the diminutive suffixán - and syncope (Butter 2007, 103). In an Irish Life of that saint, Berach so amazed Aedán mac Gabráin, king of Dál Riata, with his miracles ‘[and] Aedan offered the fort to Berach: that is Eperpuill [Aberfoyle], a monastery of Berach’s in Alba (Ocus ro edhbair Aodhan an dun do Bherach. Conadh hí sin Eperpuill .i. cathair atá ag Berach i nAlbain)’ (Plummer vol. i, 35; Watson 1926, 225; Anderson 1980, 146; Butter 2007, 104). Although there are no place-names on any map associated with Berach/Berchán in Aberfoyle, a house now called Craigmore Guesthouse (and earlier called Abbeyfield) was named Feilbarachan. It was named after a field opposite that was used for the local games in the 1930s,41 and it may be this field, which lies between the River Forth and the Aberfoyle–Inversnaid road, that was used as the site of the fair in mid-October called Féill Bercháin.42 Near the site sometimes said to be the original site of the church of Kippen, Keir Hill of Dasher. In modern times Movean was assumed to have been the patron saint of the parish of Kippen (MacKinlay 1914, 79; Begg 2000, 17–18). However, this assumption is based on a well called St Mauvais Well and a fair in October called Semvie’s Fair (Black 1999, 42; MacKinlay 1914, 79). No
40 For more on saints’ names in place-names, see the Leverhulme funded Database of Scottish Hagiotoponyms from a project based at the University of Glasgow with Prof. Thomas Clancy, Dr Rachel Butter, Gilbert Márkus and Matthew Barr, at
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 79 actual dedication to the medieval kirk of Kippen itself has been found, but a chapel at Arnprior KPN was dedicated to St Bean; in the 1440s, Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in the Firth of Forth, wrote of ‘Arnprior where there is a chapel of St Bean’ (Ernefrear ubi capella Sancti Beani) (Bower Scotichron Bk 2, ch. 10 (vol. 2, p. 190)). Movean is clearly for Mo Bhean, while Semvie is a contraction of St Mo Bhí. It is possible that Bean is Beóán, whose main church was in Co. Down in Ulster, although it could be that he was a British saint – there is a Kirkbean in Kirkcudbrightshire.43 Bean is also found by the 13th century in Kinkell PER and Fowlis Wester PER (Inchaffray Chrs nos. 9 and 28); he is Mobí in a calendar produced at Fowlis Wester. There was a Sanct Mavane’s Mill at Buchanty PER on record in 1542 (RMS iii no. 2832).
Lands belonging to the medieval church The church in Menteith could not have functioned if it did not have people to administer it and the sacraments. There are a small number of place-names in Menteith that recall what we may term officers of the church. We have already mentioned the dewar above. The highest ranking official is the bishop, found in Achadh an Easbuig ‘the field of the bishop’, just over 2km north-west from the site of the church of Leny. The earliest reference is from the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map of 1866, but the name may date from 1237–38. In 1237, Pope Gregory assigned to the bishop of Dunblane ‘if it can be done without grave scandal, a quarter of the teinds of all the parish churches of the Diocese of Dunblane’ (Cockburn 1959, 48–49). Other churches certainly had to give a quarter of their teinds to Dunblane: at the Reformation the quarter of the teinds of the kirks of Tulliallan, Glendevon and Fossoway were assessed, as was ‘the bischoppis parte’ of the vicarage of Muthill (Assumptions, 349). As has been noted, Leny was appropriated to Inchmahome Priory in 1238, the year after the quarter of the teinds were assigned to the bishop of Dunblane, and so there may have been a need to distinguish which area of the parish paid the dues to the bishop and which area paid dues to the priory. Therefore, the produce of Achadh an Easbuig may have been equivalent to the quarter of the teinds of the parish of Leny that was paid to the bishop of Dunblane, even though in theory it should have been a quarter of the teinds of the whole parish that was collected by the bishop. Whether or not the quarter of the teinds of Leny were collected throughout the Middle Ages is unclear. Deanston KMA was named after Walter Drummond, dean of Dunblane
43
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 80 Peter McNiven Cathedral between 1497 and 1512 (Cockburn 1959, 261). I have found no record of Deanston earlier than 1585 (RMS v no. 842). Cockburn states that he was ‘the proprietor of Sackentown (i.e. Sauchinthome KMA), which was changed in name to Deanston, after him’ (Cockburn 1959, 261). It is notable that it is called ‘villam et terras capellanias de Sauchinthome alias Denstoun’ (the toun and chapel-lands of Sauchinthome alias Deanston) (RMS v no. 842), and therefore Cockburn’s assertion is eminently reasonable. Across the River Teith form Deanston is Clarkton KMA, which may be ‘settlement or farmstead of the cleric’. This may relate to the cathedral of Dunblane, but its very late appearance on Stobie’s map of Perthshire of 1783 admits the possibility that the name relates to someone with the surname Clark, but its proximity to Deanston is striking. In Aberfoyle are two place-names denoting ‘priest’: Mulan an t-Sagairt ‘the knoll of the priest’ (NN419034), and Creag Bhuail an t-Sagairt ‘the crag of the cattle-fold of the priest’ (NN481018), while in Callander on the western side of Loch Lubnaig, is Maol an t-Sagairt ‘the maol of the priest’ (NN583123). These three names are only first on record on the 1st edn 6 inch OS map in 1866, and although I have been unable to find any traditions associated with them, they must pre-date the Protestant Reformation of 1560. It may be that in the vast parish of CLD, where, as we have seen, all the medieval parish churches of Callander, Leny and Kilmahog were congregated at the eastern end of the parish, the priest had to travel to exercise his office. There appear to be no ecclesiastical place-names between modern Brig o’ Turk and Glengyle. There are burial grounds at the western end of Loch Katrine shown, one of which was the burial ground of the MacGregors, and was seemingly called Dal Naomh ‘holy haugh, water meadow’. In Glenfinglas, before it was flooded to make a reservoir, were Dal Naomh ‘holy haugh, water meadow’ and Tom Naomh ‘holy knoll’ (Hutchison 1879, 61). There is also the burial ground at Cladh nan Casan, mentioned above. Nearby is Linne a’ Chluig ‘the pool of the bell’, although it is not known if it refers to the sound of the water falling into the pool or to a place where a bell was rung summoning people to worship (Hutchison 1879, 60). Many lands were given to the church by kings and the nobility to provide for its upkeep. While in theory any lands could be given to the church, in Menteith there are place-names with elements that suggest that these lands specifically belonged to the church. In Menteith there are at least 22 names containing the Gaelic element earrann ‘portion, share, division’, scotticised as arn-. There are grounds for believing it is an element that, at least in Menteith, is closely connected to the priory of Inchmahome (Watson 1926, 256; Fraser 1999, 206). This is strengthened by the fact that there are the place-names Arnprior
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 81 KPN and Arnvicar and Arnclerich, both PMH, while in Arnbeg, Kippen, in 1459 it was stated that the Chapel of St Mary of Garwalde in the Muir of Dundaff,44 near Denny STL, was to have the ‘two merklands of Arnbeg, in which is situated the Cross (crux) of Kippen’ (RMS ii no. 672), which might mean a stone or wooden roadside cross. The first thing to note is that the cluster of earrann-names in Menteith is most remarkable; the only other comparable cluster is in found in Galloway. Like Menteith, Galloway has 23 earrann-names, with a further three in southern Carrick in Ayrshire. There are two particular concentrations of this element with 14 in the area around Castle Douglas and seven around New Galloway in the Glenkens.45 Richard Oram states that these earrann-names found in Galloway represent assarts, ‘point to ecclesiastical involvement’, and ‘may represent areas taken out of waste by monastic estate managers or their tenants’ (Oram 2000, 258, following Brooke 1984, 49). There are five in the Castle Douglas cluster that seem to support this view; Ernespie (the Bishop’s Portion), Ernfillan (St Fillan’s Portion), Ernanity (earrann na h-annaide ‘the portion of the annaid’ Watson 1926, 170), Arnmannoch (the monks’ or monastic tenants’ portion), Chapelerne and Ernambrie (possibly almoner’s portion, from Scots *almry ‘almoner, one of the monastic officers’ (PNF 4, 630)). These earrann-names seem to have been lands belonging to a nunnery possibly founded by Uchtred of Galloway (Oram 2000, 90)46 or to Lincluden Collegiate Church, which was founded by Archibald the Grim in 1389 (Oram 2000, 197). The last three mentioned earrann-names are just across the Urr Water from Grange Farm, Kings Grange and Grange Burn, all containing Scots grange ‘monastic farm’; however, it is possible these are secular granges since there is no indication of their having been monastic lands other than the name (Alistair Livingston, pers. comm). In the parish of Kirkgunzeon, 9.5km east of Castle Douglas, there is another Armannoch, containing Gaelic manach ‘monk or monastic tenant’. The earliest documented instance of earrann in Galloway dates to 1408. This is a bit earlier than those found in Menteith, where the earliest case is Arnprior in the 1440s, found in Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon as ‘Ernefrear ubi capella Sancti Beani [Arnprior where there is a chapel of St Bean]’ (Bower Scotichron Bk 2, ch. 10 (vol. 2, p. 190). However, it is worth noting in 44 This muir is on the southern edge of St Ninians parish STL, marked now by Dundaff Hill (NS735844). 45 My thanks to Michael Ansell for his help in identifying these earrann-names in Galloway, and to Alistair Livingston for his help in identifying the church to which some of these earrann-names may have belonged. 46 Although note that Brooke (1994, 106) favours either David I or one of the Princes of Nithdale as a founder, based on the fact that the nunnery was in the Desnes Cro area of Galloway. My thanks to Alistair Livingston for this reference.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 82 Peter McNiven the case of Menteith and Galloway that the relative lateness of the evidence is not necessarily an indication of lateness of names, as both are document-sparse districts. While the distribution of earrann-names in Mentieth certainly suggests some kind of connection with Inchmahome, this association of earrann- names and the priory is largely circumstantial, based on the distribution of the earrann-names themselves. However, it should be noted that Arnprior, Arnvicar, Arnclerich and Arnmach were properties of Inchmahome in 1606 (NAS, PA2/16, f.86v–89r); Arnachly, has traditionally been said to have been a chapel of Inchmahome (NSA x, 1105); and Arns DRY STL, is next to Chapellaroch ‘ruined chapel’, another chapel traditionally said to have belonged to Inchmahome, and Dalmary ‘the haughland dedicated to the Virgin Mary’, patron saint of Inchmahome. A name that might suggest a routeway is Spittal, deriving from Latin hospitalaria, ‘the hostelry or guest house of a monastery’, or hospitale, hospitalitas ‘inn, guest house, hospital’ (McNiven 2013b, 24). There are or were four Spittal names in Menteith, with a further six just over the ‘border’ in Lennox. The Menteith ‘Spittals’ are Spittalton KMA, Gartmore Spittal, actually in Drymen, and two now lost at Arnbeg and Arngibbon Kippen. A ‘Spittal’ may indicate in this area a place of rest or refuge, especially perhaps for those on pilgrimage. The fact that there are a number of place-names with the element ‘Spittal’ either in Menteith or in the neighbouring Lennox parishes may indicate that Menteith was a thoroughfare on the way to other localities, whether they be pilgrimage or market centres, although another suggestion is put forward below. In 1491, there is mention of ‘the Spitale’ at Spittalton KMA (NAS, PA2/6, 1st part, f.28v). It seems that there was indeed a spittal here, perhaps an inn belonging to Inchmahome (the Spitale was leased to John Haldane of Gleneagles by David, prior of Inchmahome [NAS, PA2/6, 1st part, f.28v]); and it would seem that the inhabitants who farmed the lands of the spittal had taken the surname ‘Spittale’ by 1480 (Gilcrist and John Spittale are mentioned as tenants there in ER ix, 566). There is a Spittal just north of Buchlyvie shown on the OS 6 inch 1st edn (NS574940), and there were other spittals in Kippen at Arnbeg in 1686 (Retours PER no. 943) and at Arngibbon in 1550 (RMS iv no. 517), but nothing more is known of them (Hall 2006, 215–17). It has been held that the element spittal may refer to lands ‘attached’ to a hospital ‘at a distance from which they belonged [but] in a number of instances, its occurrence admits of no explanation’ (Cowan and Easson 1976, 162). Indeed, Cowan and Easson state that, in the case of Balfron STL, ‘the occurrence of the name Spittal in this parish permits no explanation’, and, regarding Drymen STL, that ‘no explanation of these [spittal-names] can be given’ (Cowan and
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 83 Easson 1976, 195–96). However, this may be too pessimistic, for while some spittal-names are indeed evidence of hospitals, lands belonging to a hospital or perhaps an inn, we must surely consider some spittal-names to have been lands belonging to the Knights Hospitaller, or even the Knights Templar, the military religious orders founded to guard the Crusade routes in the 12th century. The Knights Hospitaller took over many lands of the Templars after the latter order’s suppression in 1312 (Cowan et al. 1983, xxvi). Any evidence for either of these orders in Menteith is lacking. However, recent research I conducted has revealed that the neighbouring earldom of Lennox – and especially the area nearest Menteith, namely the Balfron-Killearn-Drymen triangle – has a number of spittal-names and these have been shown to have been properties belonging to the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar before the Reformation of 1560 and are probably evidence of endowments to help pay for the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries (McNiven 2013b). A typical example of a charter regarding these spittal-names in Lennox is one dated to 1557: ‘James Lord of St John’s preceptor of Torphechin [and] the saids templar lands of Spittell of Easter Catter’47 in Kilmaronock parish DNB (NAS GD119/30). At the Reformation the ‘tak of the paroch kirk and townis’ for the thirds of benefices of Callander parish was collected from lands concentrated in the eastern portion of that parish: Callander, Kirktown, Auchinlaich, Brackland, Gart, Claish, Greenock, Gartchonzie and ‘the tua Iberts’ (Assumptions, 348). Of particular interest here are the ‘tua Iberts’. Deriving from Old Gaelic idbart or idpart, and so Gaelic ìobairt ‘offering, sacrifice’, their whereabouts are now unknown, but there is a house on the southern side of Callander called the Old Manse, and next to it is Churchfields (NN629075). TheIberts of Callander are additions to a remarkable group detailed in Watson (1926, 254), situated in the parishes of Balfron, Drymen, Killearn, all STL, and Kilmaronock DBN, while in Monzie parish PER in 1640, Ibert is presented as ‘the church lands or glebe called The Ibert of the church of Monzie’ (Retours PER no. 494).48 Ibert in Drymen is described in 1621 as ‘the church lands of Ibert’ (terris ecclesiasticis de Ibert) (Retours STL no. 108), and in Balfron there is mention in 1698 of ‘the church lands called Ibert’ (terris ecclesiasticis vocatis Ibert) (Retours STL no.338). There may have been another in Menteith; it is now Lochan Eabarach (‘?small, muddy loch’) in Aberfoyle, but Stobie shows it as Lochaneibart ‘?the small loch of the Ibert’. It is not far from where the old parish church of Aberfoyle stood. It would seem that ìobairtean were lands for the upkeep of the local parish church. It is probable, as the above reference for Monzie states, that they became the glebe, i.e. lands that specifically supported a priest. 47 Easter Catter sits at NS474870, 250 metres south east of the motte of Catter. 48 ‘Terris ecclesiasticis seu gleba vocata the Ibert ecclesiæ de Monzie’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 84 Peter McNiven There is another place-name element in Mentieth which has a similar meaning, if not etymology, to ìobairt; W. J. Watson held that the place-name Offers or Offerance is derived from Latinofferendum ‘offering, oblation’ (Watson 1926, 254). It was borrowed into Old Gaelic as oifrend ‘sacrifice or office of the Mass’, and is now G aifreann or aifrionn ‘Mass’. The element is most notably found in the abbey of Inchaffrey, Innis Aifreann, in Strathearn, often written in its Latin form Insula Missarum ‘Isle of Masses’. While it is possible that the Menteith offers or offrance-names were originally Gaelic terms, most have since taken on a Scots form with a plural ending (or, indeed, are Scots place-names), however, ‘le Offryn’ in Strathgartney has the singular, presumably Gaelic form in 1451 (ER v, 476), although it is called Afrans in 1636–52 (NLS Adv. MS.70.2.10 (Gordon 51)). This is Offerans shown on the OS 1st edn 6 inch map at the western end of Loch Venachar (NN542059), while at the western end of Loch Achray are a meadow called An t-Oirrinn and a crag called Creag an Oirrinn, now Creag Noran (Watson 1926, 255). Another group of offers-names follow the course of the River Forth from The Offers KRD (NS716954), just across the river from Gargunnock STL, to Offerance DRY (NS541962), 2km east of Dalmary DRY. There were two in KRD: The Offers, first mentioned in 1536 (Offeris RMS iii no.1560), and what is now Chalmerston, originally the Offers of Ochtertyre (terras de Ouchtertire, cum lie Offeris earundem alias Chalmeristoun nuncupatis) (RMS iii, no. 1560; Watson 1926, 255). There were three in PMH; one called Offrins of Gartur and the other two now lost, but one is shown on Stobie at what seems to be Carse of Shannochill, while the other is mentioned as Offerone of Gartladernick, near what is now Hilton (NRS GD15/183). There is a cluster of five in Drymen parish, all hugging the River Forth between the parish border with Kippen and the A81 Glasgow–Aberfoyle road. There was anOfferandis de Caschelie in Drymen parish (RMS iii, no. 3172; RMS vii, no. 354), which might be the now split touns of Wester Offerance, Over Easter Offerance and Nether Easter Offerance; Cashley is just onthe border with Kippen, 1km south-west of Buchlyvie, also in this area shown in Blaeu was Airncaishlie, which seems to be a lost earrann-name. Further west was Offerance of Garchell, and there is still Offerance, near Dalmary. There were at least two others in Kippen, but this is not certain, since one may have had different names: in the 15th century Offrendscheregart alternates with Offrenys de Kippan (1461 ER vii, 52), which by the 16th century seems to have become Offeris de Lekky called (nuncupat.) Schiregartane (1584 RMS iv no. 230). This is obviously Shirgarton at the western end of the village of Kippen, but there was also ‘Nether Dasher called Offeris … lying near the church of Kippen’ in 1508 (RMS ii no. 3226), which W. J. Watson thought was ‘probably the old glebe of Kippen’ (Watson 1926, 255).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 85 Watson seemed to think there was a great deal of similarity between the terms aifreann, ìobairt and earrann; indeed, he stated that the ‘Offerances and Offers of Menteith are to be compared with the names Arnclerich, Arnvicar, Arnprior in the same district … and all were doubtless connected with the priory of Inchmahome’ (Watson 1926, 256). However, it may be that we are not dealing with Gaelic aifreann here at all, but instead with Scots offerand. The Dictionary of the Older Scots Tongue has the definition of offerand as ‘the action of making a religious offering, oblation or sacrifice or the thing so offered; a (religious) offering, an oblation’. It may be that the lairds gave land to the church or Inchmahome, not to support a priest, as in the case of ìobairt, but perhaps for the celebration of Masses in honour of their dead relatives and ancestors, possibly in the period following the Black Death, which arrived in Scotland in 1349. As Diarmaid MacCulloch recently wrote, Augustinians, as well as providing pastoral care for the local laity, ‘supplied spiritual services at what seemed like cut-price rates [compared to Cistercians and Benedictines]: the gift of a field from a modestly prosperous knight [...] a few pence from a poor man’s family at his death bed’ (MacCulloch 2009, 392). However, it may be not be necessary to look for a different meaning for Ibert and Offeris; they may in fact be equivalent terms, but using different languages. This would certainly be the case in places where Scots was well established by the time these offers-names come on stream, such as Kippen.
Conclusion There are a remarkable range of place-names showing the variety and vitality of religious life in Menteith in the medieval period. These include early churches and saints’ cults, lands of officials in the church and the kinds of places that went to support the church economically and helped sustain the parishioners spiritually. By teasing out information in documents and by looking at place-names outside the area with parallel terms we can begin to gain some understanding of the activity of the church ‘on the ground’, as it were, in Menteith. While place-names are often unlikely to give us the names of individuals at specific points in time, hopefully it has been demonstrated here that they have the potential to tell us a great deal about how the church was supported by the land and the people.
Parish Abbreviations (pre-1975) AFE Aberfoyle CLD Callander DLE Dunblane and Lecropt
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 86 Peter McNiven DRY Drymen KMA Kilmadock KRD Kincardine in Menteith KPN Kippen PMH Port of Menteith
Appendix AIGLESTEINSTON # KMA S NN6906 2 130m Eglysdissentyn 1267 Fraser, Menteith ii, 217 [confirmation by Alexander III of a gift by Walter Stewart, earl of Menteith, to Gilbert of Glenkerny of ‘medietate ville de Broculy (Brackland CLD) cum pertinenciis, videlicet, illa medietate que iacet in parte uersus marchias de Eglysdissentyn’]. Eglisdikin c.1300 Fraser, Wemyss ii, 6 Eglisdishintane 1456 ER vi, 279 Ecclysdynschan 1461 ER vii, 53 Elgildisdan 1471 ER viii, 67 Ecclisdisdane 1478 ER viii, 531 Eglisdisdane 1480 ER ix, 564 [Eglisdisdane et Balnegregane (Ballachraggan KMA)] Eglisdisdane 1484 ER ix, 597 Eglisdisdane 1486 ER ix, 625 Eglisdisdane 1488 ER x, 636 Eglisdisdane 1491 RMS ii no. 2035 [Eglisdisdane, et Ballechragane] Eglisdisdan 1494 ER x, 723 Egillisdisdaine 1499 ER xi, 415 Eglisdisdanne 1502 ER xi, 633 Eglisdisdane 1502 ER xi, 635 Aggischechynauche 1528 RMS iii no. 607 [terras de Aggischechynauche, Ballechragane] Agglische-chynnauche 1535 RMS iii no. 1498 [terras de Agglische-chynnauche, Ballecraggane] Aggleschechinauch 1541 ER xvii, 717 Aglisscenochis 1558 ER xix, 431 Agglischechymueauch 1595 Retours PER no. 54 [terris de Agglischechymueauch et Ballecragane] Heglish-Stinchenach 1630–50 Sibbald TNS 157r [A myl benorth Kailly-chat is Heglish-Stinchenach] Eglischaynauch 1670 Retours PER no. 809 [terris de Eglischaynauch, Ballichragan et Ballicavis (Bamacansh KMA)]49 Eglischinnauch 1677 Retours PER no. 892 [terris de Eglischinnauch, Ballichragane
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 87 et Ballicaine] Aiglesteinston c.1750 Roy 75 Brit. *eglēs + do + ? pn Iast or Iestyn or ? Brit. Seintyn
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49 For Ballachraggan and Balmacansh KMA, see McNiven (2011, 282–83, 288–89)
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 88 Peter McNiven Campbell, D., 1888, The Book of Garth and Fortingall (Inverness). Camb. Reg., Registrum Monasterii S. Marie de Cambuskenneth (Grampian Club 1872). Carver, E., 2003, Inchmahome Priory and the Lake of Menteith (Historic Scotland). Clancy, T. O., 1995, ‘Annat in Scotland & the Origins of the Parish’, Innes Review 46, 91–115. Clancy, T. O., 2004, ‘Philosopher-King: Nechtan mac Der-Ilei’, Scottish Historical Review 216, 125–49. Cockburn, J. H., 1959, The Medieval Bishops of Dunblane and their Church (Edinburgh). Cowan, I. B., 1967, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland (Scottish Record Society). Cowan, I. B., and Easson, D. E., 1976, Medieval Religious Houses, Scotland (2nd ed., London). Cowan, I. B., MacKay, P. H. R., and A. Macquarrie, eds, 1983, The Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Scotland (Scottish History Society). CPL: Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ed. W. H. Bliss and others (London, 1893-). Crawford, B. E., and S. Taylor, 2003, ‘The Southern Frontier of Norse Settlement in North Scotland: Place-Names and History’, Northern Scotland 23, 1–76. CSSR iii: Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1428–1432, vol. 3, ed. A. I. Dunlop and I. B. Cowan (Scottish History Society 1970). CSSR iv: Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1433–1447, vol. 4, ed. A. I. Dunlop and D. MacLauchlan (Glasgow 1983). CSSR v: Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1447–1471, vol. 5, ed. J. Kirk, R. Tanner and A. I. Dunlop (Glasgow 1997). Davis, R. H. C., 1998, A History of Medieval Europe: From Constantine to St Louis (2nd edn, London; 1st edn 1957). DIL: Dictionary of the Irish Language (based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials). Duncan, A. A .M., 1975, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh). ER: The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, ed. J. Stuart and others (Edinburgh 1878– 1908). ES: Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286, ed. A. O. Anderson, 2 vols. (Edinburgh 1922). Fasti: Fasti ecclesiae Scoticanae: the succession of ministers in the parish churches of Scotland from the Reformation, A.D. 1560, to the present time, ed. H. Scott et al. (1915–61). Forbes, Kalendars: Kalendars of Scottish Saints, ed. A. P. Forbes (Edinburgh 1872). Fraser, I., 1999, ‘Place-Names’, in D. Omand, ed., The Perthshire Book (Edinburgh), 199–210.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 89 Fraser, Grandtully: The Red Book of Grandtully, ed. W. Fraser, 2 vols (Edinburgh 1868). Fraser, Menteith: The Red Book of Menteith, ed. W. Fraser, 2 vols. (Edinburgh 1880). Fraser, Stirling: The Stirlings of Keir, ed. W. Fraser (Edinburgh 1858). Fraser, Wemyss: Memorials of the Family of Wemyss of Wemyss, ed. W. Fraser, 2 vols (Edinburgh 1888). Ganshof, F. L., 1964, Feudalism (London, 3rd English edn; 1st French edn 1944). Geog. Coll.: Geographical Collections relating to Scotland made by Walter MacFarlane, ed. A. Mitchell (vols. i and ii), Arthur Mitchell and James Toshach (vol. iii) (Scottish History Society 1906–08). Glas. Mun.: Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis (Maitland Club 1854). Grosjean, P., 1961, ‘Un Fragment d’obituaire Anglo-Saxon: II Sur le culte en Ecosse de S. Colmán Eveque de Dromore’, Analecta Bollandiana 79, 343–45. Hammond, M., 2010, ‘Royal and aristocratic attitudes to saints and the Virgin Mary in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Scotland’, in The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland, ed. Steve Boardman and Eila Williamson (Woodbridge), 61–85. Herbert, M., 2008, ‘Saint Colmán of Dromore and Inchmahone’, in Caindel Alban: Fèill-sgrìobhainn do Dhòmhnall E. Meek: Scottish Gaelic Studies XXIV, ed. C. Ó Baoill and N. R. McGuire, Aberdeen, 253–65. Holyrood Liber: Liber Cartarum Sancte Crucis (Bannatyne Club 1840). Hough, C., 2009, ‘Eccles in English and Scottish Place-names’, in Quinton, E., ed., The Church in English Place-names (English Place-name Society), 109–124. Hutchison, A. F., 1879, ‘On Some Objects of Interest in the District of The Trossachs’, in Transactions of the Stirling Natural History and Archaeological Society, 56–62. Hutchison, A. F., 1899, The Lake of Menteith: its Islands and Vicinity (Stirling). Inchaffray Chrs.: Charters, Bulls and other Documents relating to the Abbey of Inchaffray, ed. W. A. Lindsay, J. Dowden and J. M. Thomson (Scottish History Society 1908). Inchaffray Liber: Liber Insule Missarum (Bannatyne Club 1847). James, A., 2009, ‘Eglēs/Eclēs and the formation of Northumbria’, in Quinton, E., ed., The Church in English Place-names (English Place-name Society), 125–150. Laing D., 1854–57, ‘An Obituary and Calendar of Scottish saints, extracted from the Martyrology for the use of the Church Of Aberdeen, A Ms. of the Sixteenth Century’, Proceeding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 2, 256– 272. Lelong, O., 2003, ‘Finding Medieval (or later) Settlement in the Highlands and
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 90 Peter McNiven Islands: The Case for Optimism’ in S. Govan, ed., Medieval or Later Rural Settlement in Scotland: 10 Years On (Historic Scotland), 7–16. MacDonald, A., 1975, ‘Annat in Scotland: A Provisional Review’, Scottish Studies 17, 135–46. MacCulloch, D., 2009, A History of Christianity (London). McGloin, J., 1967, ‘Miscelleny: Hermitages in Logie Parish’, in Innes Review 18, 58. MacGregor Stirling, W., 1815, Notes, historical and descriptive, on the Priory of Inchmahome; with introductory verses, and an appendix of original papers (Edinburgh). Mackay, M.S., 2003, Doune Historical Notes (2nd edn, The Kilmadock Society; 1st edn, published privately, 1953). MacKinlay, J. M., 1904, The Pre-Reformation Church and Scottish Place-names (Edinburgh). MacKinlay, J. M., 1910, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland: Scriptural (Edinburgh). MacKinlay, J. M., 1914, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland: Non-scriptural (Edinburgh). McNiven, P. E., 2011, ‘Gaelic Place-names and the Social History of Gaelic Speakers in Medieval Menteith’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow,
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 Place-names and the Medieval Church in Menteith 91 Oram, R., and Fawcett, R., 2008, ‘Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches: Pilot Study in the Dioceses of Dunblane and Dunkeld’,
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 92 Peter McNiven Wendy Stevenson and D. E. R. Watt, with Alan Borthwick, R. E. Latham, J. R. S. Phillips and the late Martin S. Smith (1991) . Semple, M. C., 2009, ‘An Archaeology of Scotland’s early Romanesque Churches: the Towers of Alba’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow. Shennan, H., 1892, Boundaries of Counties and Parishes in Scotland (Edinburgh). Somerville, R., 1982, Scotia pontificia: papal letters to Scotland before the Pontificate of Innocent III (Oxford). Southern, R. W., 1970, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (London). Smith, W., and H. Wace, 1887–87, A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, 3 vols (Boston). Stirling Protocol Bk: Abstract of Protocol Book of the Burgh of Stirling, A.D. 1469– 1484 in The Scottish Antiquary, or Northern Notes and Queries x and xi. Stobie, J., 1783, Map of the Counties of Perth and Clackmannan. Stokes, W., ed., 1905, Félire Óengusso Céli Dé: The martyrology of Oengus the Culdee (Dublin). Taylor, S., 1998, ‘Place-names and the early church in Scotland’, Records of Scottish Church History Society 28, 1–22. Taylor, S., 2000, ‘Columba east of Drumalban: some aspects of the cult of Columba in eastern Scotland’, Innes Review, 109–130. Taylor, S., 2001, ‘The Cult of St: Fillan in Scotland’, in T. R. Liszka and L. E. M. Walker, eds, The North Sea World: Studies in a Medieval Context (Dublin), 175–210. Taylor, S., 2009, ‘Place-names of Lesmahagow’, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 3, 65–106. TGAS: Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, New Series viii, 1933. Thomson, A., 1985,Callander Through the Ages (Callander). Veitch, K., 1999, ‘The conversion of native religious communities to the Augustinian Rule in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Alba’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society 29, 1–22. Watson, W. J., 1926 The History of the Celtic Placenames of Scotland (Edinburgh). Watson, W. J., 1927, ‘St Cadoc’, Scottish Gaelic Studies 2 ii, part 1, 1–12. Watt, D. E. R., and N.F. Shead, eds, 2001, The Heads of Religious Houses in Scotland from twelfth to sixteenth centuries (Scottish Record Society). Woolf, A., 2007, From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070 (Edinburgh). Young, A., 2005, ‘The Comyns to 1300’, in R. Oram and G. Stell, eds,Lordship and Architecture in Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (Edinburgh), 60–83. Yorke, B., 2006, The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, c.600–800 (Harlow).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 51–92 The Medieval Parish in Scotland
Simon Taylor University of Glasgow
This article is based on a paper I gave to the conference ‘Scottish Society and the Parish’, held in Stirling Tolbooth, Stirling, on 24 November 2010, organised by the Scottish Records Association and the Economic & Social History Society of Scotland to mark the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland. It explores the emergence of the parish in our earliest records, as well as its ‘territoriality’, looking at how it took on the spatial extent that it did, how that area evolved over the centuries, and how far earlier parochial footprints can still be traced in the modern landscape and place-names. This very much reflects my own interests, as well as the work of the ‘Mapping of the Historical Parishes of Scotland Group’,1 a small group which consists of representatives of NRS, RCAHMS and the Universities of the Highlands and Islands, Glasgow and Stirling. I will start by looking briefly at what we know of the early evolution of the Scottish parish as a legal and ecclesiastical entity, which will inevitably also be a historiographical survey of the subject. The real start of the serious study of the Scottish parish as a historical entity has to be the Origines Parochiales Scotiae, a splendid production overseen and edited by Cosmo Innes and James Brichan.2 Published by the Bannatyne Club between 1851 and 1855, it has the grand subtitle ‘The Antiquities Ecclesiastical and Territorial of the Parishes of Scotland’. I choose this as my starting point rather than the Statistical Accounts of Scotland, the first of which appeared in the 1790s, now known as the Old Statistical Account. These were indeed organised by parish, but by the parishes as they existed at the time, and the evolution of those units was touched upon unsystematically, dependent to a large extent on the interests of the individual minister-authors. OPS is a quite different matter, fully recognising as it does the historical importance of medieval ecclesiastical organisation for the social and political history of the kingdom. Each chapter deals with a medieval parish, and the overall shape of the volumes is determined by the medieval dioceses, and within them, the medieval deaneries. Furthermore each volume is accompanied by detailed maps of these units, constituting a bold and pioneering attempt to map medieval Scotland, though it is debateable whether the use of older spellings 1 I would like to thank this Group for input and comments on this article, especially Piers Dixon (RCAHMS), Alasdair Ross (University of Stirling) and Eila Williamson (University of Glasgow). 2 For the names of other major contributors, who included the well-known Scottish historian Joseph Robertson, see OPS i, p. xli (1851), ii (1), p. xx (1854) and ii (2) p. xxii (1855).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 94 Simon Taylor for all places on the map is an asset. An extract from one of these maps is given in Fig. 1, below.
Fig. 1: Detail from OPS i (1851), map of Glasgow Diocese. It shows the medieval parishes of Glenholm 76, Kilbucho 75, with Broughton a dependent chapel of Stobo 81. These were later combined as the single parish of Broughton, Glenholm & Kilbucho. It also shows parts of Biggar 59, Culter 74, Skirling 77 and Lyne 82. All are in the deanery of Peebles, except for nos. 59 and 74, which are in the deanery of Lanark. The spelling of many of the names is taken from medieval sources.
We had with OPS the makings of the Scottish equivalent of England’s Victoria County Histories, but unfortunately the impetus and energy ran out after two volumes, and only the dioceses of Glasgow (part), Argyll, The Isles, Caithness and Ross were covered.3 3 OPS Vol. 1 is devoted to the diocese of Glasgow, covering all parishes in the deaneries of Lanark, Lennox, Peebles, Rutherglen and Teviotdale. However, in the deanery of Kyle and Cunningham only the parishes of Largs & Cumbray and Kilbirnie are covered, and there is no coverage at all of the deaneries of Annan, Carrick, Desnes, Esk or Nith. OPS Vol. 2 is in two
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 95 Before moving on from OPS, mention has to be made of the Preface to Vol. 1. This is an extremely well informed, if somewhat tendentious, survey ofthe development of the parish in Scotland – with more footnotes than text on most of its 23 pages. Scotland had to wait over a 100 years for the next serious study of its medieval parishes. This was carried out by the late Ian B. Cowan 1932–1990)( , whose tireless and meticulous scholarship has done so much to advance our knowledge and understanding not just of the medieval parish system, but also of the medieval Ecclesia Scoticana in general. Cowan’s 1961 article ‘The development of the parochial system’4 remains the best introduction to the subject, coupled with his unsurpassed Parishes of Medieval Scotland brought out by the Scottish Record Society in 1967. This contains the most complete inventory to date of all the medieval parishes of Scotland, along with brief histories of provision and appropriation for each one. In his 1961 article Cowan traces the changing use of the word parochia in Scotland in the medieval period: when it first appears in Scottish sources in the early 12th century it has its earlier meaning of diocese or sphere of influence of a bishop or important early minster church. By the mid-12th century it was being used both in this earlier sense and in its later sense of an area ‘within the jurisdiction of a baptismal church’ (Cowan 1995 [1961], 1). For example, ‘the whole parochia of Fothrif’ (parochiam totam Fothrif) was given to the church of the Holy Trinity of Dunfermline by Malcolm III and Margaret in the late 11th century, and recorded in a royal confirmation charter of c.1150.5 Fothrif never was a parish in the later sense of the word. It is a territorial designation, now completely obsolete, for an area whose original extent is best discerned in the deanery of Fothrif, a subdivision of the mighty diocese of St Andrews. This deanery stretched roughly from the mouth of the Devon in Clackmannanshire in the west to the mouth of the Leven in the east (see Fig. 2). But in the term parochiam totam Fothrif a vaguer meaning of ‘west Fife with Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire’ must be meant, with the further implication that Dunfermline had been at some earlier period a minster or mother-church for Fothrif, or had inherited that role from another church, perhaps Culross or Lochleven, both of which were early centres of the cult of St Serf. As mentioned above, parochia developed the more precise meaning of an area ‘within the jurisdiction of a baptismal church’, with the jurisdiction defined
parts: Vol. 2 i covers all parishes in the diocese of Argyle and the diocese of the Isles; Vol. 2 ii covers all parishes in the diocese of Ross and the diocese of Caithness. 4 SHR 40, 43–55; re-published in Cowan 1995, 1–11. 5 David I Chrs. no. 172, p. 137 = Dunf. Reg. no. 2, p. 6.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 96 Simon Taylor
Fig. 2 Map of the sheriffdoms of Clackmannan, Fife and Kinross, showing medieval parishes with their dioceses indicated by shading. The Deanery of Fothrif, diocese of St Andrews, stretched from Cults CLT in the east to Clackmannan CLK in the west. Map from PNF 5, 78. For parish abbreviations, see any volume of PNF, Introduction. See also
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 97 by the payment of teinds or tenths (in England tithes), and by baptismal and burial rights enforceable through fines and other sanctions. This more precise meaning can be seen emerging almost at the same time as the vaguer usage already seen in Fothrif. For example in the mid-1160s we find a reference to the parish church of the Holy Trinity in Kilrymont6 (ecclesiam Sanct
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 98 Simon Taylor Church and State hand in glove to ensure the material provision of the parish.12 Such enforcement depends of course on everyone in a locality knowing exactly who they had to pay their teinds to: ignorance of or imprecision concerning the physical limits of a parish could lead to serious complications, including even the possibility of being forced to pay twice over. However, the close connection we have already seen between the secular and the ecclesiastical in the so-called David I assize suggests in fact that the two jurisdictions, secular and ecclesiastical, coincided to a large extent. It was this coincidence that was explored in great detail, and to great effect, by John Rogers in his pioneering 1992 PhD thesis ‘The Formation of the Parish Unit and Community in Perthshire’, University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Geoffrey Barrow. With a wealth of detail, both documentary and geographical, Rogers showed beyond doubt that the boundaries of the medieval parishes in Perthshire were determined by those of pre-existing secular units of lordship. And furthermore there was nothing to suggest that Perthshire was in any way atypical within a medieval Scottish context. Rogers’s thesis contains hand-drawn maps which attempt to define the exact extent of every medieval parish in central and eastern Perthshire, and it can thus be assumed that these maps also delineate early units of secular lordship. The diocese of Moray provides good corroborative evidence for this close correlation between the secular territorial unit and the parish. In the early 13th century a dispute had arisen between the bishop of Moray and the local lord, John Bisset, regarding the advowson or patronage of the churches of Dunballoch (later Wardlaw) and Convinth, which lay south-west of Inverness, and south of Beauly (see Fig. 3). Moray Reg. no. 51 records the settlement of
eius si dominum habeat illum ad hoc non distrinserit, vel si propriam decimam vel aliam rectitudinem ecclesiasticam detinuerit, Vicecomes in cuius balliua hoc fuerit compellat detentorem decimam vel rectitudinem suam ecclesie soluere, et comtemptorem assise Regis Da
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 99 this dispute, dateable to around 1221.13 At the same time it preserves an exact definition of the extent of both parishes, as well as an insight into the process of parish-formation. It is phrased as follows: John Bisset has quitclaimed for himself and his heirs in perpetuity to God and to the bishopric of Moray and to the lord Brice the Moravian bishop and to his successors the advowson of the church of Dunballoch with all pertinents belonging to the same, namely with all teinds, obla- tions, offerings and church dues arising from the nine davochs belonging to the same church of Dunballoch by parochial right and assigned (to it) for ever by episcopal authority, namely the davochs of Fingask, Lovat,14 Lusnacorn #,15 Moniack and the other Moniack, and the three davochs of Ferc #.16, 17 In return the bishop of Moray has quitclaimed to John in perpetuity: the advowson of the church of Convinth, to which are assigned by the authority of the diocesan bishop eleven davochs belonging (to it) by parochial right, namely Guisachan, Buntait, Erchless, Comar, Convinth (consisting of) two davochs, Bruiach, Moy and the other Moy,18 Dounie and Phoineas, with all their pertinents in teinds, oblations and church dues arising from these said lands. 19
(See Figs 3 and 4, below.) 13 Moray Reg. itself dates it 1206 x 1221 (p. vii). Watt, Graduates under Moravia/Edward dates it ‘shortly before Oct. 1221’. 14 For the identification ofMorevayn with Lovat, see Crawford and Taylor 2003, 49–50. 15 Or Lusnatorn #; see Crawford and Taylor 2003, 48. The # symbol indicates that the name it follows is no longer in use. 16 Probably now represented by the lands of Lentran, Holm and Craggach. See Crawford and Taylor 2003, 44-5. 17 Johannes Byseth quietum clamavit pro se et heredibus suis in perpetuum Deo et episcopatui Moravie et domino Bricio Moravensi episcopo et successoribus suis advocationem ecclesie de Dulbathlach cum omnibus ad eam pertinentibus, scilicet cum omnibus decimis oblationibus obventionibus et rectitudinibus ecclesiasticis provenientibus de ix dauachis ad eandem ecclesiam de Dulbathlach jure parochiali pertinentibus et episcopali auctoritate assignatis in perpetuum, scilicet dauache de Fyngassy, Morevayn, Lusnecorn, Monychoc et altera Monychoc, et tribus dauachis de Ferc. 18 The name Moy itself has not survived, but both Moys were closely associated with Ardrannich (see Crawford and Taylor 2003, 50–51). 19 advocationem ecclesie de Conewy ad quam assignate sunt per dyocesani episcopi auctoritatem jure parochiali pertinentes xi dauache scilicet Gulsackyn, Buntach, Herkele, Cumber, Coneway scilicet due dauache, Brutach, Muy et altera Muy, Dunyn et Fothenes cum omnibus pertinentiis suis in decimis, oblationibus et rectitudinibus ecclesiasticis de dictis terris provenientibus.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 100 Simon Taylor
Fig. 3. Map of part of north-east Inverness-shire, showing the medieval parishes of Convinth, Kilmorack, Kiltarlity, Farnway # and Wardlaw. From Crawford and Taylor 2003, 13.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 101
Fig. 4. The davochs assigned to the parish churches of Convinth and Dunballoch (Wardlaw) by the agreement of c.1221 (Moray Reg. no. 51). From Crawford and Taylor 2003, 36.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 102 Simon Taylor Just as the parish is the building-block of the diocese, it clearly emerges from the foregoing that the building-block of the parish itself, at least in Moray, was the davoch.20 This can be defined as a sizeable measurement of land of variable area, with each davoch possessing ‘the necessary resources for a group of people to survive throughout the year’. I quote here from the doyen of davochs, Alasdair Ross (2006, 66). The davoch was also the basic unit of assessment north of the Forth for obligations such as army service. There is no doubt that Convinth was in origin a secular unit, andthis is reinforced by its name, which belongs very much to the sphere of secular lordship. ‘Convinth’ derives from OG *conmed, later *coinmheadh ‘billeting, quartering’, referring to a tribute due to the king or other lord in respect of his lordship, specifically hospitality, entertainment and accommodation, or some payment in lieu of these. No doubt the place called Convinth was already the central place to which the inhabitants of the 11 named davochs brought their tribute to be consumed by the lord, with the parish very sensibly being imposed on this pre-existing pattern. That factors other than simple convenience for the parishioners were at play is also indicated by the fact that the davochs making up the parish of Convinth do not form a continuous block of territory (see Figs 3 and 4). In an important article published in 1989 in Northern Scotland 9, on the Church in Badenoch and Strathspey 1130–1312, Geoffrey Barrow skilfully reconstructs the pattern of provision of pastoral care in this area just before the development of fully-fledged parishes. As with so much of Barrow’s work, it is an impressive combination of various types of evidence: the medieval documentary record, toponymic evidence, above all that of hagiotoponyms or place-names containing saints’ names, local traditions and local geography. Barrow’s map (Fig. 5, below) attempts to reconstruct the pre-parochial provision of Stratha’an in Banffshire, a territory stretching about 25km north to south. In a charter dateable to about 1200 Richard of Lincoln bishop of Moray leased to Earl Duncan of Fife 9 half-davochs in Stratha’an, all of which are named, and at least 6, probably 7, of which have a saint’s name attached, while one includes the name of Christ himself (Nevie Christ). It was out of this patch-work of chapels that in the course of the 13th century two parishes evolved: in the north that of Inveravon, near where the Avon meets the Spey, and in the south Kirkmichael, the germ of which was Achlichnie (Letheni Michel 21 of Moray Reg. no 16), chosen presumably as the focal point for the new
20 The same applies to Ross, Sutherland, parts of Caithness, and (probably) the Hebrides north of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. See Ross, forthcoming. I am grateful to Alasdair Ross for this reference. 21 Probably a scribal or editorial error for Lecheni Michel.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 103
Fig. 5. Map from Barrow 1989, 5, Fig. 2: Stratha’an. parish because of its relatively central position, not geographically, since the parish stretched as far south as Ben Macdui, but in terms of settled population. Generally speaking the choice of the site of a parish kirk was no doubt determined by various factors, ranging from venerable and sacred tradition to secular and practical considerations. And there would also have been some experimentation, and some failure. For example, remaining in the diocese of Moray, and returning to the church of Dunballoch by Beauly, we know that in around 1221 it was moved to a new
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 104 Simon Taylor site a few kilometres to the north-east. We learn this from the same charter which records the agreement between John Bisset and Bishop Brice of Moray concerning the churches of Dunballoch and Convinth (see above). At the same time as quitclaiming the advowson or patronage of the church of Dunballoch to the bishop, Bisset ‘has conferred and granted in pure and perpetual alms to the church of Dunballoch seven acres of land in a suitable place and near to the parish kirk of Dunballoch when it has been moved to Fingask to the place which is called Wardlaw, in Gaelic Balcabrac.’22 While no reason is given for the move, the place-name Dunballoch, earlier Dulbatelach, gives a clue, as it probably means ‘haugh liable to flooding’ (literally ‘drowning’). It may have been originally chosen as the site of the parish kirk because of an early religious association, but a flood shortly before 1221 may have caused practical considerations to outweigh religious ones, with Wardlaw, as the name indicates, being on the top of a hill, the eponymous hill in the modern name of the parish, Kirkhill (see Fig. 6, below). We have a less well documented instance of the shift of a parish centre at around the same time (the 1220s) in north Fife, when the parish kirk of Coultra shifted to Balmerino (see PNF 4, 146–50). It is noteworthy that both these shifts involved a name-change. The name of a parish regularly derives from the name of the place where the kirk originally stood, if it does not explicitly refer to the kirk and/or its dedication. However, once the parish name had become established, it usually persisted even when the site of the parish kirk moved. For example, in the 17th century the church of Portmoak KNR moved from its original site on the shore of Loch Leven, where the eponymous port (Gaelic for ‘harbour’) was, 1.6km to the north-east, near Scotlandwell, which lay much more conveniently for the bulk of the parishioners (see PNKNR forthcoming, under Portmoak). A counter-example is the parish kirk of Kilgour FIF, which moved almost 3km eastwards into the burgh of Falkland in the early 17th century, the parish thereafter becoming known as Falkland. However, even in the case of this fairly drastic move, the old name hung on for almost two centuries, a sasine of 1782 (no. 374) still referring to the parish church of Kilgour or Falkland (PNF 2, 137). The fact that neither Dunballoch or Coultra survived as parish names is further evidence that as parishes they were not long established at the time of the move.
22 ‘Johannes Byseth ... contulit et concessit in puram et perpetuam elemosinam ecclesie de Dulbatelach septem acras terre in loco competenti et propinquo ecclesie parochiane de Dulbatelach cum fuerit translata ad Fingasc ad locum qui dicitur Wardelau(e) scotice Balabrach/ Balcabrac’ Moray Reg. nos. 21, 51. Forms confirmed by the ms from which the printed version was taken, NLS Adv. MS 34.4.10 fos 19r (Balabrach’), 28v (Balcabrac). For more discussion of this name, see Crawford and Taylor 2003, 25, 53–54 (under Cabrich).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 105
Fig. 6. This is a detail from Map 1(b) of Crawford and Taylor 2003, 13, ‘Study area showing medieval parishes and church sites’. The church symbol above Wardlaw is the site of Wardlaw parish kirk after it had been moved from Dunballoch. The combined medieval parishes of Wardlaw and Farnway # went to make up the later parish of Kirkhill, with the parish kirk remaining at Wardlaw. By about the middle of the 13th century at the latest we can say that in general the period of parish formation was over and the place of the parish kirk was fixed now until the time of the Reformation, which saw the regrouping of older units, and the creation of new ones. This stability is reflected in lists of parishes for various dioceses which start to appear around this time, the earliest being for the vast eastern diocese of St Andrews, which stretched from the Dee in the north to the Tweed in the south, and contained around 235 parishes. This is the list of the churches dedicated or re-dedicated by Bishop David de Bernham in the 1240s.23 This was followed by various taxation lists,24 culminating in the famous papal taxation known as Bagimond’s Roll of the 1270s. It is for this reason that the Atlas of Scottish History takes the approximate year 1300 as the date for its series of diocesan maps (see Fig. 7, below), with
23 Published as St A. Pont. in 1885. Note that this document contains practically no information about the saints to whom these churches were dedicated, but this has been silently added by the editor, Charles Wordsworth, from a variety of sources, many of which are late and unreliable. For genuine early references to the saints of a handful of churches dedicated by Bishop David de Bernham, see St A. Lib. 348. 24 Such as that dating from the mid-13th century for the dioceses of St Andrews, Brechin and Aberdeen, with all the churches listed by deanery, printed as Arb. Lib. i no. 300. Similar lists for St Andrews diocese alone are printed as Dunf. Reg. no. 313 and St A. Lib. 28–37.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 106 Simon Taylor
Fig. 7. Medieval diocese of Dunblane, from Atlas of Scottish History, 352. Map created by Donald Watt (DERW), reproduced here by kind permission of the Scottish Medievalists.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 107 the site of every parish kirk known to exist at the time. This was the first such attempt to map the whole of the medieval Scottish Church.25 The ‘Mapping of Historical Parishes of Scotland Group’ already mentioned wants to take this a step further and to provide for the whole of Scotland maps of the medieval parishes of Scotland, with the boundaries defined as accurately as possible. These maps would be similar to those published for every parish in Fife, in PNF 1–4 (see Fig. 8, below, for an example; see also Fig. 2, above); or to those in Donside, Aberdeenshire, published RCAHMS 2007, 144, Fig. 8.5 (see Fig. 9, below). In 2000–2001, as part of a pilot project to design and establish a Scottish Place-Name Database, I created a provisional list of every parish, medieval and modern,26 assigning to each one a three-letter abbreviation. The abbreviations for the modern parishes had already been drawn up by Ian Fraser of the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, and I added abbreviations for those parishes which had ceased to exist as separate units by the early 20th century. At the moment the list stands at 1,256 parishes.27 This Database has been adapted and updated by the Leverhulme Project, ‘The Commemoration of Saints in Scottish Place-names’ (2010–13).28 Based at the University of Glasgow, the team, Rachel Butter, Thomas Clancy (principal investigator) and Gilbert Márkus, have compiled a database of all place-names in Scotland containing the name of a saint or saints, ranging from minor features such as wells and stones to parishes and towns. In the medieval period the parish could be seen as a unit of territory under the protection of the local patron saint, and this could be expressed onomastically in various ways: through place-names at diverse locations within the parish, both centrally and liminally, i.e. along the parochial boundary;29 and through personal names, with the name of the local
25 The Atlas of Scottish History to 1707 arose out of collaborative work by the Scottish Medievalists and the Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh. Published in 1996, it partly replaced a smaller Historical Atlas of Scotland c.400–c.1600 published by the Scottish Medievalists in 1975. 26 By modern is meant the quoad omnia parishes whose boundaries were depicted on OS maps until the late 1970s. 27 This list, which is still very much a ‘work in progress’, can be accessed on
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 108 Simon Taylor
Fig. 8. Map of Dunbog parish, north Fife, showing the older (medieval) boundaries. PNF 4, 337.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 109
Fig. 9. Map of the medieval parishes of Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, Shadow of Bennachie, 144, Fig. 8.5. This was compiled by retrogressive analysis, starting with the boundaries mapped by the OS 6-inch County series. Reproduced by kind permission of RCAHMS.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 110 Simon Taylor saint combined with elements such as Gille and Maol, both signifying ‘servant’ or ‘devotee’.30 In such a study it is therefore of prime importance to define the medieval parochial units, while conversely the data itself provides unique evidence regarding the extent of these units, as well as regarding the dedication of the medieval parish kirk which can in some cases have been otherwise lost. Other work on the medieval parish is the Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches. This is based at the Universities of St Andrews and Stirling. From 2008 to 2011 an AHRC-funded pilot project surveyed the Dioceses of Dunblane (38 churches) and Dunkeld (67 churches). Further AHRC funding is enabling an extension of this study to the medieval dioceses of St Andrews and Brechin. Its principal focus is the surviving medieval fabric of the churches. While there is some parochial history included, it does not deal with the spatial extent of the medieval units which lay to the individual churches.31
Sources for Reconstructing the Medieval Parish Any attempt to reconstruct the medieval administrative geography of Scotland must start with the parish and county boundaries as shown on Ordnance Survey maps such as the 1 inch and 6 inch to the mile series published prior to 1891. It was in this year that these units were extensively rationalised as part of the setting up of the County Councils. All the parish and county boundary changes which came into effect in that year are described in detail in Shennan 1892. Many of the post-Reformation changes to parish boundaries can be found detailed in APS vol. 12 (General Index) under PLANTATION of Kirks (Union, Disjunction and Erection of Kirks and Parishes), pp. 979–81. There are detailed descriptions of the extent of some parishes in the 1620s in Reports on the State of Certain Parishes in Scotland (Maitland Club 1835). Information about some early modern changes to individual parishes can also be found in the Old and New Statistical Accounts. In the Bibliography and References, below, I have given some sources, published and unpublished, for medieval parish development in various parts of Scotland.
30 For example, Gillemachoi of Kinclaith, Glasgow, ‘the servant of St Mungo’, along with his children and dependants, whom King William quitclaimed to Glasgow Cathedral, whose patron saint is Mungo or Kentigern (1175 x 1190 RRS ii no. 217; see also editor’s comments ibid., p. 265); and the two, possibly three, men called Gillmohegu (Gilla mo Fhécu), ‘the servant of St Féchín’, associated with Lesmahagow LAN, ‘the enclosure of St Féchín’, in the second half of the 12th century (Kel. Lib. nos. 107, 109, 110, 114; see also Watson 1926, 196 and Taylor 2009, 72, footnote 37). 31 See
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 111 Bibliography and References This section includes works relating to individual parishes and groups of parishes, not all of which are mentioned in the above article. Where appropriate, the relevant pre-1975 county abbreviations (for which see below) are given in bold in square brackets following the reference.
Aberdeen-Banff Coll.: Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, ed. J. Robertson (Spalding Club 1843) [ABD and BNF]. Aberdeen-Banff Ill.: Illustrations of the Topography and Antiquities of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, ed. J. Robertson, Spalding Club 1847–69 (4 Vols.) [ABD and BNF]. Adam, R. J., 1993, ‘Meathie-Lour: a parish exploration’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society 25, 1993, 41–67 [ANG]. APS: The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson and C. Innes 1814–75 [see also RPS, below]. Arb. Lib.: Liber S. Thome de Aberbrothoc (Bannatyne Club, (2 volumes) 1848– 56). Atlas of Scottish History: Atlas of Scottish History to 1707, ed. P. G. B McNeill and H. L. MacQueen (Scottish Medievalists and the Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh 1996). Available on
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 112 Simon Taylor Dunf. Reg.: Registrum de Dunfermelyn (Bannatyne Club, 1842). Gibbon, Sarah Jane, 2006, ‘The origins and early development of the parochial system within the Orkney earldom’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute [ORK]. Gibbon, Sarah Jane, 2007, ‘Medieval Parish Formation in Orkney’, in West over Sea: studies in Scandinavian sea-borne expansion and settlement before 1300. A Festschrift in honour of Dr Barbara E. Crawford, ed. B. Ballin Smith, S. Taylor and G. Williams (Leiden and Boston), 235–50 [ORK]. Kel. Lib.: Liber S. Marie de Calchou (Bannatyne Club, 1846). Márkus, Gilbert, 2008, ‘Saints and Boundaries: the Pass of St Mocha and St Kessog’s Bell’, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 2, 69–84 [STL]. Márkus, Gilbert, 2009, ‘Balinclog: A Lost Parish in Ayrshire’, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 3, 47–64 [AYR]. McNiven, Peter E., 2011, ‘Gaelic Place-names and the Social History of Gaelic Speakers in Medieval Menteith’, unpublished PhD, University of Glasgow [
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 The Medieval Parish in Scotland 113
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 114 Simon Taylor Bernham Bishop of St Andrews 1239–53, ed. Charles Wordsworth (Edinburgh 1885). Taylor, Simon, 2009a, ‘Place-names of Lesmahagow’, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 3, 65–106. Thomas, Sarah E., 2008, ‘From Rome to “the ends of the habitable world”: the provision of clergy and church buildings in the Hebrides, circa 1266 to circa 1472’, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow. Watson, Angus, 2002, ‘Place-Names, Land and Lordship in the Medieval Earldom of Strathearn’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of St Andrews [western Strathearn PER]. Watson, William J., 1926, The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh and London; reprinted with an Introduction by Simon Taylor, Edinburgh 2004; and, with an extended Introduction, Edinburgh 2011).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 93–114 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things
Alasdair C. Whyte University of Glasgow
Gruline (NM547398), in the modern toponomasticon of the Inner Hebridean island of Mull, refers to a sizeable area of low-lying land at the head of Loch na Keal, the insularly-central sea loch which comes within around 4.5km of splitting the island in two. At the eastern end of this isthmus on the island’s Sound of Mull coastline is Salen, one of the population centres of modern Mull. The modern application of the name Gruline is to the lands ofthe Gruline estate, at the centre of which is Gruline Home Farm (NM548399). Gruline House (NM551393) was built in 1861 by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Greenhill-Gardyne (1831–1923) and formed the headquarters in his day of the united estate of Jarvisfield and Glenforsa (Currie 2000, 386–87).1 The area to which the name Gruline referred in the time of Colonel Gardyne is clearly illustrated both on the 6 inch first edn Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1881 and in the OS Object Name Book (OSNB) produced following the initial survey of the area in 1878: a ‘small District Comprehending the home farm of Glenforsa Bounded on the South by Loch & River Bà, on the West by River Bà, on the North by Abhuinn Tòrr an Arbhair, & on the E. by the West Side of Guala Buidhe’ (OSNB ARG OS1/2/46/1/49/1). This record is worth unpacking. The passage’s ‘home farm of Glenforsa’ is the modern Gruline Home Farm, both farm and estate house specified in the time of Colonel Gardyne by the existing name Glenforsa, as opposed to Gruline, following the aforementioned amalgamation of the estates of Jarvisfield and Glenforsa in 1836 (Currie 2000, 261).2 The building now called Gruline House stands at the north end of Loch Bà, a large freshwater loch which stretches out for around 5km to the south-east. The River Bà issues from this loch around 300m south of Gruline House, initially flowing south-west before flowing north to empty into Loch na Keal near Killiechronan Farm around 3km to the north- west. Abhuinn Tòrr an Arbhair is a name not included on the modern map but which refers, as is illustrated on the OS first edn map, to the stretch of river
1 For more on the estate and its tenurial history, see Whyte, forthcoming. For architectural notes on Gruline House and its predecessor (NM552393), see RCAHMS, Canmore IDs 22241 and 22240. I am grateful to the following for comments and advice received with regard to the development of this paper: Dr Simon Taylor, Professor Thomas Owen Clancy, Dr Colleen Batey and Professor Stephen Driscoll. I am grateful, too, to the anonymous reviewer for useful comments and suggestions. Any shortcomings are my own. 2 Gruline House is therefore Glenforsa House on the OS 1st edn map.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 116 Alasdair C. Whyte
Map 1 The Gruline Area on the OS 6 Inch 1st Edition (Sheet LXXXIII) Reproduced with the permission of National Library Scotland
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 117 which connects Abhainn na Fèithe Bàine to the River Bà, entering the latter at NM541405;3 Tòrr an Arbhair (NM544405), the existing name in Abhuinn Tòrr an Arbhair, is included on the modern map. Guala Buidhe (NM555403), the final toponym contained within the above passage, applies to the shoulder of land which extends northwards from the vicinity of Gruline House for around 2.5km, visible on the left-hand side of the B8035 when heading west in the direction of Gruline from Salen. The Gruline area, still dotted with modern houses, could until fairly recent times have been described, as Salen is now, as a population centre on the island. Gruline’s populace was served by a school (NM544400), post office (NM545405) and had its own village hall;4 its school pupils were transferred to the school in Salen at the tail end of the 1960s (Reay Whyte, pers. comm.). An Episcopalian chapel (NM546405) was built during Colonel Gardyne’s tenure in 1872 and subsequently dedicated to St Columba (Canmore ID 157679; OSNB ARG OS1/2/46/1/49/2). Fiscal evaluation of this part of Mull records that Gruline, consistently valued at two pennylands, has long been a valuable landholding, the earliest known reference dating to the forfeiture of the Lordship of the Isles in the final decade of the 15th century.5 Gruline is listed in these assessments among the lands of Forsa, the district which formed the north-easternmost portion of the medieval parish of Torosay (Killean), held by the Maclaines of Lochbuie until the death of the 19th chief, Murdoch, in 1804;6 this district- name survives in the modern toponyms Glen Forsa (NM597437) and River Forsa (NM599433).
Etymology: Old Norse (ON) grjót ‘(rough) stone(s); stony ground; cleared and cultivated ground’ + ON þing ‘assembly-place’ The final -ding of the earliest historical forms of Gruline, recorded in four separate sources, suggests that Gruline can be identified as a þing- or thing-
3 It is Abhuinn Tòrr an Arbhair on the 1900 OS 2nd edn map. 4 The school and post office are indicated on the OS 2nd edn map. 5 See the Appendix for a detailed record of the historical forms of Gruline and the sources in which these appear. 6 Thereafter the Barony of Moy was sold to Murdoch’s nephews, Major Lachlan (1761–1824), appointed governor of New South Wales in 1809, and Captain Charles Macquarie (1771– 1835) (Currie 2000, 214). The Mausoleum (NM549398) situated around 600m north-west of Gruline House is the burial-place of the former.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 118 Alasdair C. Whyte Map 2 Grulin(e) Sites
EIGG
MULL
ISLAY
25 0 25 50 75 100 km
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 119 name, the location of a Norse assembly-site.7 ON þing nt. is the predominant element used to describe assembly-places in northern Scotland (O’Grady 2008, 188).8 The initial consonant in this element, a voiceless dental fricative θ/ /, is orthographically represented in modern Scottish toponymy variously as th, as in Thingsva, Caithness, and as t, as in Delting, Shetland, in which ON þing is the generic, as is proposed here in relation to Gruline. There are also examples in which this consonant appears as d: it lies behind the initial consonant in Dingwall in Ross and Cromarty and has been suggested as the generic in name- final position – as in Gruline – in *Edin in Bute, perhaps ON eið + ON þing ‘isthmus-assembly’ (Márkus 2012, 359).9 As regards Gruline, the earliest known forms suggest that /θ/-, preceded by a voiceless dental plosive -/t/ (ON grjót) in the underlying ON toponym, was perceived, and presumably therefore realised, as a voiced dental plosive /d/ when these forms of the name were recorded. The earliest known forms of Gruline date to the final decade of the15th and the early 16th centuries, a period in which Mull’s inhabitants are certain to have been speakers of Gaelic and not of Old Norse: the earliest available forms are likely to have been recorded in reference to the pronunciations of Gaelic speakers of a name coined in Old Norse but phonologically adapted to the Gaelic sound system, the name having been used in a Gaelic-speaking environment for several centuries before it was first recorded. The -t which is proposed to have preceded þ- in ON *grjót-þing is of importance with regard to the toponym’s phonetic development and there are examples of ON grjót nt. in toponyms transmitted by Gaelic speakers elsewhere with which to compare it. Stahl has highlighted a cluster of names on the island of Pabbay, south of Barra, which are of relevance here: Rubha Greotach (NL589871), a name found on the 1997 OS Landranger map and etymologised
7 It is common in the most recent commentaries for assemblies named in ON þing to be referred to as things and this is the term used throughout this paper. Recent work includes the publication produced by the ‘THING project’ (Owen, ed., 2012); updates on the project’s ongoing work are available on-line at
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 120 Alasdair C. Whyte as ‘gravelly promontory’ (Papar Project, App. H4, 2),10 and two alternative names for a nearby feature collected from oral sources, Greòtal (NL591871)11 (ibid., 6) and Na Greòtan (NL593869) (ibid., 12). Rubha Greotach is a name coined by Gaels, containing G rubha m. ‘point’ as the generic; the latter two names have been etymologised as ON grjót, defined as ‘gravel, stone’, + ON hóll f. ‘mound’. In discussion of these examples, Cox has highlighted the possibility that ON grjót was a term borrowed into ScG as greòd, although he states that this possible loan-word may not lie behind Na Greòtan if its orthography reflects its pronunciation (Cox 2005, 2, 10). As regards Gruline, it is proposed here that the earliest forms suggest an ON toponym as opposed to a Gaelic construction involving a loan-word, and Greòtal is of particular interest if it represents phonological adaptation of ON *grjót-hóll; the juxtaposition in the Pabbay name of -t and h- is not directly comparable to the proposed juxtaposition of -t and þ- in Gruline, but the development of ON grjót in name- initial position is. The orthography recorded in relation to local pronunciation of Greòtal and Na Greòtan, considered alongside Rubha Greotach which may contain the proposed loan-word, suggests articulation of a diphthong in the region of /e̜ ɔː/ following the vibrant,12 followed by pre-aspiration of a voiceless dental plosive /t/.13 On the evidence of the orthography attributed to these Pabbay examples, the possible loan-word may be better represented as G greòt, presumably articulated locally as [g̥ ře̜ ɔːht].14 The forms of Gruline suggest that juxtaposition of -t and þ- in the ON toponym yielded a phoneme perceived as a voiced dental plosive, typically devoiced in modern Gaelic. Both the later historical forms and the modern form of Gruline illustrate that the early medial d has subsequently developed into a lateral; locally, within an English-speaking context, this intervocalic consonant is articulated as /l/.15 There is no record of an intervocalic or postvocalic broad d being articulated as a lateral in the dialects of Mull or the surrouding area in SGDS.16 There is, however, plenty of evidence for variation in the articulation of the broad
10 1901 Rubh’ na Geod H. Sharbau (estate plan). 11 1823 Greotas MacLean (map): Map of Barra as part of John Thomson Southern Part of the Western Isles. 12 Cf. G beò (Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland (SGDS), §§96–97); G ceòl (§181); G eòlas (§376), points 28–30 [south Barra]. 13 Cf. G bàta (SGDS §§81, 82–83); G cat (§§158–59); G slat (§§768–69); G sùghta (§809). 14 Cf. G greigh (SGDS §500) for initial consonantal cluster. 15 This phoneme is defined asa ‘voiced dental approximant lateral’ in SGDS i, 123. 16 The three Mull informants, one from each of the three contemporary insular parishes, were recorded in 1957 and are as follows: pt 81 Dugald MacArthur, Achnacraig, parish of Torosay; pt 82 Miss Jean Gibson, Knockan, parish of Kilfinichen and Kilvickeon; pt 83 Mrs Mary MacColl, Torloisk, parish of Kilninian and Kilmore.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 121 l in the wider area. This is a well known feature of the dialects of Islay, in which an initial broad l is often articulated as a voiced dental plosive (Grannd 2000, 59–60), and there is evidence of variation, too, in the dialects of Mull. An illustrative example of this is G loisg ‘to burn’ (SGDS §585). Each of the four Islay informants (pts 53–56) articulated this consonant as /d/; in Mull, it was articulated variously as /u̯ ˋ/, a velarised semivowel (pt 81), /ðˋ/, a velarised voiced dental fricative (pt 82), and /lˋ/, a velarised voiced dental approximant lateral (pt 83), the most common articulation throughout the surveyed area. Grannd’s conclusion regarding treatment of broad l in the dialect of Islay was that, although unlenited broad l is realised as a plosive, broad l in medial and final position is realised as a lateral (2000, 60). The SGDS evidence suggests variation in the Mull dialects regarding the consonant in both of these positions. A pertinent comparison as regards the consonant in Gruline is G ùbhlan ‘apples’ (pl.) (§878) in which an intervocalic broad l is preceded by a back close rounded vowel in the Mull dialects. SGDS recorded variation in the articulation of the consonant in Mull: a velarised voiced labio-dental fricative in /uˑvˋən/ (pt 81); a velarised voiced dental fricative, as above in G loisg, in /u̜ ˑðˋən̥ / (pt 82); and, also as above in loisg, a velarised voiced dental approximant lateral in /ʔuˑlˋən̥ / (pt 83). The development in the historical forms of Gruline from d to l is clear; proximity as regards the respective qualities of the broad d and broad l in the dialects of Mull, highlighted by the variation in the above examples, may explain why this development from d to l occurs. This development would have been facilitated when the toponym’s etymology became opaque. On the basis of the SGDS evidence and in comparison with the Pabbay names highlighted above, a diphthong in the region of /ɛɔː/ might be expected with regard to the hypothetical articulation of ON grjót by Gaelic speakers native to Mull. A comparison of note is G ceòl (SGDS §181) for which the following were recorded: /kˊ[ɛɔ]u̯ ˋ/ (pt 81); /kˊ[ɛɔˑ̣ ]ð̥ ˋ/ (pt 82); /kˊ[ɛɔ]̣l̥ ˋ/ (pt 83). The aforementioned variation in articulation of the postvocalic broad l, again including a velarised semivowel (pt 81) and a velarised voiced dental fricative (pt 82), is once more illustrated in these examples. In contrast to the dialects of Barra, preaspiration of the final plosive might not be expected in the Mull dialects: SGDS records that following a long vowel, the Mull informants had no preaspiration of /t/ or /d/ in G bàta17 and G sùghta.18 In the latter example, in
17 G bàta (§81): pts 81–83 /baˑtə/; G bàta (§82): 81 /baˑtə/; 82 /baˑd̥ ə/; 83 /baˑd̥ ə/; G mo bhàta (§83): 81 /mə vaˑtə/; 82 /mə vaˑtə/; 83 /mə vαˑtə/. 18 G sùghta (§809): pt 81 /suˑd̥ ˊɪ̈ ̜/; pt 82 /suːd̥ ˊzˊə/; pt 83 /suˑdˊzˊɪ̈ /. There was preaspiration of /t/ from all informants in G cat (§§158–59) and in G slat (§§768–69) following a short vowel; see also Grannd 2000, 55–56.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 122 Alasdair C. Whyte which the preceding vowel is most comparable, the plosive was realised not as a voiceless dental plosive but as a voiced dental plosive from all three informants, two of which had accompanied devoicing. On this evidence, a monolingual Gael of the type who would be expected to have been an inhabitant of Gruline in the late 15th century might be expected to have articulated the initial element in *grjót-þing as something approaching /grɛɔːd̥ /.19 Juxtaposition of -t and þ- appears to have yielded a sound at least perceived as a voiced dental plosive in the earliest known forms, a phoneme expected on the basis of the above evidence; the lateral is a subsequent development. The most recent forms of Gruline reflect the back close rounded vowel /uː/ which follows the vibrant in local modern pronunciation of the toponym; the earliest forms in Growd-, Croud- and Growd-, however, in addition to providing evidence for an earlier dental plosive, may reflect pronunciation in the region of the diphthong highlighted above, /ɛɔː/, which, similar to that illustrated in the Pabbay names, might have been expected to develop from an original ON -jó-. It is interesting that the Gaelic form of the name at the beginning of the 20th century appears to have been Grùilinn, an orthography likely to indicate a palatalised alveolar lateral /lˊ/ as opposed to the broad l which might be expected to have developed from *grjót-þing: John MacCormick’s Màm Maol Ghrùilinn (Mac Cormaic 1911, 6) ‘the bare màm of Gruline’, a toponym not included in the OS record, may be an alternative name for Cruach Torr an Lochain (NM563402; 348m).20 It is likely that Gruline’s etymology was unknown to the author and his contemporaries, thus facilitating further variation in articulation of this intervocalic consonant; the OSNB informants did not know the toponym’s etymology in 1878 (ARG OS1/2/46/1/49/1). The form may have been influenced by understanding of the final element as G linn(e) f., gen. linne ‘pool, pond, lake, mill-dam, channel’ (Taylor 2005). It is difficult to correlate MacCormick’s form with a plausible etymological explanation of the toponym containing Gaelic elements and, as is outlined above, Gruline’s l appears to be a relatively recent development. This l, and perhaps the Gaelic form of the name, appears to have influenced recent etymological analyses of Gruline. MacQuarrie (1982, 76) has interpreted the second element as the aforementioned G linn(e) and, although there are pools on the River Bà here, Linn’ an t-Sìomain (NM542393) including this element as its generic found on the first edn OS map, this is very unlikely given the consistent d of the earliest forms. MacQuarrie’s proposed Gaelic-Old Norse etymology is implausible although the ‘[ON] Gru, gravel, stony ground’ which he proposes as the initial
19 Cf. G greim (SGDS §503) in relation to gr-. 20 For further discussion of this name, see Whyte, forthcoming.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 123 element represents ON grjót, the specific proposed in this article. Maclean (1997, 27) voices uncertainty with regard to Gruline’s etymology, settling for ‘[G] Cruaidh-linn’, interpreted as ‘stony ground’, although it is unclear why G linn(e) has been translated here as ‘ground’. G cruaidh ‘hard, firm’ from OG crúaid ‘hard(y), harsh; stern, strict; rough’ (DIL) for the specific is unlikely given the earliest forms in Grow- (1494, 1538) and Crou- (1509). Interestingly, Maclean (1997, 27) refers in discussion of Gruline to Forbes (1923, 208) who provides the same etymology for a place-name in Eigg, rendered Grulainn or Grulin, a toponym to which discussion returns below. In terms of the application of ON grjót, it is defined as ‘gravel, stone’ in reference to the Pabbay names above; in Cleasby/Vigfusson the primary definition is as follows: ‘stones, but chiefly with the notion of rough stones or rubble in a building, etc.; grjót, like Engl. grit, is a collective word, and is consequently never used in plur.; a single stone is called steinn, not grjót.’21 In the modern Celtic languages, G grùid f., gen. -e, is ‘lees, dregs, grounds, sediment; malt’ (Dwelly), MacBain (1911) explicitly asserting a connection between this word and English ‘groats’ and ‘grit’,22 both confirmed as cognates of ON grjót in OED.23 Lexical substitution of Scots grit for ON grjót may lie behind the present form of Grit Ness, Evie, Orkney (HY3626) (Sandnes 2010, 201). ON grjót was also used ‘of the shingle on the beach’ (Cleasby/ Vigfusson), of particular interest when considered within the context of An Corran (NM536411), the shingle beach which lies at the head of Loch na Keal.24 Jakobsen (1993, 48) noted that de Grøt o’ Stavaness in Nesting, Shetland, applies to a ‘pebbly beach’. Jakobsen (ibid., 48–49) defined ONgrjót primarily as ‘stone, stony ground’, proposing that in Shetland it commonly denotes rocky ground, although in some cases refers to ‘cleared and cultivated ground’ and ‘is also used in a special sense: low-lying rocky neck or tongue of land, connecting a smaller piece of land with a larger one’. The latter sense appears to be applied to land connecting skerries with larger areas of ground; given the primary status of Gruline in the earliest fiscal evaluations, however, the application to cultivated ground, presumably on account of the removal of stones from the said
21 ON steinn m. is the element which is applied to standing stones, normally appearing on the modern map as ‘stane’, e.g. Whitestanes (HY4715) and Kirk Stane (HY5316) (Stahl 2004). 22 See the entry on G grùdair ‘brewer’, where there is reference to both Modern Ir grúdaire and grúid ‘malt’. See Taylor, with Márkus (2012, 625–36), for discussion of a 13th-century Fife man whose name appears to contain OG gruadaire, G grùdaire ‘brewer’. 23 See the entry for ‘grit’, where the ON word is recorded as griót. 24 The element found with its definite article here is corranG m., gen. -ain ‘sickle’, a descriptive illustration of the crescent-shaped bay at the head of the loch. It is also commonly applied to promontories on the west coast, Watson (1926, 506) defining it specifically as ‘a low cape tapering symmetrically to a point’, from OG corr ‘taper, peaked, rounded to a point’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 124 Alasdair C. Whyte area, is striking.25 Although not explicitly stated, this sense may, on account of the respective compounded elements, lie behind Jakobsen’s de Grøddelds (Papa Stour), Grotpund (Voe, Dunrossness) and Grøthwi (Walls) (ibid., 48): Jakobsen proposed that these are combined with ON deildir, nom. pl. of deild f., locally ‘patch of ground, part of a field’ (ibid., 34), Shetlandic pund ‘fold, enclosure’ (ibid., 203) and ON kví ‘fold, cattle enclosure’ (ibid., 74), respectively. The extensive area of low-lying land east of An Corran at Gruline is itself stony in quality, a characteristic which no doubt influenced the etymological analyses of both MacQuarrie and Maclean; a toponym in ON grjót might similarly have been coined in reference to Gruline’s ‘stony ground’, and perhaps the clearing of it for cultivation during the period in which Old Norse was spoken in the area. Gruline has given its name to a soil association in the Soil Survey of Scotland, the soils of the Gruline Association (map units 278–80), known to have long been utilised agriculturally, are ‘very restricted in extent’, covering only 30 square kilometres in total, and important in this respect (SLCFA 1982, 71).26 Map unit 279 covers 18 square kilometres in total, including the low-lying land at the head of Loch na Keal from around Kellan Old Farm (NM519407) to a short distance west of the Burial Ground at Knock (NM540391).27 Developed upon raised beach or outwash sands and gravels derived from a range of igneous rocks but with a strong basic igneous component, the texture of these soils is dominantly gravel, ‘sometimes very coarse as in part of the Gruline area of the Isle of Mull’ (ibid., 71). Jakobsen (1993, 48–49) notes that ON *grýtingr, defined as a ‘stony stretch’ and said to derive from ON grjót, lies behind Grøtin (Sandsting; Fetlar), de Grød̄ ins (Øver Soond) and, perhaps, Grødī or Grøti (Gunnister, Northmavine), the proposal being that -n is occasionally dropped in final- in. For the initial vowel in Jakobsen’s term, the preceding asterisk denoting that it is not attested in what he terms ‘old Northern literature’, cf. ON grýting f. ‘a pelting with stones, stoning’ and ON grýttr ‘stony’ (Cleasby/Vigfusson). The final -tingr of Jakobsen’s term is striking given the final ding- of Gruline’s earliest forms, but phonemic development from ON ý, a long front close unrounded vowel, to the vowel represented in the historical forms of Gruline and the back close rounded vowel of modern pronunciation seems unlikely: ON ý would surely be expected to
25 The sense of ‘cleared and cultivated ground’ is explicitly proposed in relation to the following names, for which Jakobsen unfortunately provides no NGRs; the Shetland names are recorded here and elsewhere as they appear in the source: de Grōds (Virs, Norwick, Unst; Sooth Voxter, Conningsburgh); Grø̄di or Grøti (Gunnister, Northmavine); de Lalligrøds (Houbie, Fetlar). 26 A useful on-line resource featuring an interactive soil map, which can be used in conjunction with the Macaulay Institute reports, is ‘Soil Information for Scottish Soils | SIFSS - The James Hutton Institute’,
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 125 Fig. 1 Carn Bàn on Approach from NNW Photograph: Alasdair C. Whyte Alasdair C. Photograph: yield G ì, particularly given the close or close-mid front unrounded vowel which follows. The element may have originally referred either to the stony beach or the stony (cleared) ground, or to both, but two nearby cairns, the largest of which is known as Carn Bàn, may lie behind *grjót-þing. ON grjót-haugr m., literally ‘stone how(e) or mound’, one of the many compounds in which ON grjót is recorded, is a ‘heap of stones, cairn’ (Cleasby/Vigfusson); Carn Bàn’s origins lie in G càrn ‘heap of stones’ and G bàn ‘fair, white, pale, light in colour’.28 The two cairns are individually described in RCAHMS site reports which record their locations at NM546393 (Carn Bàn) and NM547393. The report on Carn Bàn (Canmore ID 22244) provides the following description: A prominent knoll known as Carn Ban is surmounted by a grass-covered cairn measuring about 26 m in diameter and 2.2m in height. Its original shape and size have been mutilated by robbing, clearance, and fallen
28 The form would be more correctly Càrn Bàn; this the orthography recorded in OSNB ARG OS1/2/46/1/50 and on the 6 inch 1st edn OS map, where it is described as a ‘wooded knoll’, the name translated there as ‘White Cairn’. See FitzPatrick 2004, 46–47, for discussion of the ‘reasonably homogenous morphological identity’ of OG carn in relation to inauguration sites in Ireland where it appears to refer to ‘modest, compact mounds of earth or a combination of earth and stone’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 126 Alasdair C. Whyte trees. The stony bank running round its perimeter appears to be a tree- ring.29
The smaller cairn is situated 400m west of Gruline House, standing at ‘about 18m in diameter and 1m in height’ and ‘has been severely robbed of stone and is overgrown by shrubs’ (Canmore ID 22248).30 No assertion is made in either of the reports regarding the chronology of the cairns.31
ON þing There is at present little knowledge of the administration of Scotland’s western littoral in the early Norse Age but in Gruline, Mull, there is a likely ON toponym relating to an assembly-site of the period. As regards Dingwall, Crawford (2004, 113) has proposed that the toponym ‘provides incontrovertible evidence of a flourishing Scandinavian community in the Firthlands of Easter Ross, dominant enough in the locality to organise its own legal assembly for the running of social and economic matters according to Norse law and custom’. Crawford has envisaged Dingwall as the administrative centre for this semi- autonomous province: ‘The Norse settlers in Ross may have been more or less self-governing, although no doubt obliged to provide some renders and services for the [Orkney] earls’ (ibid., 113–15). With regard to *Edin in Bute, nearby Cnoc an Rath, G cnoc + G an + G ràth ‘ “hill of the fortress” ’ is proposed to possess many features which mark it out as a potential medieval assembly- site and Márkus (2012, 359–60), despite voicing linguistic reservations, has commented that ‘it would be strange indeed if there were not a þing-site somewhere on Bute’.32 The same may be said of Mull. In reference tothe western seaboard of Scotland, Woolf (2007, 300) considers it likely ‘that each island or group of small islands would have had its own assembly’.33 Placing the potential for loss and displacement of names to one side, in the Hebrides only Tinwhil (or Hinnisdale) in Trotternish, Skye, Tiongal in Lewis and Finlaggan
29 Both cairns were surveyed in 1972, the reports published in RCAHMS 1980, 57, no. 39 (2), which correctly renders the toponym ‘Càrn Bàn’. 30 The 6 inch 1st edn OS map does not in fact indicate the presence of this smaller cairn, although it depicts a gravel pit less than 100m north-east of Carn Bàn. 31 There is also a possible cairn of prehistoric date at Knock around 600m south-west of Carn Bàn: RCAHMS, Canmore ID 22249. 32 It is noted here that ‘the appearance of a final -ar in the earliest forms ... would not be easily explained if the name contained ON þing’. 33 Woolf (2007, 300) adds that ‘it is less clear whether we should imagine there to have been a single alþingr [sic] or ‘general assembly’ for the Isles, or whether intermediate sized groupings, such as the Outer Isles, and the Islay group were the largest functional units.’
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 127 in Islay, where a forerunner to the subsequent council site of the Lordship of the Isles may have been located, have been identified as likelything -sites to date (O’Grady 2008, 192–217). By way of comparison, four locations in Orkney are considered as probable thing-sites in the administrative system which preceded the centralising reforms of the mid- to late 12th century (Gibbon 2012, 91).34 Smith (2012, 75–78) has highlighted the possibility that, prior to legal reform of Shetland in 1274, the island group was divided into administrative units called quarters and eights, but also into smaller units of heraðs, each of which might have had its own thing.35 The law of Norway’s Gulating, a legislative body, court of law and political assembly located in Gulen on the country’s west coast from at least 900 to 1300, contains references to quarter-things, in addition to things of larger provinces (ibid., 77).36 Application of ON þing in the available contemporary written sources and in Norse mythology illustrates that the term refers both to the body of free men that met to resolve conflicts and discuss matters of common interest within a particular area and to the physical site at which the assembly was held (Løkka 2013, 18). The indigenous legal system of pagan Norse society was based around these things, the existence of thing-sites in mainland Scotland, in the areas ruled by ON speakers but which were not included among the Norwegian skattlands,37 suggesting that the thing formed part of the culture brought by the Norse settlers to their new homelands, as opposed to having been centrally imposed (Sanmark 2013, 107). In the ninth- to twelfth-century kingdoms of the North Sea littoral, it is clear that assemblies, both royal and public, were ‘integral elements in the processes of negotiating, achieving consensus and exercising authority’ within contemporary power structures (Sanmark et al. 2013, 1). It has been argued that control of the assembly was vital in the formalisation, expansion and consolidation of power, both for kings in the Scandinavian kingdoms and for the Norse elite in the newly-settled territories in the west (ibid., 1), although, as previously highlighted, only a small number of Hebridean locations have been proposed as thing-sites. Although the assembly seems to have been more focussed around a collective ethos than other contemporary power centres of the time, such as palaces and castles
34 These are Tingwall, Dingieshowe, Stenness and Kirkwall. 35 As Smith highlights, these administrative quarters, eights and heraðs (ON nom. pl. heruð), have left their mark on the toponymy of the islands. The same element may lie behind Harris, Rhum (Papar Project, H9, 3). 36 For more on the Gulating, see Misje 2012, 30–41. 37 Prior to 1266, these skattlands included the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles. The initial element in ON skatt-land ‘tributary land’ is ON skattr m. ‘tribute’ (Cleasby/Vigfusson).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 128 Alasdair C. Whyte (decisions and verdicts being made jointly by groups of assembly participants), the available sources suggest that the thing was a place where those with power often seem to have been able to push decisions in their favour, even before royal reform of the legislative system in the 13th century saw the beginning of an era in which Scandinavian kings assumed full control of the assemblies (ibid., 1). It appears that there existed a hierarchical structure, assemblies at local levels existing alongside regional or national things. Judicially, the system allowed for disputes to be settled in a neutral and non-violent forum, as opposed to blood feud, the thing responsible for setting penalties and compensatory measures, determining land boundaries and, in extreme cases of wrongdoing, imposing outlawry (Owen 2012, 11–14).38 As well as having judicial, administrative and political roles, it is clear that the thing also provided an important social centre, the assembly often sitting ‘at the axis of lordship and peer-to-peer relations’ (Sanmark et al. 2013, 1). The thing was a social gathering at which individuals from the area’s families and dynasties could drink, trade, take part in sporting competitions, negotiate alliances and make arrangements regarding marriages and inheritance,39 an aspect which is also suggested within the context of central judicial-sites across medieval Scotland (O’Grady 2008, 55). Gatherings at the thing-site at Tynwald Hill in Man appear to have included market and sporting activities associated with the central court proceedings (ibid., 60). The sources do suggest, however, that, although a range of social levels appears to have been represented, active participation at the thing was limited to the elite and to the landowning class of free men, the latter including the likes of tenant farmers, some craftsmen, merchants and warriors (ibid., 189).
The archaeology of the thing Despite some saga evidence, the scarcity of written sources from the early Norse Age mean that detailed information on the thing system and its laws, regional variations and the character of thing-sites is still lacking and, in that regard, place-names are vital in their identification. In terms of the research of certain, probable and potential sites, archaeological understanding of the thing has recently been described as being ‘still in its infancy’ (Owen 2012, 22). The paucity of known thing-sites in Norway, for example, means that characterisation of their archaeological and topographical attributes remains uncertain (Ødegaard 2013, 43). It is clear, nonetheless, that the nature and
38 As Owen (2012, 19) highlights, however, the sagas provide plenty of evidence that the legal system did not preclude blood feud and honour killings in this period. 39 For useful recent summaries of the social activities and functions of the þing, see Løkka 2013, 18 and Owen 2012, 9.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 129 organisation of these sites varied across the Norse world and that assembly-sites developed and changed over time, particularly with the emergence of supra- regional kingdoms from the 11th century. Given that things were not permanent settlements, evidence of structures is not necessarily a principal characteristic: excavation has pinpointed the assembly-place at Thingnes in Iceland but, to date, no physical evidence of ‘thing-related activities’ at Ting Holm in Shetland has been discovered, to name two examples of known thing-sites (Owen 2012, 22; Smith 2012, 68–79).40 The most visible remains at Thingvellir in Iceland, the location of the Alþing, the country’s single central assembly which was established by 930 AD and took place over roughly a fortnight annually in June, are those of temporary booths. Most of these date from the 18th and 19th centuries but recent archaeological surveying located several dating to the period between 1000 and 1300 (Jónsson 2012, 46).41 There is textual evidence for ephemeral structures similar to those discovered both at the Alþing and at regional assembly-sites in Iceland at Þinganes in the Faroe Islands, Vésteinsson (2013, 112–13) suggesting that booths might therefore be a feature of the new colonies of the North Atlantic, in societies established in previously uninhabited lands, there being no comparable sites in the Norse world or indeed in the wider contemporary European context. Nothing resembling the Icelandic booths has been recognised at the Norse assembly-sites of Britain and Ireland and, in line with Vésteinsson’s proposals, none would therefore be expected at Gruline. Uncovering evidence of ‘thing-related activities’ has proven problematic in the excavation of thing-sites across the Norse world but recent research has highlighted several topographical features which might be expected within the landscape of a thing. The presence of a thing-mound or -hill at which formal activity was based is a ‘well-known phenomenon’ of thing-sites and, in this regard, burial mounds from earlier periods or natural features of the landscape were often incorporated (Brink 2004, 207; Owen 2012, 22–23). Jónsson (2012, 42–53) has recently provided an account of the role of lögsögumaður ‘the Lawspeaker’ at Thingvellir in Iceland, an elected office whose chief role was to recite the laws before the Law Council from such a raised feature. In Shetland, there is clear evidence that Ting Holm at Tingwall was the site of an Iron Age settlement, perhaps with underlying earlier roots, and there are archaeological
40 For a brief discussion of recent excavation carried out by TAP at Ting Holm which has discovered ‘no clear evidence of Norse activity’, despite the strength of evidence linking assembly meetings to the site, see Sanmark 2013, 103–04. 41 ON búð lies behind the more narrowly defined English ‘booth’, the Old Norse term in the singular normally implying a structure of solid foundations and either impermanent or intermittent use; in the plural, the word can refer to a camp or camp-site: see Vésteinsson 2013, 111–12.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 130 Alasdair C. Whyte remains from multiple periods at Lunnasting (Sanmark 2013, 104). There is evidence for the adaptation of the Neolithic chambered tomb at Maeshowe in Orkney for assembly and/or cult purposes during the early Norse Age. In addition to a large number of runic inscriptions here, a embankment was created around the cairn, demarcating the space inside from the surrounding landscape (Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998, 42, 61; O’Grady 2008, 205; Gibbon 2012, 90–91). Sanmark (2013, 105) has proposed that ‘Reused mounds, as seen across Scotland, would have served as useful site markers and perhaps platforms for speakers, while at the same time carrying religious and ancestral connotations.’ Archaeological evidence indicates that the majority of known thing-sites in Scotland were in fact established in locations with pre- existing cultural significance, including prehistoric monuments and, possibly, established early medieval assembly-sites (O’Grady 2008, 192). O’Grady (ibid., 194–95) has highlighted the possibility that pagan Old Norse speakers may have perceived the locations chosen for thing-sites as having ‘potent supernatural associations, which would be appropriate for concepts of legal sanctuary and perhaps the casting of lots if cultic practices persisted.’ Reuse of the central place is a notable feature of several northern and western European societies, Fitzpatrick (2004, 53) referring to the commonality of ‘the appropriation of an antique landscape for tribal assembly and the ceremony of royal inauguration’ within an Irish context. Where territory was annexed, the adoption of the assembly-place of the conquered people by the victors proclaimed and consolidated the acquisition of the land (ibid., 67). Within a Scottish context, O’Grady (2008, 333–34) has demonstrated with regard to medieval court-settings that there was ‘considerable interest in Scotland during the extended medieval period’ in prehistoric monuments: 65% of the analysed historically-attested assemblies from the 12th to 16th centuries indicate reuse of prehistoric remains for court-settings. It is argued in relation to the medieval Scottish court site that reused prehistoric monuments providing conceptual stability as ‘immemorial features of the landscape’ may have been effective symbols for ‘collective memory of past negotiations and resolutions of dispute’ (ibid., 338). Sanmark (2013, 106) has suggested that the reuse of older monuments at Tingwall and Lunnasting, comparable to Dingwall in Ross-shire and Thingsva in Caithness where there is also evidence of underlying earlier archaeology (O’Grady 2008, 195–201), place the establishment and usage of the things in these locations in the early part of the Norse Age, between the ninth and the eleventh century at the most; in Sweden, thing-sites established before the 11th century appear frequently to have reused older features, later sites instead being located with primary concern for administrative organisation of the landscape.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 131 Comparative analysis: Tynwald Hill, Man It is proposed here that the mound at Carn Bàn was central to the thing-site of Gruline. By way of comparison, particularly appropriate given the Isle of Man’s context relative to Mull in the Norse Age, it is notable that the artificial flat-topped mound at Tynwald Hill in Man, the existing name in that toponym originating, like Dingwall, in ON þing + ON vǫllr m. ‘field, level ground, meadow’ (Stahl 2004), measures 25m in diameter at its base, rising to a height of 3.6m (Darvill 2004, 218); Carn Bàn stands at about 26m in diameter and 2.2m in height. The Norse-Age thing-site at Tynwald is therefore of particular relevance, ON vǫllr looking likely in this case to have applied to the ‘Fairfield’, an open, level field which surrounds the complex (Broderick 2003, 56–57). Within the context of reuse and appropriation, there is evidence that the Norse- Age assembly was located on a prehistoric cult-site and that it was a central place of assembly in the preceding period. The earliest phase in the development of the site may date to the second millenium BC: there is a Bronze Age round barrow with a central stone-built cist, Tynwald Hill itself possibly a late Neolithic developed passage grave (Darvill 2004, 220). In the site’s subsequent phase of development in the latter half of the first millenium AD, the mound and barrow, probably surrounded by some sort of enclosure from an early date, were joined by a burial ground, perhaps a keeil or small chapel and another possible burial mound, the site clearly forming part of a ‘very extensive group of cemeteries and barrows’ in the area (ibid., 221).42 Archaeology confirms occupation of a fairly high-status settlement here between the sixth and eighth centuries AD with parallels to regional power centres such as Navan and Tara in Ireland and there is a distinct possibility that the site became a meeting-place in this period (ibid., 221). The mound’s stepped profile, still a feature of the modern site, is visible in the earliest 17th-century illustrations and written accounts of the ceremonies held here suggest that this stepped profile is ancient (ibid., 222). Tynwald’s tiers appear, on the evidence of later practice, to have been used to symbolise social hierarchy among the assembly’s representatives and O’Grady (2008, 59, 196–97) has proposed that terracing of such mounds would have facilitated this hierarchical division of space. As regards the site in the Norse Age, there is substantial evidence of Viking Age grave burials (Johnson 2012, 108), a commonly occuring trait in the Norse world which may indicate an attempt to assert ownership of land (Sanmark 2013, 105), comparable in this
42 Mx keeil is a cognate of G cill f., gen. cille, ‘church, chapel’.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 132 Alasdair C. Whyte sense to the appropriation of sepulchral monuments and assembly-mounds.43 There is little archaeology which can be specifically dated to the Norse Age, although it appears that during the third phase of the site’s development a large rectangular enclosure was constructed around the hill and the church, perhaps to form a boundary for assemblies (Darvill 2004, 221–22; O’Grady 2008, 57); such a development could therefore provide a parallel with the aforementioned embankment at Maeshowe. Future archaeological research of Carn Bàn might investigate parallels not only with Tynwald Hill but also with thing-mounds elsewhere in the area of the North Channel and the Irish Sea, particularly given the later historical evidence suggesting that the Hebrides were closely linked into the organisation of medieval assemblies in the Kingdom of Man and the Isles (Crawford 1987, 205; O’Grady 2008, 192).44 The stepped profile ofthing - mounds such as The Thingmote in Dublin and Doomster Hill in Govan has been described as ‘another dimension to the development of a distinctive Irish Sea cultural province’ (Darvill 2004, 228).45
The thing-landscape Brink (2004, 209, 215) has proposed a number of ‘essential elements’ that constituted a Viking Age thing in Scandinavia: a large thing mound, for which the evidence is plentiful within a Scottish context, one or more runestones and a row of standing stone slabs, these often lining an old road. There are two monoliths in the vicinity of Carn Bàn. The stone indicated on the modern map at NM547395, less than 300m NNW of Carn Bàn, is described as ‘impressive’ in an RCAHMS report (Canmore ID 22242). Another is indicated on the modern map at NM543397 within non-coniferous woodland locally referred to as Drumlang Wood, a toponym not included on the modern OS map but
43 The Viking Age is chronologically nebulous, intended to refer here and elsewhere to the activity of pagan, non-Christian, Old Norse speakers; regional variation in the period is therefore a consideration of the most recent commentaries. Within a Hebridean context, Macniven (2013b, 3 note) has recently cited the ‘official’ conversion of the Northern Isles by Óláfr Tryggvasonr in the last decade of the 10th century as the most appropriate terminus ante quem. The Christian aspect of Norse settlement in Torosay, Mull, will be discussed in Whyte, forthcoming. 44 For an account on the Gaelic influence on the institutions of the Tynwald, see Broderick 2003. 45 See also Driscoll 1998, 103, and O’Grady 2008, 60. Other stepped mounds include Thingmount, Little Langdale, Cumbria, and perhaps two others in Dumfriesshire at Tinwald and Lincluden Mote; there may also be evidence of a stepped mound at the thing-site in Dingwall in Ross and Cromarty and at Tomnacross (Tom na Croiseige), Kiltarlity (O’Grady 2008, 196).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 133 which is evident on the first edn OS map.46 In line with Brink’s work on assembly-sites in early Scandinavia, further surveying of Gruline’s standing stones within the context of the proposed assembly-site at Carn Bàn may be important. Appropriation of local monoliths might be expected within the context of appropriation of the burial mound of Carn Bàn, the area clearly a central place long before ON speakers applied to it the name Gruline. At Anundshögen, the thing-site of the hundred (hundare) of Seunda in the province of Västmanland, Sweden, the stone row leads the road here to a ford or bridge and one wonders if there might have been a relationship between Gruline’s monoliths and the River Bà which lies between An Corran at the head of Loch na Keal and Carn Bàn and the arable to the east; there is a small island in the river not far from the Drumlang Wood monolith. As regards the river, it is evident that it does not follow its original course and, without placing too much emphasis on the point in the absence of any chronological analysis, it is worth noting here that at Thingvellir in Iceland the Öxará, translated as ‘axe river’, was deliberately diverted through the thing-site ‘in order to provide water for the assembly’ (Jónsson 2012, 46). The evidence of saga accounts and of the numerous toponymic examples in which ON þing is compounded with ON vǫllr highlight another characteristic of the thing-landscape: location on or near level ground. There is a now famous passage in the description of the Gulating in the Saga of Egill Skallagrímsonar which records that the court was established where there was a vǫllr sléttr ‘level field’ (Egil’s Saga, ch. 56, 138 ff; Brink 2004, 205–06). A number of other elements denoting level or dry land, land suitable for the assembly of large numbers and all that came with that in the form of pasture for horses, for example, are found in toponyms relating to thing-sites (Brink 2004, 210). Carn Bàn lies within a sizeable expanse of low-lying ground, rare within its insular context, a feature illustrated in the fiscal evaluation of Forsa in which Gruline is assessed at a value of two pennylands, each of the other settlements of the district, Scallastle excepted, valued at a pennyland. The enclosed area around Carn Bàn is referred to locally both as Achadh Mòr ‘big field’ and the Target Field, on account of targets placed here by the home guard (Reay Whyte, pers. comm.), although neither of these names appear in the OS record. The OSNB record for the standing stone marked on the modern map at NM547395 describes the ‘arable field’ in which it lies here less than 300m NNW of the largest of the Carn Bàn cairns (OSNB ARG OS1/2/46/1/55). A map commissioned by the Duke of Argyll in 1770 indicates that the 30 acre field bordering the western shoreline of Loch Bà here at Gruline was at that 46 Drumlang Cottage (NM542403) is marked on the modern map. This standing stone is not indicated on the 6 inch 1st edn map.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 134 Alasdair C. Whyte Fig. 2 From the Top of Carn Bàn, Facing NNW Photograph: Alasdair C. Whyte Alasdair C. Photograph:
time used as arable land (Holley 2000, 145). On account of its OS forms,47 the aforementioned Tòrr an Arbhair (NM544405), G tòrr m., gen. torra, ‘heap, hill, mound’, + G an + G arbhar m., gen. -air, ‘corn’, seems likely to have referred to crop production at Gruline. The toponym applies to a small knoll of around 20m in height on the south side of Abhuinn Tòrr an Arbhair on the opposing side of the B8035 from St Columba’s Episcopal Church.48 Providing comparison once more with Tynwald Hill, its location in Man is similarly impressive, set on a broad plateau above the confluence of two branches of the river Neb, overlooked by high hills, central and easily accessible within its insular context (Darvill 2004, 218). Thing-mounds may be understood as the exclusive space in which courts would be convened and where the ‘relevant overseeing of legal authority and the body of the court would be located’, the open level space forming the main area on which the people would assemble (O’Grady 2008, 52). O’Grady (ibid., 53) has suggested that, where a mound
47 The 6 inch 1st edn OS form is identical. 48 The additional application of Gtòrr in some cases as ‘mountain’ (Márkus 2012, 577) is not relevant in this case.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 135 is associated with a thing-site, ‘it may perhaps be assumed that the monument formed the core of the assembly, but that it was also set within the assembly- field or þing-valla.’ That this exclusive space was in many cases defined by an enclosure or temporary structure, as is evidenced at Tynwald Hill in Man and at Maeshowe in Orkney, has been discussed above, and is a feature which might therefore be expected in Norse-Age appropriation of Carn Bàn.
Delimitation of the central space The RCAHMS survey of Carn Bàn revealed little on the site’s function and chronology but there may, as is highlighted above, be evidence of a stone ring running around the mound’s perimeter; the outlying boulders in and around this ring may also be of archaeological significance.49 Enclosure of the sanctified space around the thing or thing-mound in Scandinavian society, a characteristic comparable to ‘fencing’ of the court in medieval Scotland, has been discussed by O’Grady (2008, 53). This practice would enable the establishment of a visible fence defining the boundaries of the court and provide the ‘essential controlled space within which the processes of a court could be negotiated’ (ibid., 335). The passage in the Saga of Egill Skallagrímsonar which describes the level field in which the Gulating was established also refers to the encirclement of the court with hazel poles and ropes referred to as vébond ‘hallowed bands’; inside the ring sat the judges, those charged with reaching a verdict in lawsuits, the rest of the assembled thingsmen standing outside (Brink 2004, 206). This delimitation of space seems likely to lie behind the creation of the rectangular enclosure around the thing-site of Tynwald Hill and the adaptation of the pre- existing enclosure at Maeshowe. The flat-topped south mound of the artificial complex at Jelling in Denmark, constructed by King Harald Bluetooth in the late 10th century, was surrounded by a palisade defining the physical extent of the thing-site (Owen 2012, 23). As regards the process of ‘fencing’ at cairns or mounds in medieval Scotland, O’Grady (2008, 337) has highlighted the timber ‘fence’ of Tillydrone Hill, Old Aberdeen, and the enclosing ditch of the Market Knowe cairn of Longforgan. O’Grady’s proposal is that the layout of prehistoric monuments may have provided ‘physical prompts for the spatial organisation of medieval courts and their associated practices’ (ibid., 337). The ‘fencing’ ceremony may in fact have been the responsibility of a specific official, incorporating a physical adaptation of the space to activitate the social significance and legal sanctity of court sites with pre-attached prehistoric significance (ibid., 336). The use of stone in the delimitation of the central
49 I am grateful to Professor Stephen Driscoll, University of Glasgow, for comments on photographs of the site.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 136 Alasdair C. Whyte space is known at thing-sites in Scandinavia: stone slabs mark out a rectangular area around the thing-site at Bällsta, in the parish of Täby a short distance north of Stockholm, the creation of which has been dated to 1010 AD based on the style of the runestone inscription which names Ulvkel, Arnkel and Gye as the men who established the thing there (Owen 2012, 20; Brink 2004, 211–12; O’Grady 2008, 53). A connection between circles of stones and thing-sites in Scotland was proposed long ago by Hibbert (1831, 103–210), it being argued that these features represented the remains of Norse-Age assemblies in the Northern Isles, although no modern study has verified this within either this or the wider Scottish context (O’Grady 2008, 193). Further analysis of Carn Bàn may be able to provide chronological information on its surrounding stony bank and outlying boulders and these may be of particular relevance given the proposal that ON grjót specified the thing-site here. The possibility is that the toponym was coined by Old Norse speakers in reference to an assembly- site characterised by an encircling embankment of stone, perhaps stone blocks appropriated from Carn Bàn or surrounding monuments, the original shape and size of Carn Bàn having been ‘mutilated by robbing’ and the neighbouring, smaller cairn specifically described as having been ‘severely robbed of stone’ (RCAMHS Canmore IDs 22244 and 22248). The possibility that a pre-existing kerb around Carn Bàn was appropriated or adapted cannot be ruled out in the absence of further chronological analysis. The extent to which the removal of stones from Gruline’s cultivable land contributed to Carn Bàn’s stony bank before, during and after the Norse Age is unclear.
Liminality and centrality: an assembly-site for the island? O’Grady (2008, 337–38) has proposed that the liminal status of prehistoric monuments may have made them appropriate venues for judicial assemblies within a Scottish context, the subsequent adoption of such sites perhaps indicating a change of perception towards megaliths in the early historic period. A feature found elsewhere in Britain and in Europe, it seems likely that the liminality of prehistoric sites was considered functionally effective as regards the assembling of neighbouring communities across administrative boundaries in medieval Scotland (ibid., 337, 344–48). The location of Gruline can be considered liminal within Mull’s Norse-Age administrative units in that it lay in the extreme north-west corner of the district of Forsa, ON fors + ON á ‘waterfall river’, the specific most likely referring to the falls (NM600432) at the mouth of the River Forsa where it enters the Sound of Mull at the east end of the airstrip at Glenforsa. Given that a name of ON origin was also applied to this administrative district, the likelihood is that it was functional in the same period as the proposed assembly-site of Gruline. Indeed, the
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 137 earliest fiscal assessments of Mull illustrate that Gruline lay at the boundary of four separate administrative districts: Knock across the River Bà to the west lay within a district which included the settlements along the southern shoreline of Loch na Keal and Clachaig on the southern shoreline of Loch Bà; Glencannel and the settlements at the opposing end of Loch Bà lay within another; and the lands to the north-west along the northern shoreline of Loch na Keal lay within another (Whyte, forthcoming). Those lands to the north- west also lay across an ecclesiastical boundary within the parish of Kilninian and Kilmore in the medieval period, separated from the parish of Torosay by Loch na Keal and, for a short distance, the River Bà. Gruline’s liminality may be indicated in the specific element of both the aforementioned Carn Bàn and Torr Bàn (NM551394), this toponym applying to a mound which lies less than 500m north-east of the large cairn; the generic here is G tòrr, as in Tòrr an Arbhair. The specific in both Carn Bàn and Torr Bàn names is bànG which, as highlighted above, can primarily be defined as ‘fair, white, pale, light in colour’. In place-names with topographical generics it probably chiefly refers to light-coloured vegetation, although Taylor (2012, 530–31) notes that both Scots white and Latin albus, especially in combination with generics such as ‘hill’ and ‘field’, appear in a Fife context to be applied also to boundary lands between communities, with implications of dispute, sharing and the absence of cultivation. G bàn can also mean ‘vacant, waste’ or ‘untilled’ and, although it is clear that late 19th-century locals understood the name of Carn Bàn as ‘white cairn’ (OSNB ARG OS1/2/46/1/50), G bàn may in these toponyms refer to liminality of location. Discussion of the situation of thing-sites within their respective insular contexts has been a feature of recent scholarship on the nature of Norse assemblies in the Northern Isles. Sanmark (2013, 105) has argued that the most common trait linking the locations of Shetland’s things is their isthmus location, which also occurs in Orkney and frequently in Scandinavia.50 As highlighted previously, ON eið ‘isthmus’ is also the element proposed by Márkus as the specific in *Edin in Bute, this specific element illustrative of the site’s location on that island. Referring to Shetland’s thing-sites, O’Grady (2008, 209) has proposed that ‘Isthmuses are nexus points of land and sea movement’, offering ‘prominent landmarks which could be used to define a focal place for assembly activities’. An assembly-site on the extensive low-lying plain between the stony beach at the head of Loch na Keal and freshwater Loch Bà would undoubtedly constitute a prominent landmark on the coastline of Mull. The virtues of Loch na Keal are extolled by MacCormick (1923, 32) in
50 See also Waugh 2010.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 138 Alasdair C. Whyte the typically floral language of his day: ‘With Inchkenneth guarding its entrance from the sweeping career of the Atlantic’s wintry billows, and, surrounded on every side by a battlement of gigantic mountain ranges, Loch-na-Keal gets the name of being one of the safest harbours in the West Highlands.’ The situation of Gruline at the western end of the 4.5km isthmus between Loch na Keal and the Sound of Mull to the east would mark the site out as one of particular strategic seafaring significance, a significance which is clearly represented by the area’s monoliths and the aforementioned cairns.51 The B8035 is the modern route along the isthmus separating Loch na Keal from Salen on the Sound of Mull coast and a similar distance separates Loch na Keal and the estuary where the Aros River meets the Sound in the shadow of Aros Castle. The still-traversable track which connects the island’s west and east coasts here is clearly indicated as the main route, despite traversing land in excess of 150m in altitude, across the isthmus on the 19th-century maps of Langlands (1801) and Thomson (1832). This route runs past the conspicuous remains of an oval-shaped dun at Caisteal na Sreinge (NM555433; RCAHMS, Canmore ID 22283).52 There is no known name in ON eið in the Gruline area, but this expanse of flat land on the banks of the River Bà between Loch na Keal and freshwater Loch Bà, at the nexus of these established communication routes, means that Gruline was likely to have been a location of strategic significance suited to the assembling of local peoples long before the Norse Age. Within the wider context of assembly-sites in medieval Scotland, and with specific reference to fording places, O’Grady (2008, 345–46) has highlighted the importance attached to the positioning of assembly-sites ‘at focal points of movement and communication’. Brink (2004, 215), referring to thing-sites in early Scandinavia, notes that ‘The communications aspect was, of course, most important’. Location within insular and regional context has been important in both the identification and analysis of Scottish thing-sites in recent commentaries. The majority of identifiedthing -sites in Scotland represent locally significant institutions, likely to have served an area comparable to a single parish or group of minor estates (O’Grady 2008, 193). Gruline’s insularly central location may be more comparable to those of Tingwall in Shetland, Tingwall in Orkney and Tinwhil, or Hinnisdale, in Skye, however, whose things may have had a regional orbit, serving a populous beyond the immediate locale (ibid., 193).
51 There is also a dun and medieval settlement remains at Torr nam Fiann (NM539415) less than 3km NNW of Carn Bàn (RCAHMS, Canmore ID 22302). 52 The generic here is clearly G caisteal ‘stone fort, castle’; the specific on account of the OS form is G sreang f., gen. -einge, literally meaning ‘string, line, cord’, but in this case likely to apply to the aforementioned track which connects the coastlines. The String (NR980360) is the name of a road in Arran (Fraser 1999, 144). It is An t-Sreang, the modern form clearly a direct translation into English from Gaelic, on the 1868 OS 6 inch 1st edn (Sheet CCXLIV).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 139 Sanmark’s ‘salient traits’ relating to Shetland’s thing-sites are a useful tool in the analysis of the thing-site at Gruline (2013, 102–05).53 In this regard, Gruline can be described as being located on an insularly central isthmus, is contiguous with freshwater by way of Loch Bà and the River Bà, and lies at the head of a sheltered sea loch and harbour in Loch na Keal. As regards proximity to an ecclesiastical site, there is a burial ground at Knock around 600m to the south-west in a square enclosure defined by a wall of 19th-century date, its earliest datable monument belonging to the mid-18th century (Canmore ID 22246); at the opposing end of Loch Bà around 8km south-east of Carn Bàn in Glencannel lies an old burial ground, an ecclesiastical site depicted here on the map of Blaeu published in the mid-17th century.54 There is strong evidence that Old Norse speakers, appropriating a central place in the Mull landscape in the form of Carn Bàn, applied *grjót-þing to a thing-site here, the central space perhaps being delimited by a stone kerb encircling the mound. Excavation of the site may reveal more as to the chronology of the mound and of the possible stone kerb, in turn providing more information on the political administration of this Inner Hebridean island in the Norse Age. Sanmark (2013, 98, 107) has argued that thing-sites were established in Shetland from the early phases of Norse settlement, an organic phase envisaged here from the ninth century onwards in which assemblies were set up by powerful individuals or families as a way of taking or claiming control over a particular area. Little has been confirmed to date on the Norse political mechanisms of control in the Inner Hebridean area.
Two further inner hebridean things? Further research may take note of two possible Inner Hebridean parallels. Grulin (NR241681), in the parish of Kilchoman, is among the settlement-names listed in historical documents relating to Islay; this existing name is found in combination with the familiar Gaelic affixesmòr and beag, ‘big’ and ‘little’, on the modern OS map on the north side of Loch Gorm in the names Grulinmore (NR242666) and Grulinbeg (NR239680) (Macniven 2006, 335–36).55 Macniven has proposed an ON etymology for the existing name, interpreting the second element as ON land, translated in that study as ‘farm’. The specific is identified either as the
53 Sanmark’s five points are as follows: 1. Isthmus and small island location. 2. Proximity to fresh water. 3. Monument reuse. 4. Sheltered location. 5. Proximity to churches and chapels. 54 For discussion of Glencannel and Knock, the early forms of which highlight the possibility that both of these names may in fact be hagiotoponyms, see Whyte, forthcoming. Blaeu’s map was based on the original survey work of Timothy Pont which may have been completed in the final decade of the 16th century. 55 The names have the same orthography on the 6 inch 1st edn OS map. Their etymologies were unknown to the informants of OSNB (ARG OS1/2/33/113/1 and OS1/2/33/109/3).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 140 Alasdair C. Whyte Old Norse feminine personal-name Gró or the element discussed above, ON grjót, which Macniven (ibid., 335) translates as ‘stoney’. The earliest forms of the toponym collected in Macniven’s study, however, highlight the possibility that Islay’s Grulin contains the same elements as Mull’s Gruline. The forms subsequent to 1733 are consistent in -lin(t), but the earliest forms are Grudin (1584), Groden (1562) and Groden (1563).56 There are no recorded forms in -ing as there are in the forms of Gruline, Mull, but the local pronunciation of the name included by Macniven (ibid., 335) indicates a final velar nasal: [ ̍g̊ ruʔlɪŋ]. There is clear evidence of the same development from a medial voiced dental plosive to a lateral in the historical forms. As is outlined above in relation to the Gaelic dialects of Mull, it is proposed here that proximity between the broad d and broad l in the dialects of Islay lies behind this development. Although Grannd’s research suggests that broad l in medial position is realised as a lateral in the modern dialects of Islay (2000, 60), the early forms of Grulin could suggest closer historical proximity in the respective qualities of broad d and broad l in this position. As regards ON grjót, some soils in the area of Grulin are of a type closely comparable with those of the Gruline Association discussed above. Although there are peaty, wet soils around Loch Gorm (SLCFA 1982, 3, map unit 4), the soils around Grulinmore are of the Corby Association. This is of particular interest given that the Gruline Assocation ‘may intergrade to the Corby Association’ (ibid., 71). Soils of the Corby Association type developed on interbedded sands and gravels derived from acid rocks, textures described as ‘always coarse’, although extreme variation is found (ibid., 49–50). The specific soil type found in the area of Grulinmore (map unit 99) is present on the gently undulating ground formed by raised beach and fluvioglacial outwash deposits (ibid., 51). It has soils of various types, the SLCFA report (ibid., 51) asserting that ‘Some of the best arable ground of the west coast is found on this map unit’.57 The reference to gravelly textures here is noteworthy given the above discussion of Gruline’s soils and must be a consideration with regard to the proposed etymologies in ON grjót. Jakobsen’s proposal regarding the application of the element to cleared and cultivated ground may also be appropriate here given this settlement’s primary status in early fiscal evaluation of Islay. In addition to the parallels between the historical forms of the names, the possibility that Grulin was also coined in reference to a Norse assembly-site is made all the more attractive given the archaeology of this area of Islay. Norse
56 Macniven’s forms elsewhere are chronologically ordered and the date relating to the form listed first here appears to be recorded in error. The asterisk which precedes the head-name in Macniven has not been included here. 57 See also Walker 1990.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 141 origins have been suggested for the nearby ruins at An Sithean (NR250665) and Àird Thorrinnis (NR210675) (Canmore IDs 37374 and 37411; Macniven 2013b, 9), and four or more high-status pagan burials have been discovered at Ballinaby (NR221670) on the north-west shore of Loch Gorm (Canmore ID 37407). As regards the latter, Graham-Campbell and Batey (1998, 125) concluded that the wide-ranging array of artefacts discovered here provides ‘general archaeological information for the Norse presence on Islay during some part of the ninth and tenth centuries’ but that ‘all too little is known of the organisation of what would seem to have been a somewhat dispersed cemetery.’58 Macniven (2006, 308–09; 2013b, 9) has since argued that ‘The location of these burials – on or very near some of the best arable land in the northern half of the Rhinns – their relatively late date; and the fact that they include typical female assemblages all point to established Norse communities with a well defined social hierarchy.’ Neighbouring Grulin on the north side of Loch Gorm is Carnduncan (NR244672), a name which must have been coined in reference to the cairn, G càrn, at NR239672.59 The generic element in this toponym is not the only parallel with Gruline’s Carn Bàn, as the 1984 RCAHMS report on the cairn (Canmore ID 37384) illustrates: This cairn stands in pastureland 350m W of Carnduncan and 30m NE of the public road from Loch Indaal to Sanaigmore. It measures 17m in diameter and although it has been reduced by stone-robbing, particu- larly on the E, it still survives to a height of 1.7m. A notable feature is the carefully chosen series of large boulders, up to 0.9m wide and 0.5m high, that form a kerb round the perimeter; the kerb is now discontinu- ous, and it is likely that the four dislodge[d] boulders shown on the plan originally belonged to it.60
In addition to its topographical situation, its relative dimensions and its contiguity with a freshwater loch and a river, in the form of the River Leòig, interpreted by Macniven (2006, 201) as ON lœkr m. ‘brook, rivulet’ (Cleasby/ Vigfusson), the deliberate encircling of the cairn with large boulders, as is
58 Graham-Campbell and Batey (1998, 122–25) includes a case study on Ballinaby. 59 Macniven (2006, 336), in discussion of the Grulin area’s antiquities, does not draw attention to the cairn but does refer to the nearby dun (NR239670) situated on a rocky knoll on the edge of the marshy flats on Loch Gorm here, about 400m WSW of Carnduncan (Canmore ID 37394). Macniven follows previous interpretations of the toponym as G càrn + G personal-name Donn(a)chadh ‘Duncan’s cairn’. 60 The OS 1979 report notes that it is situated on level ground near the crest of a gentle scarp and commands ‘commanding views’ to the west (Canmore ID 239672).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 142 Alasdair C. Whyte outlined above, may be paralleled at Carn Bàn.61 The possibility is that ON grjót applied to the stone kerb encircling this Islay cairn as it did at Gruline. Macniven did not make a connection between the early forms of Grulin and ON þing but has argued that a prominent conical hillock (NR232648) on the farm of Sunderland (NR246645) was the location of a thing (2006, 195–97, 363–65; 2013a, 81–82).62 Sunderland is etymologised by Macniven (2013a, 81–82) as *Sjóvarland ‘the farm by/of the lake’, a name which is explained as having been conflated in local usage with the name of the surrounding district, ‘ON Sjóvarþing “the assembly place by the lake” ’; ON þing and ON land, it is suggested, were compounded with the same specific and used to describe different features in the landscape. An etymology inON þing is argued on the basis of Shinart, the form of the name on the Blaeu map, which appears to be echoed in local pronunciation of the name: / ̍ʃuɁnarɁtiŋ/. The earliest forms recorded by Macniven (2006, 195–97), however, are consistent with the medial l of the modern form: Synerlay (1507); Synarley (1509); Synnarland (1541a); Synnerland 1541b); Schynnerll (1542). On the basis of these earliest forms, ON land is a more likely candidate for the secondary element than ON þing. Again, proximity in the articulation of broad l and broad d in the Gaelic dialects of Islay may explain what appears on the basis of the early forms to be a development from an orthographical and phonological l to d in Sunderland, the opposite development to the Gruline/Grulin effect as it were. There may also be further evidence here of closer historical proximity between broad l and d in the Gaelic dialects of the area in a medial position. In all but one of the forms recorded by Macniven – the atypical Skynneil (1617), including the Blaeu form and modern pronunciation – the relevant consonant follows r. There is evidence that when broadl follows r in the dialects of Islay, it is realised not as a lateral but as a voiced dental plosive /d/: an illustrative example in SGDS is G Beurla ‘English language’, all four Islay informants articulating this consonant as /d̥ / (§100, pts 53–56).63 This feature of the local dialects seems likely to explain the orthographical t of the Blaeu form and the voiceless dental plosive of modern pronunciation recorded by Macniven.
61 Macniven (2006, 336) has proposed that, while the area around Carnduncan and Grulin appears to fall within the bounds of Leek (NR223678) on Stephen MacDougall’s 1749–51 map of the island, ‘it seems more likely that they were once part of Grulin.’ 62 This feature has not been subject to archaeological investigation to date, although there is a record relating to possible cairns, cists and standing stones said to have been found in the conical hills below Sunderland Farm (Canmore ID 37436). 63 In addition to devoicing, dental quality was recorded in relation to this voiced dental plosive at pt 56.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 143 With regard to the initial element of this toponym, Macniven (2006, 364) explains the *Sjóvar- part of the proposed compound as the genitive form of ‘ON sjó (f), “lake” ’. This appears to be the gen. form, however, of ON sær m., also sjór and sjár, the former the most common form in the older texts; the gen. forms are sævar, sjóvar and sjávar, the intervocalic -v- sometimes written as -f- (Cleasby/Vigfusson). The sjó form provided by Macniven is found in both the acc. and dat. cases. As regards definition, the term applies to ‘the sea’, unsuprisingly found in numerous compounds, but is ‘never used, like Germ
64 The nom. forms recorded in Zoëga are sær, sjár and sjór, where the term is defined as ‘sea’; the gen. forms noted here are sævar, sjávar, sjóvar and sjófar. 65 The sacrality of the landscape in this part of the island in the psyche of the local Gaelic populace is confirmed by the aforementioned An Sithean (NR250665), a common toponym in the Gàidhealtachd which refers to conspicuous small mounds considered to be the dwelling- places of, to quote Taylor (2012, 499), ‘denizens of the Other World’; G sìthean is a diminutive form of G sìth. 66 Dwelly’s entry on G teamhair points the reader to G tèamhaidh but also adds the following on the former: ‘Time, season, in season — Suth’d & N. Coast. 2** Covered or shaded walk on a hill. Teamhair fhuar, cold weather.’
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 144 Alasdair C. Whyte the term’s etymology, Watson (1905, 286), in an earlier study, suggested an origin in the Indo-European root tem- ‘to cut’. Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig (2005, 448) has recently advocated Watson’s suggestion, asserting that the element derives from Indo-European *tem-r-i-s, reflecting the e-grade of the root *tem- ‘cut’ compounded with -r- suffix, thus signifying an area that has been cut off from the surrounding landscape. In Mac Giolla Easpaig’s own words, the element originally referred to an area that had been ‘demarcated for sacred purposes’, closely related both semantically and etymologically therefore to Greek temenos and Latin templum, and can be explained as a ‘sacred place’ (ibid., 448). In terms of the semantic development outlined above, Mac Giolla Easpaig (ibid., 427–28) has proposed that the term became a common appellative, albeit rarely found, subsequent to its application to Temair Breg, an eminent feature in the landscape of Meath, developing various associative meanings by the Middle Gaelic period. The figurative development of the term and its subsequent application as a place-name element were therefore only possible when its meaning and derivation had become opaque to speakers of Old Gaelic. The term’s metaphorical sense looks likely to explain MacBain’s definition of the word which he connects, like Dwelly, to Gtèamhaidh , defined as ‘pleasant, delightful’;67 the word is in fact glossed elsewhere as OG aibinn ‘pleasant, delightful’ (Stokes 1907, 271: §126; Mac Giolla Easpaig 2005, 427). There are over 20 confirmed instances of OGtemair in the toponymy of Ireland, a remarkable rate of survival in the opinion of Mac Giolla Easpaig (ibid., 430), given the ‘obvious antiquity of Temair as a name’.68 Watson’s analysis of the element in Dail Teamhair, one of the cluster of names seemingly containing the element in Glen Casley, Sutherland, implies application of the element in its metaphorical sense, as an adjective as it were, his explanation of the name being ‘Dale of Taras’; the specific element inDail Teamhair is reckoned to apply to the numerous truncated conical mounds on this level plain (1905, 286). The older genitive form recorded by Watson in relation to the Islay name, however, when considered within the context of a sacred landscape in this part of Islay (evident in the area’s toponymy), opens up the possibility that this is a toponym of some antiquity. Further investigation of the toponymic landscape of this Islay name, in addition to further archaeological investigation, may reveal more on this area of the island, which appears likely on the above evidence to have been a central place from an early date. The specific in Druim
67 MacBain (1911) discussed OG temair and Modern Ir teamhair in the entry for G teamhaidh, which he records without the accompanying length mark on the ‘e’ recorded in Dwelly; he derives the terms from *stemari (Mac Giolla Easpaig 2004, 429). 68 For further discussion of the place-names containing this element, see also Ó Muraíle 2005, 449–477.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 145 Teamhair, or Druim Teamhra, carries ancient and significant associations and there is a distinct possibility that it refers to the cairn of Carnduncan. The name Grulin may well indicate continued centrality of this area in Norse-Age Islay, wholly unsurprising considering the above discussion concerning the reuse of prehistoric monuments.69
Grulin, Eigg There looks to be another Inner Hebridean toponym of comparison inthe form of Grulin, Eigg. This name appears on the modern map in the form of Grulin Iochdrach (NM446850) and Grulin Uachdrach (NM455842),70 with the affixed adjectives G ìochd(a)rach and G uachd(a)rach ‘lower’ and ‘upper’, two ruined townships on Eigg’s south coast situated under the cliffs of An Sgùrr. The slopes here are characterised by rocky outcrops and large stone blocks, around which some of the ruined houses of Grulin Uachdrach were constructed (Canmore ID 22193). The topography here is markedly different to that of the low-lying arable of Gruline, Mull, and Grulin, Islay, and, if not applying to cultivable land cleared of stone, may be more comparable to applications of ON grjót to the likes of de Grūd in the western part of Unst, Shetland, where the name refers to a ‘steep, rocky strip of coast’ (Jakobsen 1993, 48). The pebble beaches which line the coast below the villages provide a topographical parallel to An Corran at Gruline. The earliest forms of these names may be Grudling-Etrach and Grudleng- Neyvaidlean, recorded in a 1498 charter which granted to Ranald ‘Makallane’ of Clanranald lands in Uist, Eigg and Arisaig which had previously been held by the lords of Isles.71 A charter of the same year records the latter name as Grudling-Neyvaidlean.72 Grudling-Etrach looks likely to represent Grulin Iochdrach; the latter name clearly contains a different affix to the Guachdrach recorded by the OS. With regard to the incorporated existing name, Grulin, the medial -dl- of these forms appears to be unparallelled in the historical forms
69 For discussion of a toponym in Mull which looks to contain G teamhair, also located in the district of Forsa but not associated with Gruline, see Whyte, forthcoming. 70 NGRs here are those provided in the RCAHMS reports on the ruined townships, Canmore IDs 22170 and 22191, respectively. The forms of the names included on the OS 6 inch 1st edn maps are identical to the modern forms. OSNB INV OS1/16/13/19/2 highlights that Grulin Iochdrach, rendered ‘Lower Gruline’, although this is subsequently scored out, applied to a ‘small district’ in this part of the island; Grulin Uachdrach, ‘Upper Gruline’ similarly scored out, also applied to a ‘district’, the meaning of the name unknown at that time (INV OS1/16/13/24/3. Both anglicised forms include a final e, as is found in the modern form of Gruline, Mull. 71 RMS ii no. 2438; ALI App. 54 228–29. 72 RMS ii no. 2439.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 146 Alasdair C. Whyte of the Mull and Islay names and, given the analysis of the two comparable examples above, may represent an intermediate form between Grud- and Grul- . The forms of the Eigg toponyms suggest similar proximity between broad d and l as is discussed above in relation to the Mull and Islay Gaelic dialects although there is no evidence for articulation of broad l as anything other than a lateral in SGDS: a velarised voiced dental approximant lateral preceded by an approximant was recorded in G ùbhlan, G ceòl and in an initial position in G loisg (pt 94). A glance at the subsequent forms of the Eigg names in RMS illustrates that, parallel to the Mull and Islay names, the orthographical d is later dropped for l: Growlin (1610), Groullin (1610), Growlin (1634) and Growling (1667).73 TheRetours forms Growlin (1627) and Grouling (1695) also relate to this location in Eigg and are not of Grealin (NG508617), Skye, as is recorded in AÀA.74 The modern forms of Grealin suggest that the toponym does not contain the same elements as the Grulin(e) names: the Gaelic form is Grialainn and it is Grealin on the OS 6 inch first edn map. Returning to the Eigg toponym, and with regard to the proposed generic in ON þing, the 1498 forms in -ing and -eng are reminiscent of the earliest forms of Gruline, Mull. If the -dl- of these earliest forms does not represent articulation of a single phoneme, an etymology in ON grjót + ON land may be a consideration. In addition to parallels with the Mull and Islay names concerning the orthographical development of Grulin, Eigg, however, its archaeological landscape may also be indicative of ON þing. Within the context of Mull’s Carn Bàn and Islay’s Carnduncan, a name of particular interest in the vicinity of Grulin is Carnan Ghrulin (NM456842). The generic here is G càrnan m. ‘small heap of stones’, the diminutive of G càrn; the specific is our existing name, lenited in the gen. case. The specific invites immediate comparison with the Mull and Islay sites and this area of Eigg was surveyed in some detail in 2001–2002 as part of the RCAHMS Eigg Survey. The project identified at least 13 huts and eight enclosures between the upper edge of the ruined settlement of Grulin Uachdrach and the cliffs of An Sgùrr, the huts being constructed of pitchstone rubble. There is evidence for the anticipated reuse of rubble and stone, some enclosures being of later date, and at least one having a hut built over it. One enclosure, having an external diameter of 7.8m E-W and 9.1m N-S, was identified as a hut circle in a 1986 survey of the site,75 the more recent
73 RMS vii no. 264; vii no. 344; ix no. 7; xi no. 1105. 74 Retours (Inverness) i nos. 47 and 118; AÀA: Grealin/Grialainn, see also Forbes 1923, 206. 75 The reference here in RCAHMS Canmore ID 22193 is to a manuscript labelled ‘R Rusbrooke et al 1986 (MS 581/1)’: it is ‘Interim Report of Archaeological Survey, Eigg, Inner Hebrides’, by P. Rushbrooke, P. and V. Williams and P. and S. Wade-Martins, 1986.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 147 RCAHMS survey proposing that this was in fact more likely to represent a small stock enclosure. Stock enclosures, more specifically areas designated for the provisioning of the horses of thing-attendees, might nonetheless be among the features expected of a thing-site’s archaeology. There is as yet, however, no analysis dating any of Grulin’s features to the Norse Age.76
Conclusion The linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests the presence of a thing in each of these three Inner Hebridean locations. The early forms of the toponyms found in relation to these locations look to provide evidence that each was identified by a toponym compounding ON grjót and ON þing. Although geological and topographical applications of ON grjót may also be considered in each location, the specific element may apply to a shared characteristic which appears to be presented in the archaeological evidence: that these thing-sites were enclosed by a stone kerb. This is a feature of Norse-Age assembly-sites in Scandinavia, but also within a more local context at Tynwald Hill in Man and at Maeshowe in Orkney. It may be that names in Gruline and Grulin represent an Inner Hebridean Norse-Age culture relating to assembly-sites at which legal adminstration of the respective areas was focussed. Discussion of the Islay and Eigg sites in this study is preliminary in nature and more extensive research of both the toponymic and archaeological context of both locations is likely to elucidate the situation of the sites in the Norse Age, but there are parallels here which point to shared cultural traits in the establishment of Norse-Age assembly-sites in the area. Focussing in conclusion on Gruline, Mull, this site’s centrality within the context of the island and its location at the head of Loch na Keal, a sea loch renowned as a sheltered harbour, open up the possibility that the thing here had a regional orbit, perhaps serving more than the populace of this central part of Mull and the immediately adjacent smaller islands.
Appendix
GRULINE TOY S NM547398 1 375 20m77 Growding 1494 RMS ii. no. 2200 [2 pennylands; in Forsay] Crouding 1509 ER xiii 214 [16 shillings 8 pence; in Glenforssay et Leremulach; the initial C- here may reflect either scribal error or scribal perception of
76 There are also monoliths at the Eigg site which may be of interest within the context of a thing-site here: RCAHMS, Canmore ID 22193. 77 The format of this Appendix follows that of Taylor, with Márkus, 5 vols, 2006–2012, and Márkus 2012.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 148 Alasdair C. Whyte this plosive, given the otherwise consistent G- of the historical forms and of modern orthography] Growding 1538 RMS iii no. 1745 [2 pennylands; in Forsay] Gronding 1542 RSS ii no. 4732 [2 pennylands; in Glenfossy] Grouding 1612 RMS vii no. 663 [2 pennylands; in Glenfossay] Gronding 1615 Retours i no. 15 [2 pennylands; in Glensossy] Gruiling 1625 RMS viii no. 815 [2 pennylands; in Glenfossay] Growillie 1654 Blaeu (Pont) Mula Insula [settlement in black; NE of Auon Va] Gruigling 1663 Retours i no. 73 [2 pennylands; in Glensossay] Gruline 1801 Langlands Argyllshire Gruline 1824 ThomsonNorthern Part of Argyll Shire Gruline 1881 OS 6 inch 1st edn Sheet LXXXIII Gruline 1900 OS 6 inch 2nd edn Sheet LXXXIII Màm Maol Ghrùilinn 1911 MacCormick Seanchaidh na h-Airigh [toponym in gen. but orthography suggests that the nom. case was *Grùilinn; not included on modern map, likely to refer to Cruach Tòrr an Lochain (NM563402; 348m)] / ̍gruːlɪn/78
References AÀA:‘Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba - Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland’, on-line database at
78 This is the local pronunciation of the toponym in an English-speaking context.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 149 Crawford, Barbara E., 1987, Scandinavian Scotland (Leicester: Leicester University Press). —— 2004, ‘Earldom Strategies in North Scotland and the Significance of Place- Names’, in D. G. E. Williams and P. Bibire, eds, Sagas, Saints and Settlements (Leiden: Brill). Cox, Richard A. V., 2005, ‘Indicators of Ecclesiastical and Norse Settlement and History in the Toponymic Material in Appendixes H1–H8 of the Papar Project’, on-line at
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 150 Alasdair C. Whyte The Orcadian Limited; 1st pub. 1936). Johnson, Andrew, 2012, ‘Tynwald – Ancient Site, Modern Institution – Isle of Man’, in Owen, ed., Things in the Viking World, 104–17. Jónsson, Torfi Stefán, 2012, ‘Thingvellir as an early National Centre – Iceland’, in Owen, ed., Things in the Viking World, 42–53. Langlands: Langlands, George, 1801, This map of Argyllshire ...(Campbeltown); NLS EMS.s.326, on-line at
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Gruline, Mull, and Other Inner Hebridean Things 151 Bhreathnach, ed., The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, 449–77. Ødegaard, Marie, 2013, ‘State Formation, Administrative Areas, and Thing Sites in the Borgarthing Law Province, Southeast Norway’, Journal of the North Atlantic 5 (sp5), 42–63. OED: The Oxford English Dictionary, on-line at
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 152 Alasdair C. Whyte SLCFA: Bibby, J. S., G. Hudson and D. J. Henderson, 1982, Soil and Land Capability for Agriculture: Western Scotland. Handbook to accompany the 1:250 000 scale Soil and Land Capability for Agriculture maps, Sheet 4 (Aberdeen: The Macaulay Institute for Soil Research); on-line at
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 115–52 Varia
The Lake of Menteith: Why a lake amongst lochs? Peter McNiven, University of Glasgow
The Lake of Menteith has the distinction of being the onlylake in Scotland. It was not always thus: on James Stobie’s map of the Counties of Perth and Clackmannan, published in 1783, the lake is named Loch of Menteith, while in a letter dated to 1817–19, Sir Walter Scott called it Lough of Menteith (Grierson 1933, 302). Why, then, did this ‘considerable sheet of water’, as the Ordnance Survey described it in 1862–63 (OS1/25/69/43), come to be termed a lake when every other ‘sheet of water’ in the vicinity is designated loch? There are a number of theories given for this unique state of affairs including a popularly held notion that it is a lake because in geographical terms it is different from Scotland’s other stretches of inland fresh water. However, this must be rejected as there are many other examples of Lowland bodies of water that are called lochs, e.g. Linlithgow Loch WLO, Bishop Loch near Glasgow, and Loch Leven KNR. Another theory is that lake here derives from Scots laich ‘stretch of low-lying ground’ (DOST), meaning, in effect, the land surrounding the lake, and a cartographer mistook this Scots word for lake.1 While this theory seems plausible on the face of it, it should also be rejected since there is no evidence that the flat, often boggy area around the lake has ever been called a laich. Until the beginning of the 19th century the Lake of Menteith always had loch in its name. However, unlike the other lochs in the vicinity, it has almost always contained the preposition of. Another difference is that the specific is unstable. Prior to 1685, the lake was called Loch of Inchmahome or similar, except on three occasions, when it is Loch Inchmahome,2 and from 1685 to 1783 it was called Loch of Menteith (see early forms below). Furthermore, during the 19th century the ‘country people of the surrounding district were in the habit of speaking of it as the Loch o’ Port, and by that name it is still known to the older among them’ (Hutchison 1899, 68). The surrounding lochs are always called Loch Lomond, Loch
1 This is the explanation given on the National Park/Historic Scotland notice board next to the pier for the boat to Inchmahome. 2 Even these are interrelated, however, since they are connected to the texts and maps made by Pont, Gordon and Blaeu. (For Inchmahome, see this volume, pp. 54–59.)
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 154 Peter McNiven Venachar, Loch Ard and so on; they are never, for example, Loch of Lomond or Loch of Venachar. This inherent instability must be part of the reason for the change from lake to loch. However, more relevant is the role of the anglicisation of the Scots language and the rise of literary tourism in the early and mid-19th century. It has been written that the ‘use of lake rather than loch in a Scottish setting was common place in Scott’s day ... even while retaining Loch in proper names’ (Ransom 2004, 135). The reason lake replaced loch might have its roots in the perception that English was the language of literature in the decades after the union of 1707. At the height of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume and James Beattie both wrote lists of scotticisms – Scots words to be avoided when writing. It was felt that Scots must show they could write English as well as Englishmen (Murdoch and Sher 1988, 129; Daiches 1964, 20–22). Part of the reason is that English came to be seen as the language of ‘improvement’ (Crawford 2009, 39), and there was a great deal of improvement in agriculture and landscape management happening in 18th- and 19th-century Menteith with wholesale clearance of Flanders and Kincardine Mosses by landlords such as Lord Kames of Blairdrummond (Whittington 1963; Harrison 2003; Harrison and Tipping 2007; Harrison 2008). However, it was also be the case that English was the written language, at least, of the university-educated class of ministers, civil servants, surveyors and others who administered the British Empire (Murdoch and Sher 1988, 129). In order that men (and they were mostly men) of different dialects of English from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the various districts of England, might simply understand each other they spoke and wrote in what was deemed ‘proper’ English. In Scotland the replacement of lake for loch might be seen as a natural progression of this phenomenon. The first time the Lake of Menteith appears in print is in a book entitled Modern Geography: A Description of the Empires, Kingdoms, States, and Colonies; with the Oceans, Seas, and Isles; in All Parts of the World, written by the Scottish polymath John Pinkerton in 1803. In it, he states ‘The chief source of the Forth is from Ben Lomond, or rather from the two lakes, Con and Ard: the stream of Goudie soon joins it from the lake of Menteith’ (Pinkerton 1803, 80); he later adds ‘... the lake of Menteith, a beautiful small lake, about five miles in circumference, with two woody isles, one presenting the ruins of a monastery, the other those of a castle of the old Earls of Menteith’ (Pinkerton 1803, 82). The next mention of the Lake of Menteith being a lake is in a guide to cater for the booming tourist trade to the Trossachs and southern Perthshire by Patrick Graham, minister
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 Varia 155 of Aberfoyle, published ‘at the urging of some travelling gentlemen’ in 1806 (Watson 2006, 153). This book, Sketches Descriptive of Picturesque Scenery, on the Southern Confines of Perthshire, contains a chapter entitled ‘Lake of Menteith’ (Graham 1806, 68–71). Sketches of Perthshire appeared in three editions between 1806 and 1812. In it Graham describes Loch Lomond, Loch Venachar, Loch Katrine and the other lochs of the Trossachs as lakes, e.g. the lake of Loch-Lomond, lake of Loch-Venachar. He wrote of the view from Aberfoyle: ‘Looking eastward, you have the windings of the Forth, deep skirted with woods, in bird’s-eye prospect; the lake of Menteith … the great moss, with Stirling Castle, and the Ochills, in the back ground’ (Graham 1806, 48). While Patrick Graham called Loch Lomond the lake of Loch-Lomond, the lake of Loch of Menteith would clearly be an absurdity. But the reason why the name-form the Lake of Menteith persisted must be due to Sir Walter Scott and his novel Rob Roy who copied Graham very closely: ‘while far to the eastward the eye caught a glance of the lake of Menteith, and Stirling Castle, dimly seen along with the blue and distant line of the Ochill Mountains’ (Scott 1818, 136). Scott’s book was very popular in the 19th century, as was Lady of the Lake, an epic poem based around Loch Katrine, and both were carried by tourists visiting the Trossachs, especially once the railway reached Aberfoyle in the 1850s (Rob Roy, vii; Watson 2006, 150–63). The Lake of Menteith became established as the ‘official’ name in 1866 when the 1st edition map of the Ordnance Survey was published.3
LAKE OF MENTEITH PMH W NN578005 1 lacu de Inchmahomok 1485 RMS ii no. 1861 the loch and ilis of Inchmahomo 1606 NAS, PA2/16, f.86v–89r Loch Inchmahume 1630–50 Sibbald TNS 131v L. Inch-ma-humo c.1636–52 NLS Adv.MS.70.2.10 (Gordon 51) Loch Inche mahumo 1654 Blaeu Lennox Loch of Monteith c.1685 NLS Adv.MS.70.2.11 (Adair 3) Loch of Monteith 1724 Geog. Coll. i, 340 Loch of Monteith c.1750 Roy
3 Although in the OSNB for KRD, signed off by Captian Pratt in March 1863, the surveyor could still write of the Goodie Water as a ‘large burn issuing from the Loch of Monteith’ (OS1/25/39/45).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 156 Peter McNiven Loch of Menteith 1783 Stobie Loch of Monteith 1791–99 OSA vii, 140 lake of Menteith 1804 Pinkerton (1804, 132) lake of Menteith 1806 Graham (1806, 68–71) lake of Menteith 1817 Scott (Rob Roy, 370) Lough of Monteith 1817–19 Sir Walter Scott [‘… in the island of Portmahom in the Lough of Monteith there are the most splendid Spanish chestnuts …’ in (Grierson 1933, 302)] lake of Menteith 1818 Scott (1818, 136) [‘… far to the eastward the eye caught a glance of the lake of Menteith’] Lake of Inchmahome 1840s NSA x, 1099 Loch of Monteith 1863 (OS1/25/39/45) Lake of Monteith 1866 1st edn OS 6 inch map PER and CLA CXXX Loch o’ Port 1899 Hutchison (1899, 68) Lake of Menteith 1901 2nd edn OS 6 inch map PER and CLA CXXX.NE
Bibliography Blaeu 1654 (2006): Atlas Novus, edited and printed by Johan Blaeu, Amsterdam, based on maps surveyed by Timothy Pont and reworked by Robert Gordon of Straloch and James Gordon of Rothiemay. Reprinted, with an introduction (C. W. J. Withers) and translated texts (I. C. Cunningham), as The Blaeu Atlas of Scotland by Birlinn in association with National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh 2006. Crawford, R., 2009, The Bard: Robert Burns: a biography (London). Daiches, D., 1964, The Paradox of Scottish Culture: The Eighteenth Century Experience (Oxford). Geog. Coll.: Geographical Collections relating to Scotland made by Walter MacFarlane, ed. A. Mitchell (vols i and ii), Arthur Mitchell and James Toshach (vol. iii) (Scottish Historical Society 1906–08). Graham, P., 1806, Sketches Descriptive of Picturesque Scenery, on the Southern Confines of Perthshire; including the Trosachs, Lochard, etc. (Edinburgh). Grierson, H. J. C., ed, 1933, The Letters of Sir Walter Scott vol.v 1817–1819 (London). Harrison, J. G., 2003, A historical background of Flanders Moss (Scottish Natural Heritage). Harrison, J. G. and R. Tipping, 2007, ‘Early historic settlement on the western carselands of the Forth valley: a reappraisal’, PSAS 137, 461–470. Harrison, John G., 2008, ‘East Flanders Moss, Perthshire, a documentary study’, Landscape History 30, 5–19.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 Varia 157 Hutchison, A. F., 1899, The Lake of Menteith: its Islands and Vicinity (Stirling). Murdoch, A. and Richard B. Sher, 1988, ‘Literary and Learned Culture’, in T. M. Devine and R. Michison, eds, People and Society in Scotland, vol. 1, 1760–1830 (Edinburgh). NLS Adv.MS.70.2.10 (Gordon 51): A map of the basin of the River Forth, down to the widening of the estuary near Alloa of c.1636–52,
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 158 Peter McNiven Whittington, G. W., 1963, ‘Landscape changes in the Vale of Menteith’, in J. B. Withrow and P. D. Wood, eds, Essays in Geography for Austin Millar (Reading).
Aberlady and Abersuainie Jacob King, Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba
1. Aberlady Aberlady Parish ELO NT466801 abberlefsic c.1164 BL Cott. MSS Titus A. xix. f.76–80 [?abberlefdic] uicario de aberleuedi 1214 × 1229 St A. Reg., 297 decimum denarium burgi de Abirleuedy 1328 ER i 5 Aberleuedy 1335 × 1336 Cal. Doc. vol. iii Edw iii [twice] Aberleuedy 1343 ER i, 32 Aberleuedy 1375 ER ii, 79 portum de Abreledy 1376 ER ii, 82 portum de Aberlefdy 1379 ER ii, 86 (port of ) Abirledy 1381 ER iii, 93 (port of ) Abyrlevedy 1387 ER iii, 99 (port of ) Abirledy 1388 ER iii, 102 (port of ) Habyrledy 1389 ER iii, 103 (port of ) Aberledy 1391 ER iii, 106 (ships at) Abirledy 1398 ER iii, 119 (boat at) Aberledy 1400 ER iii, 123 (port of ) Abbirledy 1405 ER iii, 130 portum de Abirledy 1438 ER v, 178 (port of ) Abirledy 1441 ER v, 182 (port of ) Aberlevedy 1443 ER v, 185 terras de Aberlady 1454 RMS ii no. 680 Abirlady 1458 RMS ii no. 610 prebenda de Abirlady 1469 RMS ii no. 1056 portum de Abirlady in sinu aque de Pepher 1542 RMS iii no. 2847 [‘the port/harbour of Aberlady in the bay of the water of Peffer’] lie Manis de Abirlady 1574 RMS iv 2318 [‘mains of’] lie Manis de Abirladie 1589 RMS v no. 1686 cum cuniculariis lie linkis de Abirladi 1589 RMS v no. 1686 [‘with the links of ’] villa de Abirlady 1609 RMS vii no. 3 cemiterium de Abirlady 1620 RMS vii no. 2112
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 Varia 159
Fig. 1 © The British Library Board, BL Cott. MSS Titus A. xix. f.79. Both passuu
The oft quoted form Aberlessic, from the Herbertian fragment of the Life of St Kentigern, exists in one manuscript only in the British Library numbered Cott. MSS Titus A. xix. f. 76–80. There has been much debate1 about the location and identity of Aberlessic and its relationship with modern name Aberlady. As James writes, it ‘… remains unidentified in spite of lively controversy’ (2014, 6). It hardly seems necessary to rehearse these arguments in the light of the actual form of the manuscript, which, as quoted above, is actually abberlefsic not Aberlessic. The letter-form conventions are somewhat confusing with the letters f, s and t, so that, for example the ligatures -st- and -ft- are similar. The heights however of the two letters in the cluster -fs- in question are different, which definitely denotes -fs- rather than -ss-, by comparison with other words in the MS which have a genuine double -ss- ligature, such as passuu
1 See, for example, Beveridge 1923, 15, Watson 1926, 460–01, Jackson 1958, 291– 93, and MacQuarrie 1997, 120, 124. 2 Glas. Reg. i, lx
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 160 Jacob King Were emendation necessary, Innes would have been better off emending the form from Abberlefsic to *Abberlefdic or *Abberleftic. A form such as this was probably intended and is clearly meant to denote Aberlady. This is much closer to the next earliest form, aberleuedi. This correct reading makes sense of the comment in the text: in ostium scilicet fluminis quod abberlefsic vocatur, id est ostium fetori ‘the mouth of a river which is called Abberlefsic, that is the mouth of stench’. Ostium fetoris, meaning ‘the mouth of stench’ is perhaps a Latin gloss for Brittonic *aber loβedīg, where *aber ‘confluence’ is a gloss for ostium and loβ- ‘weak or diseased’ for fetoris ‘stench’ (James 2014, 244). Whether this is the true derivation or an early folk etymology is not known, since, as James points out, a form of *leiβedīg or *leiμedīg from an element possibly meaning ‘smooth or level’ may be preferable (ibid. 229). This specific fell together with late Northumbrian Old English/proto-Scots levedi < hlafdīġe ‘loaf- distributor’, whence modern English ‘lady’ (ibid. 229–30). Previous scholars have struggled to reconcile the seeming difference between Aberlady and *Aberlessic, either positing that they represent two separate sites or tackling the issue of the phonology in a seeming change from *lessic > *levedig. This re-reading of the form Abberlefsic has largely reconciled the phonological differences and makes it clear that Abberlefsic (or indeed an emended form Abberlefdic) was indeed what we now call Aberlady.
2. Abersuainie Blair Atholl Parish PER NN842657 the Ford of Abersuane 1710 Commissariot of Dunkeld Aper Suanie or Innervack Miln 1718 Records of Blair Atholl and Struan Kirk Session [NRS CH2/430/1/7] Abarsuainie 1760 Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine Familes vol. iii, p. 480 [Croy3 built in the Garry at Abarsuainie] Aberwainie 1834–45 NSA (Blair-Atholl) vol. 10, p. 564
Abersuainie is no longer extant but seems to be Milton of Invervack near Woodend on the River Garry. The name is often mentioned alongside a story explaining the name, giving it a (folk) etymology of *Àth Bàrd Suainidh, as if from Gaelic àth ‘ford’ + bàrd (gen. sing. bàird) ‘bard’ + Suaine(art) ‘Sunart’ ‘the ford of the Sunart bard’. The story has become
3 Croy is a variant of cruive, a sort of fish trap. Cf. DOST
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 Varia 161 confounded with two separate locations. The first set of stories relate to NN881685 which is Cumhann-leum Bridge on the Tilt, a few miles from the actual location on the Garry. The stories are: ... a number of cairns ... being the cairns of the Suaineart men, who came to plunder Atholl, about 200 years ago, and were killed above Bohespic, to a man, after having had their bard shot across the river, a mile above Blair, from whom the ford is called Ath-baird-suainidh, to this day.4
ATH BAIRD SUAWRAIDH a ford over the Tilt near Blair Athol in Perthshire near which are a number of tumuli covering the graves of a body of men from Sunart who came into Athole on a plundering party in the latter end of the 16th century and were all killed.5
These following stories contain this folk etymology but relate the name to the location by Invervack. ‘Ath Bhaird Suainidh’ (The Ford of the Sunart Bard). During the sixteenth century a body of men, mostly from Sunart in Argyllshire, made a raid into Atholl, but were defeated above Bohespic after hav- ing had their Bard shot dead with an arrow across the Garry at the ford near Wood End. From this circumstance the ford was called by the above name.6
Note the similarity with the OSA version. Here the men were killed seemingly on the Tilt ‘above Bohespic’ but the bard was shot in a separate event on the Garry. During the sixteenth century a body of men, mostly from Sunart in Argyllshire, made a raid into Atholl, but were defeated above Bohes- pic after having had their Bard shot dead with an arrow across the Garry at the ford near Wood End. From the circumstance the ford was called by the above name.7
4 OSA vol 2 p. 476 (Blair Atholl) 1791–99. 5 Thomas Brown,Union Gazetteer for Great Britain and Ireland, 1807, 59. 6 Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine families Vol. i, App. p. vi. A footnote states this incident was ‘taken from a MS. By John Crerar, head-forester to John 4th Duke.’ Crerar worked for the duke between c.1776–1830. 7 Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine families Vol. iii, 480.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 162 Jacob King The name of the ford [a ferry and ford on the north side of the river Garry] must not be omitted; it arose from a large body of men chief from Sunart, in Argyleshire (at some very remote period), having invaded the country of the Atholl Highlanders, who met them close to Invervack, and every one of them were slain. Their bard took to flight, going towards the Garry river, in the hope of saving his life; he was pursued and shot dead with an arrow when ascending the opposite bank. From a hasty and careless pronunciation of the two first words of the name of this ford, some strangers, and those not acquainted with the history and traditions of Atholl, fancy it is an ‘Aber,’ but there is no confluence. The correct name of the place is ‘Ath-bhaird-an-Siona,’ meaning, ‘ the ford of the Sunart bard’.8
The river Garry winds its course in a very picturesque way through the great vale of Atholl, till it gets close to the base of Benvrackie; the ferry and the ford which is in the foreground, is named ‘Ath-a- bhaird-an-Suinard,’ which means, ‘the ford of the Sunnart bard’ and it shows the historical value of local names, as this one makes us acquainted with the site of a battle, in which the Atholl Highland- ers were engaged at a very ancient period, with a large body of men who belonged to the district of Sunnart, in Argyleshire, and invaded the country of Atholl to plunder it; this conflict took place on the level ground which is represented on the right of the illustration, and close to Invervack. ... the result of this battle was, that every one of the Sunnart intruders were slain except the bard, who, when he saw what had happened, took to flight in hope of saving his life. He ran straight towards the river Garry but was pursued, and though he managed to ford it, and at a place which had not previously been used for that purpose, he was shot dead with an arrow while ascend- ing the bank, and the name of ‘the ford of the Sunnart bard’ continued for it to the present day. (Robertson 1866, 476–77)
In recent times the identification between Abersuanie and *Àth Bàrd Suainidh was again adopted uncritically: Boat of Abersuany was a half merk pendicle of land beside the river and outside the Barony of Struan, forming part of the Easter
8 Robertson 1869, vii–viii. A somewhat shorter version of this also appears (ibid., 384).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 Varia 163 Invervack land of the Atholl Estate. It means Ford of the Sunart Bard from Gaelic Ath Bhaird Suainidh and it was during the 16th century that the bard of a party of Sunart men was shot dead while retreating across the river, following a raid in Atholl.9
The following mention is made of Abersuainie on the Garry, but with a different story behind it: Certain mounds over in Athole on the right bank of the Garry below Stewartston [Balnansteuartach], are traditionally regarded as Danish graves, where a chief or noble of this race is said to have been interred – hence known as the burial place of ‘Athel’. The surrounding plain along both sides of the Garry is the Blair (Gaelic Blar) of Athole, or as it may be fairly rendered, the Battlefield of Athel ... But the par- ticular name of the spot where these reputed Danish graves occur is Abersweyne (Gaelic Abersuane), evidently from Sweyn, the Danish King, who with his marauding hosts overran (A.D. 1003–1016) a great part of England, Scotland and Ireland. This Abersweyne is a promontory on the south side of the Garry, formed by a bend in the river, as indicated also by the prefix Aber. In ancient times it formed the key to the most available route to the southern and western dis- tricts.10
The fuller reference in the NSA mentioned above does not give any hint as to its location, but implies the name was well known in 1838: ‘At Aberwainie and upon the glebe about 500 feet above the level of the sea there was an extensive clump of the largest oaks and where many standard trees of great dimensions may still be seen.’ It should be remarked that both the works by J. A. Robertson are extremely unreliable,11 attempting to prove that the Gaels are the aboriginal race of Scotland. As such he would have been keen to show an aber-name as being Gaelic in origin. That said the story seems to contain some elements lacking from previous versions and may have been gathered locally. Although there are conflicting accounts here that clearly cannot be rationalised, it is likely that the original location for the story was at Cumhann-leum Bridge and that Robertson transposed the story to the site of Abersuainie on the Garry in order to concoct evidence that Abersuainie was a Gaelic name in origin.
9 Kerr 1991, 398–99. 10 ‘D.C.’ 1883. 11 For details, see Taylor 2011.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 164 Jacob King It is true that Robertson was not the first person to set the events on the Garry, and it is possible the similarity between the name Abersuainie and the folklore name of *Àth Bàrd Suainidh resulted in the two places being conflated. It is also possible the tradition of two separate events – that of the raid into Atholl and that the killing of the bard – took place (or was originally perceived to have taken place) separately in the two locations. The name Cumhann-leum Bridge is perhaps noteworthy. F. C. Diack recorded a pronunciation of this name as Droxatsh Xo:ilem, i.e. Drochaid (a’) Choileum ‘leap bridge’ (Diack MS2276). Whilst there is no leap in the story, it is similar to a common motif of a soldier being chased and jumping a river or chasm after which his pursuers cannot follow (Nicolaisen 2011 [1968], 47–51). So, folklore aside, is Abersuainie a bona fide aber-name? Once the fanciful derivation is disregarded, the forms might suggest so, although the forms are by no means old. The early forms are remarkably consistent, except for the form Aberwainie, which suggests a lenited form of Suaine. In Gaelic, obar-names as a rule lenite the following hydronymic element (e.g. Aberdeen ~ Obar Dheathain, Aberfoyle ~ Obar Phuill) so this form is suggestive. Moreover the 1718 form Aper Suanie containing two separate words suggests the name and stress pattern as one would expect for a gaelicised aber-name, with stress on the second element, and not that, for instance, the stress was on the second syllable.12 Taking Abersuainie at face value then, one would expect a place with an aber-name to sit at a confluence of a water-course, and that the water-course would be called the *Suaine. The site is by a burn now called Allt Bhaic, after which Invervack or Inbhir Bhaic is named, suggesting that the Gaelic name replaced the earlier Pictish one. This process is unknown elsewhere in Scotland, but such a model is not impossible. As to the identification of Pictish hydronymic element *Suaine, there does not unfortunately seem to be any element within the Pictish onomasticon (which is where we should presumably be looking) that fits. Given the paucity of our knowledge of the Pictish language, however, this fact does not necessarily undermine the whole argument. It is just possible that this element exists in nearby Baluain (NN836660). On the face of it
12 Beveridge 1923, 20, accepts the derivation of ‘Ath Bhaird Suainidh’ at face value, and dismisses it as a bona fideaber- name.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 Varia 165 the specific element would be either uaine ‘green’ or possibly uan ‘lamb’.13 The Gaelic form seems to be simply Baile Uain, without an article;14 could this in fact represent *Baile Shuaine ‘the town of *suaine’, with this element being the same element as seen in Abersuainie?
References Beveridge, E. 1923, Invers and Abers of Scotland (Edinburgh). BL Cott. MSS Titus A. xix. f. 76–80: British Library Cotton Manuscripts Titus A. xix. f. 76–80. Brown, Thomas, 1807, Union Gazetteer for Great Britain and Ireland (Glasgow). Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine families, ed. John, Seventh Duke of Atholl, K.T., 5 vols (Edinburgh 1908). ‘D.C.’ 1883: ‘Scandinavian Vestiges in Blair Atholl’, The Northern Chronicle 21.11.1883 (author otherwise unidentified). Diack, F. C., 1954, MS2276, unpublished manuscript in Aberdeen Special Collections of Diack’s field work, compiled by W. M. Alexander. DOST: Dictionary of the Scots Language – A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue up to 1700,
13 Stobie’s map of 1783 gives Lambton for Baluaine, which suggests the name was understood as baile ‘farm’ + uan ‘lamb’ 14 Genitive in ‘cait Bhail-uain’ (Watson 1915, 75) and ‘bɑ̀l úˑɑnʹ Baile Uaine’ (Ó Murchú 1989, 287). The final schwa in a word such as uaine would usually be dropped in Perthshire Gaelic.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 166 Jacob King Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 2011, ‘The Prodigious Jump’, in In the Beginning was the Name (Lerwick), 45–59 [originally published in Harkort, Fritz et al., eds, Volksüberlieferung: Festschrift für Kurt Ranke, 1968, 531–42]. NSA Various, 1834–45, New Statistical Accounts (Blair-Atholl) vol. 10. Ó Murchú, M., 1989, East Perthshire Gaelic (Dublin). OSA Various, 1760, Old Statistical Accounts (Blair-Atholl) vol. iii. RHP41019/22: Photocopy of Plan of Invervack (c.1830). Robertson, J. A., 1866, Concise Historical Proofs Reflecting the Gael of Alban (London). Robertson, J. A., 1869, Gaelic Topography of Scotland (London). Stobie: Map of the counties of Perth and Clackmannan: James Stobie (London 1783). Taylor, Simon, 2011, ‘Placename Studies in Scotland and the Onomasticon’, in Kevin Murray and Pádraig Ó Riain, eds. Edmund Hogan’s Onomasticon Goedelicum: Reconsiderations (Irish Texts Society/Cumann na Scríbheann nGaedhilge, Subsidiary Series 23), 103–16. Watson, William J., 1915, Rosg Gàidhlig, Specimens of Gaelic Prose (Inverness). Watson, William J., 1926, The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh and London; reprinted with an introduction by Simon Taylor, Edinburgh 2004; and, with an extended introduction, Edinburgh 2011).
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 153–66 Bibliography of Scottish Name Studies for 2013
Simon Taylor University of Glasgow
This is the fifth such bibliography inThe Journal of Scottish Name Studies( JSNS), the first appearing inJSNS 4 (2010) covering the years 2006–2009, the second in JSNS 5 (2011) covering the year 2010, and so on. It aims to present, in a continuous list arranged alphabetically by author, all relevant articles, chapters in edited books, monographs, CDs, e-books and PhDs (some of which are now available on-line) which appeared in 2013.It draws heavily on the bibliographies which I compile for Scottish Place-Name News, the twice-yearly Newsletter of the Scottish Place-Name Society, which should also be consulted for shorter, often illustrated, articles on a wide range of Scottish toponymic themes. For more extensive bibliographies of name studies in Britain and Ireland and, less comprehensively, other parts of northern Europe, see the bibliographic sections in the relevant issues of Nomina, the journal of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, compiled by Carole Hough. Two have become recently available (as of December 2013): the first is her ‘Bibliography for 2010’ (Nomina 34 (2011), 163–75), published 2013; the second is her ‘Bibliography for 2011’ (Nomina 35 (2012), 161–72), also published 2013. The material in these Nomina bibliographies is set out thematically and includes relevant reviews which have appeared in the given year. An extensive, though by no means exhaustive, bibliography of Scottish toponymics, set out thematically and regionally, can be found on-line at
Breeze, Andrew, 2013, ‘Northumbria and the Family of Rhun’, Northern History 50, 170–79. Broderick, George, 2013, “Some Island Names in the Former ‘Kingdom of the Isles’: a reappraisal”, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 7, 1–28.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 167–69 168 Simon Taylor Butler, James O., 2013, ‘Name, place, and emotional space: themed semantics in literary onomastic research’, unpublished PhD, University of Glasgow, available online on
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 167–69 Bibliography of Scottish Name Studies for 2013 169 McNiven, Peter, 2013, ‘Black Castles: Myths and Place-names’, in Excavations at the Black Spout, Pitlochry and the Iron Age Monumental Roundhouses of North West Perthshire, David Strachan et al., 69–75 (Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, Perth). McWhannell, D. C., 2013, ‘Gaill, Gall-Ghàidheil and the Cenéla of Greater Galloway’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 87, 81–115. Martin, Angus, 2013, Kintyre Places and Place-Names (The Grimsay Press, Kilkerran). Morgan, Ailig Peadar, 2013, ‘Ethnonyms in the place-names of Scotland and the Border counties of England’, unpublished PhD, University of St Andrews; available online on
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 167–69
Notes on Contributors
Dr Alan G. James read English philology and medieval literature at Oxford, then spent 30 years in school teaching, training teachers and research in modern linguistics. He maintained his interest in place-name studies through membership of the English Place-Name Society, the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland and the Scottish Place-Name Society. After retiring, he spent a year as a Visiting Scholar in Cambridge University’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, studying Celtic philology. Since then, he has been working on the linguistic history of Northumbria and the Old North. ‘The Brittonic Language in the Old North: a guide to the place-name elements’ is on the SPNS web-site,
In 2008 Dr Jacob King completed a PhD entitled Analytical Tools for Toponymy: Their Application to Scottish Hydronymy. This used computational methods to discover underlying patterns in toponymy, focussing on Scottish river names. Since that year he has worked for Ainmean Àite na h-Alba; this is a national advisory partnership to research and establish the correct and appropriate Gaelic forms of place-names for maps, signage and general use. His current role is to undertake the academic research to fulfil these aims; he is also partially responsible for developing and maintaining the online database. He is a committee member of the Scottish Place-name Society and on the panel of reviewers for The Journal of Scottish Name Studies, as well as the author of a number of articles. As part of his work, he recently collaborated on two books for the ‘Gaelic in the Landscape’ series published by Scottish Natural Heritage: ‘Place-names in Islay and Jura’ and ‘the Place-names of the Rough Bounds of Lochaber’, which were compiled using information gathered from local informants. Other interests include the place-names of Highland Perthshire, as well as the place-name field-work of Gaelic scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Until recently, Dr Peter McNiven was a research associate at the University of Glasgow, working on the AHRC-funded Scottish Toponomy in Transition project. The chief outputs for this project are the place-name volumes for the pre-1975 counties of Kinross-shire, Clackmannanshire and Menteith, the last of which is based on my 2011 PhD. He is currently working freelance and has recently done work for the Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust on Glenshee place-names and the legends of Finn mac Cumhaill.
Dr Simon Taylor has been working in various aspects of Scottish place-name
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 171–72 172 The Journal of Scottish Name Studies studies since the early 1990s, including the production of detailed surveys of Fife (5 volumes, 2006–2012), Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire (1 volume each, forthcoming). He is employed half-time as a lecturer at the University of Glasgow. Editor of JSNS since its inception in 2007, he is now co-editor with Richard Cox.
Is ann à Muile a tha Alasdair C. MacIlleBhàin is e stèidhichte ann an roinn na Ceiltis is na Gàidhlig aig Oilthigh Ghlaschu far a bheil e na oileanach PhD. Ga stiùireadh tha an Dotair Simon Taylor agus an t-Ollamh Thomas Owen Clancy. Choisinn e MRes aig Oilthigh Ghlaschu, a thràchdas stèidhichte air buaidh na Lochlannaise air ainmeannan-àite ann am Forsa, Muile. Is e cuspair a’ PhD aige ainmeannan-àite ann an sgìreachd Thorosaigh (Cill Eathain) ann am Muile. A thuillidh air rannsachadh ainmeannan, bidh e a’ cur ùidh ann an cànanachas, litreachas agus òrain.
Alasdair C. Whyte from the Inner Hebridean island of Mull is a PhD student in Celtic and Gaelic at the University of Glasgow. He is supervised by Dr Simon Taylor and Professor Thomas Owen Clancy. He was awarded an MRes at the same university, his dissertation focussing on the toponymic evidence for Norse settlement in Forsa, Mull. The subject of his PhD is the toponymy of the parish of Torosay (Killean), Mull. In addition to name studies, his research interests include linguistics, literature and song.
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 171–72 The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 173 County abbreviations for Scotland, England and Wales (pre-1975)
ABD Aberdeenshire KNT Kent AGL Anglesey LAN Lanarkshire ANG Angus LEI Leicestershire ARG Argyllshire LIN Lincolnshire AYR Ayrshire LNC Lancashire BDF Bedfordshire MDX Middlesex BNF Banffshire MER Merionethshire BRE Brecknockshire MLO Midlothian BRK Berkshire MON Monmouthshire BTE Bute MOR Morayshire BUC Buckinghamshire MTG Montgomeryshire BWK Berwickshire NAI Nairnshire CAI Caithness NFK Norfolk CAM Cambridgeshire NTB Northumberland CHE Cheshire NTP Northamptonshire CLA Clackmannanshire NTT Nottinghamshire CMB Cumberland ORK Orkney CNW Cornwall OXF Oxfordshire CRD Cardiganshire PEB Peeblesshire CRM Carmarthenshire PEM Pembrokeshire CRN Caernarvonshire PER Perthshire DEN Denbighshire RAD Radnorshire DEV Devon RNF Renfrewshire DMF Dumfriesshire ROS Ross and Cromarty DNB Dunbartonshire ROX Roxburghshire DOR Dosetshire RUT Rutland DRB Derbyshire SFK Suffolk DRH Durham SHE Shetland ELO East Lothian SHR Shropshire ESX Essex SLK Selkirkshire FIF Fife SOM Somerset FLI Flintshire SSX Sussex GLA Glamorgan STF Staffordshire GLO Gloucestershire STL Stirlingshire GTL Greater London SUR Surrey HMP Hampshire SUT Sutherland HNT Huntingdonshire WAR Warwickshire HRE Herefordshire WIG Wigtownshire HRT Hertfordshire WLO West Lothian INV Inverness-shire WLT Wiltshire IOM Isle of Man WML Westmoreland IOW Isle of Wight WOR Worcestershire KCB Kirkcudbrightshire YOE Yorkshire (East Riding) KCD Kincardineshire YON Yorkshire (North Riding) KNR Kinross-shire YOW Yorkshire (West Riding)
The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 8, 2014, 173