There is hardly a book on Cornish history or antiquities in which we are
not seriously informed that at some time or other the Jews migrated to
Cornwall, or worked as slaves in Cornish mines. Some writers state this
simply as a fact requiring no further confirmation; others support it by
that kind of evidence which Herodotus, no doubt, would have considered
sufficient for establishing the former presence of Pelasgians in different
parts of Greece, but which would hardly have satisfied Niebuhr, still less
Sir G. C. Lewis. Old smelting-houses, they tell us, are still called
_Jews’ houses_ in Cornwall; and if, even after that, anybody could be so
skeptical as to doubt that the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem,
were sent in large numbers to work as slaves in the Cornish mines, he is
silenced at once by an appeal to the name of _Marazion_, the well-known
town opposite St. Michael’s Mount, which means the “bitterness of Zion,”
and is also called _Market Jew_. Many a traveller has no doubt shaken his
unbelieving head, and asked himself how it is that no real historian
should ever have mentioned the migration of the Jews to the Far West,
whether it took place under Nero or under one of the later Flavian
Emperors. Yet all the Cornish guides are positive on the subject, and the
_primâ facie_ evidence is certainly so startling that we can hardly wonder
if certain anthropologists discovered even the sharply marked features of
the Jewish race among the sturdy fishermen of Mount’s Bay.
Before we examine the facts on which this Jewish theory is founded,—facts,
as will be seen, chiefly derived from names of places, and other relics of
language,—it will be well to inquire a little into the character of the
Cornish language, so that we may know what kind of evidence we have any
right to expect from such a witness.
The ancient language of Cornwall, as is well known, was a Celtic dialect,
closely allied to the languages of Brittany and Wales, and less nearly,
though by no means distantly, related to the languages of Ireland,
Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Cornish began to die out in Cornwall about
the time of the Reformation, being slowly but surely supplanted by
English, till it was buried with Dolly Pentreath and similar worthies
about the end of the last century.(60) Now there is in most languages, but
more particularly in those which are losing their consciousness or their
vitality, what, by a name borrowed from geology, may be called a
_metamorphic process_. It consists chiefly in this, that words, as they
cease to be properly understood, are slightly changed, generally with the
object of imparting to them once more an intelligible meaning. This new
meaning is mostly a mistaken one, yet it is not only readily accepted, but
the word in its new dress and with its new character is frequently made to
support facts or fictions which could be supported by no other evidence.
Who does not believe that sweetheart has something to do with _heart_? Yet
it was originally formed like _drunk-ard_, _dull-ard_, and _nigg-ard_; and
poets, not grammarians, are responsible for the mischief it may have done
under its plausible disguise. By the same process, _shamefast_, formed
like _steadfast_ and still properly spelt by Chaucer and in the early
editions of the Authorized Version of the Bible, has long become
_shamefaced_, bringing before us the blushing roses of a lovely face. The
_Vikings_, mere pirates from the _viks_ or creeks of Scandinavia, have, by
the same process, been raised to the dignity of kings; just as _coat
cards_—the king, and queen, and knave in their gorgeous gowns—were exalted
into _court cards_.
Although this kind of metamorphosis takes place in every language, yet it
is most frequent in countries where two languages come in contact with
each other, and where, in the end, one is superseded by the other.
_Robertus Curtus_, the eldest son of the Conqueror, was by the Saxons
called _Curt-hose_. The name of _Oxford_ contains in its first syllable an
old Celtic word, the well-known term for water or river, which occurs as
_ux_ in _Uxbridge_, as _ex_ in _Exmouth_, as _ax_ in _Axmouth_, and in
many more disguises down to the _whisk_ of _whiskey_, the Scotch
_Usquebaugh_.(61) In the name of the _Isis_, and of the suburb of _Osney_,
the same Celtic word has been preserved. The Saxons kept the Celtic name
of the river, and they called the place where one of the Roman roads
crossed the river Ox, _Oxford_. The name, however, was soon mistaken, and
interpreted as purely Saxon; and if any one should doubt that Oxford was a
kind of _Bosphorus_, and meant a ford for oxen, the ancient arms of the
city were readily appealed to in order to cut short all doubts on the
subject. The Welsh name _Ryt-yhcen_ for Oxford was a retranslation into
Welsh of an original Celtic name, to which a new form and a new meaning
had been given by the Saxon conquerors.
Similar accidents happened to Greek words after they were adopted by the
people of Italy, particularly by the Romans. The Latin _orichalcum_, for
instance, is simply the Greek word ὀρείχαλκος, from ὄρος, mountain, and
χαλκός, copper. Why it was called mountain-copper, no one seems to know.
It was originally a kind of fabulous metal, brought to light from the
brains of the poet rather than from the bowels of the earth. Though the
poets, and even Plato, speak of it as, after gold, the most precious of
metals, Aristotle sternly denies that there ever was any real metal
corresponding to the extravagant descriptions of the ὀρείχαλκος.
Afterwards the same word was used in a more sober and technical sense,
though it is not always easy to say when it means copper, or bronze
(_i.e._ copper and tin), or brass (_i.e._ copper and zinc). The Latin
poets not only adopted the Greek word in the fabulous sense in which they
found it used in Homer, but forgetting that the first portion of the name
was derived from the Greek ὄρος, hill, they pronounced and even spelt it
as if derived from the Latin _aurum_, gold, and thus found a new
confirmation of its equality with gold, which would have greatly surprised
the original framers of that curious compound.(62)
In a county like Cornwall, where the ancient Celtic dialect continued to
be spoken, though disturbed and overlaid from time to time by Latin,
Saxon, and Norman, where Celts had to adopt certain Saxon and Norman, and
Saxons and Normans certain Celtic words, we have a right to expect an
ample field for observing this metamorphic process, and for tracing its
influence in the transformation of names, and in the formation of legends,
traditions, nay even, as we shall see, in the production of generally
accepted historical facts. To call this process _metamorphic_, using that
name in the sense given to it by geologists, may at first sight seem
pedantic and far-fetched. But if we see how a new language forms what may
be called a new stratum covering the old language; how the life or heat of
the old language, though apparently extinct, breaks forth again through
the superincumbent crust, destroys its regular features and assimilates
its stratified layers with its own igneous or volcanic nature, our
comparison, though somewhat elaborate, will be justified to a great
extent, and we shall only have to ask our geological readers to make
allowance for this, that, in languages, the foreign element has always to
be considered as the superincumbent stratum, Cornish forming the crust to
English or English to Cornish, according as the speaker uses the one or
the other as his native or as his acquired speech.
Our first witness in support of this metamorphic process is Mr. Scawen,
who lived about two hundred years ago, a true Cornishman, though he wrote
in English, or in what he is pleased so to call. In blaming the Cornish
gentry and nobility for having attempted to give to their ancient and
honorable names a kind of Norman varnish, and for having adopted
new-fangled coats of arms, Mr. Scawen remarks on the several mistakes,
intentional or unintentional, that occurred in this foolish process. “The
grounds of two several mistakes,” he writes, “are very obvious: 1st, upon
the _Tre_ or _Ter_; 2d, upon the _Ross_ or _Rose_. _Tre_ or _Ter_ in
Cornish commonly signifies a town, or rather place, and it has always an
adjunct with it. _Tri_ is the number 3. Those men willingly mistake one
for another. And so, in French heraldry terms, they used to fancy and
contrive those with any such three things as may be like, or cohere with,
or may be adapted to anything or things in their surnames, whether very
handsome or not is not much stood upon. Another usual mistake is upon
_Ross_, which, as they seem to fancy, should be a Rose, but _Ross_ in
Cornish is a vale or valley. Now for this their French-Latin tutors, when
they go into the field of Mars, put them in their coat armor prettily to
smell out a Rose or flower (a fading honor instead of a durable one); so
any three such things, agreeable perhaps a little to their names, are
taken up and retained from abroad, when their own at home have a much
better scent and more lasting.”
Some amusing instances of what may be called Saxon puns on Cornish words
have been communicated to me by a Cornish friend of mine, Mr. Bellows.
“The old Cornish name for Falmouth,” he writes, “was _Penny come
quick_,(63) and they tell a most improbable story to account for it. I
believe the whole compound is the Cornish _Pen y cwm gwic_, ‘Head of the
creek valley.’ In like manner they have turned _Bryn uhella_ (highest
hill) into _Brown Willy_, and _Cwm ty goed_ (woodhouse valley) into _Come
to good_.” To this might be added the common etymologies of _Helstone_ and
_Camelford_. The former name has nothing to do with the Saxon _helstone_,
a covering stone, or with the infernal regions, but meant “place on the
river;” the latter, in spite of the camel in the arms of the town, meant
the ford of the river Camel. A frequent mistake arises from the
misapprehension of the Celtic _dun_, hill, which enters in the composition
of many local names, and was changed by the Saxons into _town_ or _tun_.
Thus _Meli-dunum_ is now _Moulton_, _Seccan-dun_ is _Seckington_, and
_Beamdun_ is _Bampton_.(64)
This transformation of Celtic into Saxon or Norman terms is not confined,
however, to the names of families, towns, and villages; and we shall see
how the fables to which it has given rise have not only disfigured the
records of some of the most ancient families in Cornwall, but have thrown
a haze over the annals of the whole county.
Returning to the Jews in their Cornish exile, we find, no doubt, as
mentioned before, that even in the Ordnance maps the little town opposite
St. Michael’s Mount is called _Marazion_ and _Market Jew_. _Marazion_
sounds decidedly like Hebrew, and might signify _Mârâh_, “bitterness,
grief,” _Zion_, “of Zion.” M. Esquiros, a believer in Cornish Jews, thinks
that _Mara_ might be a corruption of the Latin _Amara_, bitter; but he
forgets that this etymology would really defeat its very object, and
destroy the Hebrew origin of the name. The next question therefore is,
What is the real origin of the name _Marazion_, and of its _alias_,
_Market Jew_? It cannot be too often repeated that inquiries into the
origin of local names are, in the first place, historical, and only in the
second place, philological. To attempt an explanation of any name, without
having first traced it back to the earliest form in which we can find it,
is to set at defiance the plainest rules of the science of language as
well as of the science of history. Even if the interpretation of a local
name should be right, it would be of no scientific value without the
preliminary inquiry into its history, which frequently consists in a
succession of the most startling changes and corruptions. Those who are at
all familiar with the history of Cornish names of places will not be
surprised to find the same name written in four or five, nay, in ten
different ways. The fact is that those who pronounced the names were
frequently ignorant of their real import, and those who had to write them
down could hardly catch their correct pronunciation. Thus we find that
Camden calls Marazion _Merkiu_; Carew, _Marcaiew_. Leland in his
“Itinerary” (about 1538) uses the names _Markesin_, _Markine_ (vol. iii.
fol. 4); and in another place (vol. vii. fol. 119) he applies, it would
seem, to the same town the name of _Marasdeythyon_. William of Worcester
(about 1478) writes promiscuously _Markysyoo_ (p. 103), _Marchew_ and
_Margew_ (p. 133), _Marchasyowe_ and _Markysyow_ (p. 98). In a charter of
Queen Elizabeth, dated 1595, the name is written _Marghasiewe_; in another
of the year 1313, _Markesion_; in another of 1309, _Markasyon_; in another
of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (_Rex Romanorum_, 1257), _Marchadyon_, which
seems the oldest, and at the same time the most primitive form.(65)
Besides these, Dr. Oliver has found in different title-deeds the following
varieties of the same name:—_Marghasion_, _Markesiow_, _Marghasiew_,
_Maryazion_, and _Marazion_. The only explanation of the name which we
meet with in early writers, such as Leland, Camden, and Carew, is that it
meant “Thursday Market.” Leland explains _Marasdeythyon_ by _forum Jovis_.
Camden explains _Merkiu_ in the same manner, and Carew takes _Marcaiew_ as
originally _Marhas diew_, _i.e._ “Thursdaies market, for then it useth
this traffike.”
This interpretation of _Marhasdiew_ as Thursday Market, appears at first
very plausible, and it has at all events far better claims on our
acceptance than the modern Hebrew etymology of “Bitterness of Zion.” But,
strange to say, although from a charter of Robert, Earl of Cornwall, it
appears that the monks of the Mount had the privilege of holding a market
on Thursday (_die quintæ feriæ_), there is no evidence, and no
probability, that a town so close to the Mount as Marazion ever held a
market on the same day.(66) Thursday in Cornish was called _deyow_, not
_diew_. The only additional evidence we get is this, that in the taxation
of Bishop Walter Bronescombe, made August 12, 1261, and quoted in Bishop
Stapledon’s register of 1313, the place is called _Markesion de parvo
mercato_,(67) and that in a charter of Richard, King of the Romans and
Earl of Cornwall, permission was granted to the prior of St. Michael’s
Mount that three markets, which formerly had been held in _Marghasbigan_,
on ground not belonging to him, should in future be held on his own ground
in _Marchadyon_. _Parvus mercatus_ is evidently the same place as
_Marghasbigan_, for _Marghas-bigan_ means in Cornish the same as _Mercatus
parvus_, namely, “Little Market.” The charter of Richard, Earl of
Cornwall, is more perplexing, and it would seem to yield no sense, unless
we again take _Marchadyon_ as a mere variety of _Marghasbigan_, and
suppose that the privilege granted to the prior of St. Michael’s Mount
consisted really in transferring the fair from land in Marazion not
belonging to him, to land in Marazion belonging to him. Anyhow, it is
clear that in _Marazion_ we have some kind of name for market.
The old Cornish word for market is _marchas_, a corruption of the Latin
_mercatus_. Originally the Cornish word must have been _marchad_, and this
form is preserved in Armorican, while in Cornish the _ch_ gradually sunk
to _h_, and the final _d_ to _s_. This change of _d_ into _s_ is of
frequent occurrence in modern as compared with ancient Cornish, and the
history of our word will enable us, to a certain extent, to fix the time
when that change took place. In the charter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall
(about 1257), we find _Marchadyon_; in a charter of 1309, _Markasyon_. The
change of _d_ into _s_ had taken place during these fifty years.(68) But
what is the termination _yon?_ Considering that Marazion is called the
Little Market, I should like to see in _yon_ the diminutive Cornish
suffix, corresponding to the Welsh _yn_. But if this should be objected
to, on the ground that no such diminutives occur in the literary monuments
of the Cornish language, another explanation is open, which was first
suggested to me by Mr. Bellows: _Marchadion_ may be taken as a perfectly
regular plural in Cornish, and we should then have to suppose that,
instead of being called the Market or the Little Market, the place was
called, from its three statute markets, “The Markets.” And this would help
us to explain, not only the gradual growth of the name Marazion, but
likewise, I think, the gradual formation of “Market Jew;” for another
termination of the plural in Cornish is _ieu_, which, added to _Marchad_,
would give us _Marchadieu_.(69)
Now it is perfectly true that no real Cornishman, I mean no man who spoke
Cornish, would ever have taken _Marchadiew_ for Market Jew, or Jews’
Market. The name for Jew in Cornish is quite different. It is _Edhow_,
_Yedhow_, _Yudhow_, corrupted likewise into _Ezow_; plural, _Yedhewon_,
etc. But to a Saxon ear the Cornish name _Marchadiew_ might well convey
the idea of _Market Jew_, and thus, by a metamorphic process, a name
meaning in Cornish the Markets would give rise in a perfectly natural
manner, not only to the two names, Marazion and Market Jew, but likewise
to the historical legends of Jews settled in the county of Cornwall.(70)
But there still remain the _Jews’ houses_, the name given, it is said, to
the old, deserted smelting-houses in Cornwall, and in Cornwall only.
Though, in the absence of any historical evidence as to the employment of
this term _Jew’s house_ in former ages, it will be more difficult to
arrive at its original form and meaning, yet an explanation offers itself
which, by a procedure very similar to that which was applied to _Marazion_
and _Market Jew_, may account for the origin of this name likewise.
The Cornish name for house was originally _ty_. In modern Cornish,
however, to quote from Lhuyd’s Grammar, _t_ has been changed to _tsh_, as
_ti_, thou, _tshei_; _ty_, a house, _tshey_; which _tsh_ is also sometimes
changed to _dzh_, as _ol mein y dzkyi_, “all in the house.” Out of this
_dzhyi_ we may easily understand how a Saxon mouth and a Saxon ear might
have elicited a sound somewhat like the English _Jew_.
But we do not get at _Jews’ house_ by so easy a road, if indeed we get at
it at all. We are told that a smelting-house was called a White-house, in
Cornish _Chiwidden_, _widden_ standing for _gwydn_, which is a corruption
of the old Cornish _gwyn_, white. This name of Chiwidden is a famous name
in Cornish hagiography. He was the companion of St. Perran, or St. Piran,
the most popular saint among the mining population of Cornwall.
Mr. Hunt, who in his interesting work, “The Popular Romances of the West
of England,” has assigned a separate chapter to Cornish saints, tells us
how St. Piran, while living in Ireland, fed ten Irish kings and their
armies, for ten days together, with three cows. Notwithstanding this and
other miracles, some of these kings condemned him to be cast off a
precipice into the sea, with a millstone round his neck. St. Piran,
however, floated on safely to Cornwall, and he landed, on the 5th of
March, on the sands which still bear his name, _Perranzabuloe_, or _Perran
on the Sands_.
The lives of saints form one of the most curious subjects for the
historian, and still more for the student of language; and the day, no
doubt, will come when it will be possible to take those wonderful
conglomerates of fact and fiction to pieces, and, as in one of those huge
masses of graywacke or rubblestone, to assign each grain and fragment to
the stratum from which it was taken, before they were all rolled together
and cemented by the ebb and flow of popular tradition. With regard to the
lives of Irish and Scotch and British saints, it ought to be stated, for
the credit of the pious authors of the “Acta Sanctorum,” that even they
admit their tertiary origin. “During the twelfth century,” they say, “when
many of the ancient monasteries in Ireland were handed over to monks from
England, and many new houses were built for them, these monks began to
compile the acts of the saints with greater industry than judgment. They
collected all they could find among the uncertain traditions of the
natives and in obscure Irish writings, following the example of Jocelin,
whose work on the acts of St. Patrick had been received everywhere with
wonderful applause. But many of them have miserably failed, so that the
foolish have laughed at them, and the wise been filled with indignation.”
(“Bollandi Acta,” 5th of March, p. 390, B). In the same work (p. 392, A),
it is pointed out that the Irish monks, whenever they heard of any saints
in other parts of England whose names and lives reminded them of Irish
saints, at once concluded that they were of Irish origin; and that the
people in some parts of England, as they possessed no written acts of
their popular saints, were glad to identify their own with the famous
saints of the Irish Church. This has evidently happened in the case of St.
Piran. St. Piran, in one of his characters, is certainly a truly Cornish
saint; but when the monks in Cornwall heard the wonderful legends of the
Irish saint, St. Kiran, they seem to have grafted their own St. Piran on
the Irish St. Kiran. The difference in the names must have seemed less to
them than to us; for words which in Cornish are pronounced with _p_, are
pronounced, as a rule, in Irish with _k_. Thus, head in Cornish is _pen_,
in Irish _ceann_, son is _map_, in Irish _mac_. The town built at the
eastern extremity of the wall of Severus, was called _Penguaul_, _i.e._
_pen_, caput, _guaul_, walls; the English call it _Penel-tun_, while in
Scotch it was pronounced _Cenail_.(71) That St. Kiran had originally
nothing to do with St. Piran can still be proved, for the earlier Lives of
St. Kiran, though full of fabulous stories, represent him as dying in
Ireland. His saint’s day was the 5th of March; that of St. Piran, the 2d
of May. The later Lives, however, though they say nothing as yet of the
millstone, represent St. Kiran, when a very old man, as suddenly leaving
his country in order that he might die in Cornwall. We are told that
suddenly, when already near his death, he called together his little
flock, and said to them: “My dear brothers and sons, according to a divine
disposition I must leave Ireland and go to Cornwall, and wait for the end
of my life there. I cannot resist the will of God.” He then sailed to
Cornwall, and built himself a house, where he performed many miracles. He
was buried in Cornwall on the sandy sea, fifteen miles from Petrokstowe,
and twenty-five miles from Mousehole.(72) In this manner the Irish and the
Cornish saints, who originally had nothing in common but their names,
became amalgamated,(73) and the saint’s day of St. Piran was moved from
the 2d of May to the 5th of March. Yet although thus welded into one,
nothing could well be imagined more different than the characters of the
Irish and of the Cornish saint. The Irish saint lived a truly ascetic
life; he preached, wrought miracles, and died. The Cornish saint was a
jolly miner, not always very steady on his legs.(74) Let us hear what the
Cornish have to tell of him. His name occurs in several names of places,
such as Perran Zabuloe, Perran Uthno, in Perran the Little, and in Perran
Ar-worthall. His name, pronounced Perran, or Piran, has been further
corrupted into Picras, and Picrous, though some authorities suppose that
this is again a different saint from St. Piran. Anyhow, both St. Perran
and St. Picras live in the memory of the Cornish miner as the discoverers
of tin; and the tinners’ great holiday, the Thursday before Christmas, is
still called Picrou’s day.(75) The legend relates that St. Piran, when
still in Cornwall, employed a heavy black stone as a part of his
fire-place. The fire was more intense than usual, and a stream of
beautiful white metal flowed out of the fire. Great was the joy of the
saint, and he communicated his discovery to St. Chiwidden. They examined
the stone together, and Chiwidden, who was learned in the learning of the
East, soon devised a process for producing this metal in large quantities.
The two saints called the Cornishmen together. They told them of their
treasures, and they taught them how to dig the ore from the earth, and
how, by the agency of fire, to obtain the metal. Great was the joy in
Cornwall, and many days of feasting followed the announcement. Mead and
metheglin, with other drinks, flowed in abundance; and vile rumor says the
saints and their people were rendered equally unstable thereby. “Drunk as
a Perraner” has certainly passed into a proverb from that day.
It is quite clear from these accounts that the legendary discoverer of tin
in Cornwall was originally a totally different character from the Irish
saint, St. Kiran. If one might indulge in a conjecture, I should say that
there probably was in the Celtic language a root _kar_, which in the
Cymbric branch would assume the form _par_. Now _cair_ in Gaelic means to
dig, to raise; and from it a substantive might be derived, meaning digger
or miner. In Ireland, _Kiran_ seems to have been simply a proper name,
like Smith or Baker, for there is nothing in the legends of St. Kiran that
points to mining or smelting. In Cornwall, on the contrary, St. Piran,
before he was engrafted on St. Kiran, was probably nothing but a
personification or apotheosis of the Miner, as much as Dorus was the
personification of the Dorians, and Brutus the first King of Britain.
The rule, “noscitur a sociis,” may be applied to St. Piran. His friend and
associate, St. Chiwidden, or St. Whitehouse, is a personification of the
white-house, _i.e._ the smelting-house, without which St. Piran, the
miner, would have been a very useless saint. If Chywidden, _i.e._ the
smelting-house, became the St. Chywidden, why should we look in the
Cornish St. Piran for anything beyond Piran, _i.e._ the miner?
However, what is of importance to us for our present object is not St.
Piran, but St. Chywidden, the white-house or smelting-house. We are
looking all this time for the original meaning of the Jews’ houses, and
the question is, how can we, starting from Chywidden, arrive at
Jews’-house? I am afraid we can not do so without a jump or two; all we
can do is to show that they are jumps which language herself is fond of
taking, and which therefore we must not shirk, if we wish to ride straight
after her.
Well, then, the first jump which language frequently takes is this, that
instead of using a noun with a qualifying adjective, such as white-house,
the noun by itself is used without any such qualification. This can, of
course, be done with very prominent words only, words which are used so
often, and which express ideas so constantly present to the mind of the
speaker, that no mistake is likely to arise. In English, “the House” is
used for the House of Commons; in later Latin “domus” was used for the
House of God. Among fisherman in Scotland “fish” means salmon. In Greek
λίθος, stone, in the feminine, is used for the magnet, originally Μαγνῆτις
λίθος while the masculine λίθος means a stone in general. In Cornwall,
_ore_ by itself means copper ore only, while tin ore is called black tin.
In times, therefore, when the whole attention of Cornwall was absorbed by
mining and smelting, and when smelting-houses were most likely the only
large buildings that seemed to deserve the name of houses, there is
nothing extraordinary in _tshey_ or _dzhyi_, even without _widden_, white,
having become the recognized name for smelting-houses.
But now comes a second jump, and again one that can be proved to have been
a very favorite one with many languages. When people speaking different
languages live together in the same country, they frequently, in adopting
a foreign term, add to it, by way of interpretation, the word that
corresponds to it in their own language. Thus _Portsmouth_ is a name half
Latin and half English. _Portus_ was the Roman name given to the harbor.
This was adopted by the Saxons, but interpreted at the same time by a
Saxon word, namely, _mouth_, which really means harbor. This
interpretation was hardly intentional, but arose naturally. _Port_ first
became a kind of proper name, and then _mouth_ was added, so that “the
mouth of Port,” _i.e._ of the place called _Portus_ by the Romans, became
at last Portsmouth. But this does not satisfy the early historians, and,
as happens so frequently when there is anything corrupt in language, a
legend springs up almost spontaneously to remove all doubts and
difficulties. Thus we read in the venerable Saxon Chronicle under the year
501, “that Port came to Britain with his two sons, Bieda and Maegla, with
two ships, and their place was called Portsmouth; and they slew a British
man, a very noble man.”(76) Such is the growth of legends, aye, and in
many cases the growth of history.
Formed on the same principle as Portsmouth we find such words as
_Hayle-river_, the Cornish _hal_ by itself meaning salt marsh, moor, or
estuary; _Treville_ or _Trou-ville_, where the Celtic _tre_, town, is
explained by the French _ville_; the _Cotswold_ Hills, where the Celtic
word _cot_, wood, is explained by the Saxon _wold_ or _weald_, a wood. In
_Dun-bar-ton_, the Celtic word _dun_, hill, is explained by the Saxon
_bar_ for _byrig_, burg, _ton_ being added to form the name of the town
that rose up under the protection of the hill-castle. In _Penhow_ the same
process has been suspected; _how_, the German Höhe,(77) expressing nearly
the same idea as _pen_, head. In Constantine, in Cornwall, one of the
large stones with rock-basins is called the _Mên-rock_,(78) rock being
simply the interpretation of the Cornish _mên_.
If, then, we suppose that in exactly the same manner the people of
Cornwall spoke of _Tshey-houses_, or _Dshyi-houses_, is it so very
extraordinary that this hybrid word should at last have been interpreted
as _Jew-houses_ or _Jews’ houses_? I do not say that the history of the
word can be traced through all its phases with the same certainty as that
of Marazion; all I maintain is that, in explaining its history, no step
has been admitted that cannot be proved by sufficient evidence to be in
strict keeping with the well-known movements, or, if it is respectful to
say so, the well-known antics of language.
Thus vanish the Jews from Cornwall; but there still remain the _Saracens_.
One is surprised to meet with Saracens in the West of England; still more,
to hear of their having worked in the tin-mines, like the Jews. According
to some writers, however, Saracen is only another name for Jews, though no
explanation is given why this detested name should have been applied to
the Jews in Cornwall, and nowhere else. This view is held, for instance,
by Carew, who writes: “The Cornish maintain these works to have been very
ancient, and the first wrought by the Jews with pickaxes of holm, box,
hartshorn; they prove this by the names of those places yet enduring, to
wit, _Attall-Sarazin_ (or, as in some editions, _Sazarin_); in English,
the Jews’ Offcast.”
Camden (p. 69) says: “We are taught from Diodorus and Æthicus that the
ancient Britons had worked hard at the mines, but the Saxons and Normans
seem to have neglected them for a long time, or to have employed the labor
of Arabs or Saracens, for the inhabitants call deserted shafts,
_Attall-Sarazin_, _i.e._ the leavings of the Saracens.”
Thus, then, we have not only the Saracens in Cornwall admitted as simply a
matter of history, but their presence actually used in order to prove that
the Saxons and Normans neglected to work the mines in the West of England.
A still more circumstantial account is given by Hals, as quoted by Gilbert
in his “Parochial History of Cornwall.” Here we are told that King Henry
III., by proclamation, let out all Jews in his dominions at a certain rent
to such as would poll and rifle them, and amongst others to his brother
Richard, King of the Romans, who, after he had plundered their estates,
committed their bodies, as his slaves, to labor in the tin-mines of
Cornwall; the memory of whose workings is still preserved in the names of
several tin works, called _Towle Sarasin_, and corruptly _Attall Saracen_;
_i.e._ the refuse or outcast of Saracens; that is to say, of those Jews
descended from Sarah and Abraham. Other works were called _Whele Etherson_
(alias _Ethewon_), the Jews’ Works, or Unbelievers’ Works, in Cornish.
Here we see how history is made; and if our inquiries led to no other
result, they would still be useful as a warning against putting implicit
faith in the statements of writers who are separated by several centuries
from the events they are relating. Here we have men like Carew and Camden,
both highly cultivated, learned, and conscientious, and yet neither of
them hesitating, in a work of historical character, to assert as a fact,
what, after making every allowance, can only be called a very bold guess.
Have we any reason to suppose that Herodotus and Thucydides, when speaking
of the original abodes of the various races of Greece, of their
migrations, their wars and final settlements, had better evidence before
them, or were more cautious in using their evidence, than Camden and
Carew? And is it likely that modern scholars, however learned and however
careful, can ever arrive at really satisfactory results by sifting and
arranging and rearranging the ethnological statements of the ancients, as
to the original abodes or the later migrations of Pelasgians, Tyrrhenians,
Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians, or even of Dorians, Æolians, and
Ionians? What is Carew’s evidence in support of his statement that the
Jews first worked the tin-mines of Cornwall? Simply the sayings of the
people in Cornwall, who support their sayings by the name given to
deserted mines, _Attall Sarazin_. Now admitting that _Attall Sarazin_ or
_Attall Sazarin_, meant the refuse of the Saracens, how is it possible, in
cold blood, to identify the Saracens with Jews, and where is there a
tittle of evidence to prove that the Jews were the first to work these
mines,—mines, be it remembered, which, according to the same Carew, were
certainly worked before the beginning of our era?
But leaving the Jews of the time of Nero, let us examine the more definite
and more moderate statements of Hals and Gilbert. According to them, the
deserted shafts are called by a Cornish name meaning the refuse of the
Saracens, because, as late as the thirteenth century, the Jews were sent
to work in these mines. It is difficult, no doubt, to prove a negative,
and to show that no Jews ever worked in the mines of Cornwall. All that
can be done, in a case like this, is to show that no one has produced an
atom of evidence in support of Mr. Gilbert’s opinion. The Jews were
certainly ill treated, plundered, tortured, and exiled during the reign of
the Plantagenet kings; but that they were sent to the Cornish mines, no
contemporary writer has ever ventured to assert. The passage in Matthew
Paris, to which Mr. Gilbert most likely alludes, says the very contrary of
what he draws from it. Matthew Paris says that Henry III. extorted money
from the Jews, and that when they petitioned for a safe conduct, in order
to leave England altogether, he sold them to his brother Richard, “ut quos
Rex excoriaverat, Comes evisceraret.”(79) But this selling of the Jews
meant no more than that, in return for money advanced him by his brother,
the Earl of Cornwall, the King pawned to him, for a number of years, the
taxes, legitimate or illegitimate, which could be extorted from the Jews.
That this was the real meaning of the bargain between the King and his
brother, the Earl of Cornwall, can be proved by the document printed in
Rymer’s “Fœdera,” vol. i. p. 543, “De Judæis Comiti Cornubiæ assignatis,
pro solutione pecuniæ sibi a Rege debitæ.”(80) Anyhow, there is not a
single word about the Jews having been sent to Cornwall, or having had to
work in the mines. On the contrary, Matthew Paris says, “_Comes pepercit
iis_,” “the Earl spared them.”
After thus looking in vain for any truly historical evidence in support of
Jewish settlements in Cornwall, I suppose they may in future be safely
treated as a “verbal myth,” of which there are more indeed in different
chapters of history, both ancient and modern, than is commonly supposed.
As in Cornwall the name of a market has given rise to the fable of Jewish
settlements, the name of another market in Finland led to the belief that
there were Turks settled in that northern country. _Abo_, the ancient
capital of Finland, was called _Turku_, which is the Swedish word _torg_,
market. Adam of Bremen, enumerating the various tribes adjoining the
Baltic, mentions _Turci_ among the rest, and these _Turci_ were by others
mistaken for Turks.(81)
Even after such myths have been laid open to the very roots, there is a
strong tendency not to drop them altogether. Thus Mr. H. Merivale is far
too good an historian to admit the presence of Jews in Cornwall as far
back as the destruction of Jerusalem.(82) He knows there is no evidence
for it, and he would not repeat a mere fable, however plausible. Yet
Marazion and the Jews’ houses evidently linger in his memory, and he
throws out a hint that they may find an historical explanation in the fact
that under the Plantagenet kings the Jews commonly farmed or wrought the
mines. Is there any contemporary evidence even for this? I do not think
so. Dr. Borlase, indeed, in his “Natural History of Cornwall” (p. 190),
says, “In the time of King John, I find the product of tin in this county
very inconsiderable, the right of working for tin being as yet wholly in
the King, the property of tinners precarious and unsettled, and what tin
was raised was engrossed and managed by the Jews, to the great regret of
the barons and their vassals.” It is a pity that Dr. Borlase should not
have given his authority, but there is little doubt that he simply quoted
from Carew. Carew tells us how the Cornish gentlemen borrowed money from
the merchants of London, giving them tin as security (p. 14); and though
he does not call the merchants Jews, yet he speaks of them as usurers, and
reproves their “cut throate and abominable dealing.” He continues
afterwards, speaking of the same usurers (p. 16), “After such time as the
Jewes by their extreme dealing had worne themselves, first out of the love
of the English inhabitants, and afterwards out of the land itselfe, and so
left the mines unwrought, it hapned, that certaine gentlemen, being lords
of seven tithings in Blackmoore, whose grounds were best stored with this
minerall, grewe desirous to renew this benefit,” etc. To judge from
several indications, this is really the passage which Dr. Borlase had
before him when writing of the Jews as engrossing and managing the tin
that was raised, and in that case neither is Carew a contemporary witness,
nor would it follow from what he says that one single Jew ever set foot on
Cornish soil, or that any Jews ever tasted the actual bitterness of
working in the mines.
Having thus disposed of the Jews, we now turn to the Saracens in Cornwall.
We shall not enter upon the curious and complicated history of that name.
It is enough to refer to a short note in Gibbon,(83) in order to show that
Saracen was a name known to Greeks and Romans, long before the rise of
Islam, but never applied to the Jews by any writer of authority, not even
by those who saw in the Saracens “the children of Sarah.”
What, then, it may be asked, is the origin of the expression _Attal
Sarazin_ in Cornwall? _Attal_, or _Atal_, is said to be a Cornish word,
the Welsh _Adhail_, and means refuse, waste.(84) As to _Sarazin_, it is
most likely another Cornish word, which by a metamorphic process, has been
slightly changed in order to yield some sense intelligible to Saxon
speakers. We find in Cornish _tarad_, meaning a piercer, a borer; and, in
another form, _tardar_ is distinctly used, together with axe and hammer,
as the name of a mining implement. The Latin _taratrum_, Gr. τέρετρον, Fr.
_tarière_, all come from the same source. If from _tarad_ we form a
plural, we get _taradion_. In modern Cornish we find that _d_ sinks down
to _s_, which would give us _taras_,(85) and plural _tarasion_. Next, the
final _l_ of _atal_ may, like several final _l_’s in the closely allied
language of Brittany, have infected the initial _t_ of _tarasion_, and
changed it to _th_, which _th_, again, would, in modern Cornish, sink down
to _s_.(86) Thus _atal tharasion_ might have been intended for the refuse
of the borings, possibly the refuse of the mines; but pronounced in Saxon
fashion, it might readily have been mistaken for the Atal or refuse of the
Sarasion or Saracens.