Gillian Fellows-Jensen A few more words on place-names in thorp in England Endnu et par ord om stednavne på thorp i England Igennem en periode på omkring 45 år har forfatteren arbejdet med og tænkt over navneelementet thorp i Eng- land. Nærværende artikel kan ses som en (foreløbig) konklusion herpå, først og fremmest på spørgsmålet om, hvor vidt de engelske thorp-navne er af dansk eller engelsk oprindelse. Så mange års studier af et emne må næsten uvægerligt føre til ændringer i tolkningen af de relaterede spørgsmål. Forfatteren er da også nu mere end tidligere parat til at indrømme muligheden af, at engelske throp-navne oprindeligt også kan have været ud- bredt i Danelagen, men her med tiden er blevet ”fordansket” til den mere udbredte form thorp. Ikke desto mindre kan den store forekomst af thorp i bestemte dele af England fortsat bedst forklares som oprindelige thorp-navne og som afspejlende dansk indflydelse, om end flere af navnene udmærket kan tænkes at være af noget yngre dato end den oprindelige skandinaviske bosættelse. Fremover vil det dog nok være tilrådeligt kun at anvende ‐thorp-navne med skandinaviske forled i kortlægninger af dansk bosættelse i England. I have been writing and thinking about place- From the very beginning I have accepted names in thorp in England for about forty-five Hugh Smith’s definition of the element thorp as years. Although I have changed my mind about denoting ‘a secondary settlement, an outlying several points in the course of time, I have farmstead or a small hamlet dependent on a mentioned most of these voltes-face more than larger place’ (Smith 1956: 2.208). This is not once before now, first and foremost in the rele- only because of the occurrence of the word in vant chapters in my studies of Scandinavian an early twelfth-century insertion in the Peter- settlement names in Yorkshire (Fellows Jensen borough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1972: 42-79), the East Midlands (Fellows-Jen- for 963 of a somewhat dubious grant by King sen 1978: 83-135) and the North-West (Fel- Edgar of freedom from jurisdiction of king and lows-Jensen 1985: 44-60), an article entitled bishop to the monastery of St Peter, using the ‘Place-names in ‐þorp: in retrospect and in tur- words ealle þa þorpes þe þærto lin. þæt is. moil’, which was expressive of my state of mind Æstfeld and Dodesthorp and Ege and Pastun. at that time (Fellows-Jensen 1991-92), and The meaning of the word thorp here is suppor- most recently in an article comparing place- ted in a copy of a related charter (Sawyer 1968: names in thorp in Norfolk with those in the rest no. 787), where the words ealle þa þorpes are of the Danelaw (Fellows-Jensen 2003). Refe- translated into Latin as cum suis appendiciis rences to relevant names in the present paper ‘with their appendages’, while in some four- are normally to the above-mentioned works. teenth-century memoranda (Sawyer 1968: no. 1448), the relevant Peterborough estates are 2 Gillian Fellows-Jensen referred to in Middle English as ta berewican contain west or vestr, four sūð or súðr and two ‘the berewicks’, that is ‘dependent members of norð or norðr. a manor’. Even without this illustrative, if slight- The problem of distinguishing linguistical- ly uncertain, documentary evidence, however, ly between names of English or Danish origin the content of the place-names themselves of- brings me to the main topic of the present pa- ten points to the originally dependent nature of per. This is the question as to whether the the settlements they bear. thorp-names are mainly of Danish or English Almost a quarter of the thorp-names (132 origin. I was originally convinced by Kenneth names or 23%) are simplex names, that is the Cameron’s argument in his study of the place- word thorp stands quite alone on the occasion names in thorp in the territory of the Five Bo- of its earliest record. The settlements with roughs that the names were a reflection of Da- these simplex names can hardly have func- nish colonisation in the strict sense, that is of tioned satisfactorily from an administrative point the bringing under cultivation by the Danes of of view in the eleventh century and later unless less attractive land that was not being exploited they had some kind of accepted dependent re- at the time of their arrival in the area (Cameron lationship to the authority which was respon- 1970). It is quite clear from the map in Figure 1, sible for receiving the dues and taxes that had which shows the thorp-names whose sites I to be paid. In later years many of these simplex have been able to locate, that the greatest con- names became distinguished from each other centrations of the 576 names (the grey circles) by the addition of a prefix or affix. The names are found in Yorkshire (North Riding 47, West with prefixed elements occasionally contained Riding 94, East Riding 83), the East Midlands the name of an older settlement, for example (Nottinghamshire 36, Lindsey, South Riding 39, that of a parish in the case of Burnham Thorpe Kesteven 41, Leicestershire 40, Northampton- in Norfolk. This settlement had prospered suffi- shire 32) and Norfolk in East Anglia (61). These ciently by the time of Domesday Book to be figures certainly support the idea that the thorp- named there with this specific and it had cer- names are ultimately a result of the three parti- tainly acquired parochial status at an early tions of land that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle re- date. Several of the postulated prefixed names, corded as being made by the Danes in York- however, are themselves now lost places, for shire in 876, in the East Midlands in 877 and in example a lost *hrēod-fær ‘reed passage’ in a East Anglia in 880. Most of the thorps can in similarly lost Redfarestorp in Domesday Book fact be seen to cluster along or near to the two for Suffolk. prominent ridges of high ground that run in the It is rather more frequent for the prefix in shape of two crescent-moons in broad sweeps a ‐thorp-name to be an adjective or adverb of from the Yorkshire Moors down towards south- direction. Names incorporating the four points west England – the chalk ridge to the east and of the compass are of common occurrence. It the ridge further west of oolitic limestone. would seem to have been most frequent for a The situation is somewhat complicated thorp to have been located in the east, for there by the fact that at least 54 names contain the are nine thorps containing OE ēast and three cognate Old English element throp with its me- containing cognate Scandinavian austr. Unfor- tathesised spelling and most of these form a tunately, no distinction can be drawn linguis- slightly attenuated tail to the thorp-names (the tically in the place-names between the other black circles in Figure 1). three points of the compass. Eight thorps can A few more words on place-names in thorp in England 3 Figure 1. English place-names in thorp (grey) and throp (black), whose sites it is possible to lo- cate. These English throps occur most frequently in lable (1914-40: §693.1). Since the element oc- the limestone Cotswolds (Gloucestershire 15, curred so frequently as a simplex place-name, Oxfordshire 10) and the chalk of the Chilterns however, this explanation is not entirely satis- (Buckinghamshire 5) and Salisbury Plain (Wilt- factory. It should also be noted that thorp spel- shire 10). I therefore came to the conclusion lings do occur in areas such as Oxfordshire that it was on the cretaceous and limestone and Gloucestershire, where the regular spelling uplands that secondary settlements were likely is throp. I am inclined to feel that this is to be called thorp by the Danes and throp by because thorp had become the dominant the English in the Viking period and later. A spelling after the arrival of the Danish settlers. possible explanation offered by Karl Luick for It is of somewhat greater significance, on the the occurrence of metathesis so early in En- other hand, when throp-spellings occur in areas glish throp is that it frequently stood in place- where thorp is the regular spelling, for example names in a comparatively weakly-stressed syl- 4 Gillian Fellows-Jensen in the West Riding of Yorkshire. I shall return to (Watts 1988-89: Map II), although the distribu- these forms below. tion patterns of the ‐býs and thorps in Durham I have in recent years noted a few more are admittedly different from each other. points of interest about the situation of the A comment should also be made in this thorps and the throps and I intend to discuss connection on the possible age of the thorp- these here. Starting at the north of the map in names and the settlements bearing the names. Figure 1, we note that Victor Watts located no Thorpe Bulmer is the one of the five recorded fewer than five symbols for thorps in County thorps in Durham to have the latest earliest Durham on his map III (1988-89). None of date of occurrence, namely 1242, but there is these thorps is recorded in Domesday Book, palaeoecological evidence to show that the which does not of course treat Durham, but Lit- land at Thorpe Bulmer must have been cleared tle Thorpe in Easington (NZ 4242) is recorded for settlement long before the Viking period.