to the tests of phonology, I have eliminated detailed references to the methods by which the final results have been reached. The onesidedness of my course of procedure is most apparent in the Introduction here the door is closed against philology, and the voice of history alone is heard. I am well aware that for all this I shall incur the reproach of zealous philologists, but I would ask them to bear in mind that, in the space at my disposal, it was impossible for me to serve two masters. Moreover, I am firmly convinced that the chief value of place-name study lies on the side of history, and that our English place-names, when they have been adequately investigated, county by county, will do much to illumine what is still to a large extent obscure-the origins of the English people and the foundations of English society. In attempting to deal with these and other problems, I am well aware that my position is that of a mere tyro, and that I am making incursions into fields of research the length and breadth of which I have most inadequately gauged. My consolation is that, in the progress of science, the errors of explorers are sometimes as stimulating as the truths at which they arrive. A word of explanation is necessary as to the choice of names in this volume. Earlier investigators have either singled out from some county area such names as interested them, or they have taken as their basis the names which appear on some modern map or gazetteer of the county. The plan which I have adopted is somewhat different; the names which I have investigated are those which find a place either in Mr. R. H. Skaife's Domesday Book for Yorkshire or in the same editor's edition of Kirkby's Inquest, Knights' Fees and Nomina Villarum for Yorkshire. I am well aware that in making these two books my basis, I have omitted from my list such interesting names as Harrogate, Mytholmroyd, or Todmorden, which do not find a place in either of these works; on the other hand, I have provided myself and my readers-with a large number of early spellings of West Riding names, and have thus made my investigation more sure. The pleasant duty remains of offering grateful thanks to all those who have aided me in the performance of a task which, if interesting, has also been arduous. It was at the suggestion of Mr. E. Kitson Clark that this work was undertaken, and his active sympathy has been given to it in all stages of its progress. I am greatly indebted to Mr. C. A. Town for extracting, from the two works which form my basis, the names-together with their early forms—which belong to the West Riding, and for arranging these in proper order; also to Mr. Conrad Gill for his investigation of early forms in some of the volumes of the Rolls Series. Professor Skeat has been most helpful in suggesting to me the proper methods of investigation, and Professor Anwyl, of the University College of Wales, has rendered valuable assistance in regard to those names which seemed to me to contain Celtic elements. But my chief debt of gratitude is due to Professor H. C. Wyld* and Mr. C. J. Battersby, both of whom have carefully revised the proof-sheets of this volume as they have come from the press, and have drawn my attention to errors of statement and thrown light upon problems which baffled my scrutiny. Mr. Battersby's labours on my behalf have, indeed, been unceasing; and, faulty and incomplete as I know this work to be, I gratefully acknowledge that its faults and incompleteness would be still more conspicuous had its pages not undergone his careful and erudite revision. F. W. MOORMAN. THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS. * By a curious and pleasant coincidence, Professor Wyld has been investigating the place-names of Lancashire at the same time that I have been engaged upon those of the West Riding of Yorkshire. His volume, published by Messrs. Constable, will appear almost immediately. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. The most wonderful of all palimpsests is the map of England, could we but decipher it ": these are the words of the late Professor Maitland,1 and it is a very deep sense of their truthfulness which leads me to prefix them to this Introduction. For the volume which the reader holds in his hand is nothing more or less than an attempt, often faltering and often imperfect, to decipher one page of this palimpsest, and thereby to discover a meaning in words the original forms of which have, in the lapse of centuries, grown faint and obscure. The truth of the quotation can, perhaps, best be shown by means of a single illustration. York, the city which has given its name to the shire, was, at the time when British history begins, Eburacum or Eboracum or Cair Ebroauc.2 What the name means is uncertain,3 and our immediate concern is with the changes which it has undergone. With the English Conquest of Britain Eburacum became Eoforwic, Eoforwic-ceaster, Eoferwic, Eoferwicceaster, Eaforwic, Eferwic or Everwic-all of which forms appear in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Now the change from Eburacum to Eoforwic is partly in accordance with phonological law, but partly of the nature of popular etymology. For Eoforwic had to English ears a definite meaning; it meant the lair of the wild-boar': and knowing, as we do, how the English were for the most part content to let the old Romano-Celtic cities which had fallen into their hands lie waste, the question arises whether the proud civitas which had sheltered the legio sexta victrix, and where one emperor had died and another had been proclaimed, did in very deed become in the sixth and seventh centuries the lair of the wild boar. But if the progress of English history had been smooth, the name Eoforwic would have developed not into York, but into Everwick.4 Once again the foe was at the gate; in the year 867 Ivarr and Halfdan, the Scandinavian Vikings, set up their standard within the walls, and Eoforwic became Ioforvik.5 Half a century later Ioforvik has been contracted into Iorvik (pronounced Yorwick), 1. Archaeological Review, iv., 235. 2. Eburacum is the spelling of Bede, Eboracum and Cair Ebroauc are the forms which appear in Nennius's Historia Britonum. In Eburacum and Eboracum, the accent was on the third syllable, and the b was probably sounded as v. 3. The popular derivation of Eburacum from the river Ure is, in its way, as venturesome as Hotspur's demand to have Trent turned; for Eburacum is not on the Ure, but the Ouse. The name is no doubt Celtic, and bears a certain resemblance to certain Gaulish place-names, including Eboriacus, now Faremoutiers, in France. The probability is that Eburacum is formed by means of the Celtic suffix -acum out of a personal name Eburos or Eburus, which is found in Roman and Greek inscriptions. A Celtic bishop of York called Eburiws or Eborius was present at the Council of Arles in the year 314; see Haverfield, Early British Christianity (English Historical Review, xi., 417). The termination -acum is frequently met with in Gaulish place-names; cf. Carnacum, now Carnac, in Britanny. 4. In exactly the same way that O.E. Eoforesleah has become Eversley, or O.E. Eofordun, Everdon. 5. This is the spelling in Arnbiorn's Lay (circ 960) by the Icelandic poet, Egil. The initial I was sounded like Y, cf. O.E. eorl, O.N. jarl (yarl); hence the Y sound in York. 6. See Stretch-Song of King Cnut, by the courtly poet, Sighvat (Corpus Poeticum Boreale). whence, with the dropping of the medial w,1 we get Yorick2 and finally York. This final form-spelt zeorc or 30rc-is reached as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century, when it is recorded by the Middle English poet, Layamon, in his Brut. Layamon, who loved not the Dane, found something peculiarly offensive in the form York (3eorc, zorc). After deriving Kaer Ebrauc from the mythical King Ebrauc, he goes on to say: "Then came stranger men and called it Eoverwic, and the northern men-it is not long of yore-in their barbarity-thurh ane unthewe-called it georc." But the progress from Eoforwic, through Ioforvik and Iorvik, to York was by no means so smooth as the above record seems to show. For centuries there waged a fierce struggle for mastery between the English form Eoforwic or Everwic and the Scandinavian form Iorvik or York. In Domesday Book (1086) and in the Pipe Rolls of the reign of Henry II., York appears throughout as Everwich or Eurwic, and Yorkshire as Everwichscir or Eurvicscyre; Layamon, not liking Danish barbarisms, always refers to it as Eouerwike or Euerwic, while Euerwik, Euerwyc, Euerwyk and Euerwic are the spellings of the name in the metrical chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (fl. 1260-1300). But by the fourteenth century the struggle seems to have been over, and the victory rested with the Dane. Chaucer was barbarous enough to use the form York, and what was good enough for the "well of English undefyled" has been good enough for those who have come after him. But, in conclusion, let us notice how admirably the name illustrates the force of Maitland's words. Eburaçum-Cair Eborauc -Eoforwic-Ioforvik-York: here, indeed, is a palimpsest, overwritten by the hands of many men, speaking many tongues; and at the same time the name, when all its changeful history has been recorded, stands before us as an ever-during symbol of the play of the great national forces which, in the revolution of the years, and through the agencies of peace and war, have built up the England that we know to-day. 4 1. METHODS OF INVESTIGATION. Before proceeding to a detailed study of the points of historic interest associated with West Riding place-names, a word is necessary as to the methods of investigation and arrangement adopted in the body of this work. An element of conjecture necessarily enters into the study of place-names, partly on account of the difficulty of tracing the development of such names over a sufficiently lengthy period of time, and partly because what is known as 'popular etymology'—that is, the assimilation of the unfamiliar to the 1. Cf. the loss of the w in the pronunciation of Greenwich, Alnwick, etc. 2. "Alas! poor Yorick " surviving as a personal name. -one of the many instances of a more primitive form of a place-name 3. Layamon's Brut, ed. Madden vv. 2666-2673. 4. Lordynges, ther is in Yorkshire, as I gesse, A mersshy contree called Holdernesse.-(Summoner's Tale, verses 1-2). |