Winchester is the type. In the old Welsh tongue, Gwent means a
champaign country, or level alluvial plain. The Romans borrowed the
word as Venta, and applied it to the three local centres of Venta
Icenorum in Norfolk, Venta Belgarum in Hampshire, and Venta Silurum in
Monmouth. When the first West Saxon pirates, under their real or
mythical leader, Cerdic, swarmed up Southampton Water and occupied the
Gwent of the Belgæ, they called their new conquest Wintan ceaster,
though the still closer form Wæntan once occurs. Thence to Winte
ceaster and Winchester is no far cry. Gwent of the Iceni had a
different history. No doubt it also was known at first as Wintan
ceaster; but, as at Winchester, the shorter form Ceaster would
naturally be employed in local colloquial usage; and when the chief
centre of East Anglian population was removed a few miles north to
Norwich, the north wick--then a port on the navigable estuary of the
Yare--the older station sank into insignificance, and was only locally
remembered as Caistor. Lastly, Gwent of the Silurians has left its name
alone to Caer-Went in Monmouthshire, where hardly any relics now remain
of the Roman occupation.
Manchester belongs to exactly the same class as Winchester. Its Roman
name was Mancunium, which would easily glide into Mancunceaster. In the
_English Chronicle_ it is only once mentioned, and then as
Mameceaster--a form explained by the alternative Mamucium in the
Itinerary, which would naturally become Mamue ceaster. Colchester of
course represents Colonia, corrupted first into Coln ceaster, and so
through Col ceaster into its present form. Porchester in Hants is
Portus Magnus; Dorchester is Durnovaria, and then Dorn ceaster.
Grantchester, Godmanchester, Chesterfield, Woodchester, and many others
help us to trace the line across the map of England, to the most
western limit of all at Ilchester, anciently Ischalis, though the
intermediate form of Givel ceaster is certainly an odd one.
Besides these Chesters of the regular order, there are several curious
outlying instances in Durham and Northumberland, and along the Roman
Wall, islanded, as it were, beyond the intermediate belt of Casters.
Such are Lanchester in Durham, which maybe compared with the more
familiar Lancaster; Great Chesters in Northumberland, Ebchester on the
northern Watling Street, and a dozen more. How to account for these is
rather a puzzle. Perhaps the Casters may be mainly due to Danish
influence (which is the common explanation), and it is known that the
Danes spread but sparingly to the north of the Tees. However, this
rough solution of the problem proves too much: for how then can we have
a still softer form in Danish Leicester itself? Probably we shall be
nearer the truth if we say that these are late names; for
Northumberland was a desert long after the great harrying by William
the Conqueror; and by the time it was repeopled, Chester had become the
recognised English form, so that it would naturally be employed by the
new occupants of the districts about the Wall.
No name in Britain, however, is more interesting than that of
Rochester, which admirably shows us how so many other Roman names have
acquired a delusively English form, or have been mistaken for memorials
of the English conquest. The Roman town was known as Durobrivæ, which
does not in the least resemble Rochester; and what is more, Bæda
distinctly tells us that Justus, the first bishop of the West Kentish
see, was consecrated 'in the city of Dorubrevi, which the English call
Hrofæs ceaster, from one of its former masters, by name Hrof.' If this
were all we knew about it, we should be told that Bæda clearly
described the town as being called Hrof's Chester, from an English
conqueror Hrof, and that to contradict this clear statement of an early
writer was presumptuous or absurd. Fortunately, however, we have the
clearest possible proof that Hrof never existed, and that he was a pure
creation of Bæda's own simple etymological guesswork. King Alfred
clearly knew better, for he omitted this wild derivation from his
English translation. The valuable fragment of a map of Roman Britain
preserved for us in the mediæval transcript known as the _Peutinger
Tables_, sets down Rochester as Rotibis. Hence it is pretty certain
that it must have had two alternative names, of which the other was
Durobrivæ. Rotibis would easily pass (on the regular analogies) into
Rotifi ceaster, and that again into Hrofi ceaster and Rochester; just
as Rhutupiæ or Ritupæ passed into Rituf burh, and so finally into
Richborough. Moreover, in a charter of King Ethelberht of Kent, older a
good deal than Bæda's time, we find the town described under the mixed
form of Hrofi-brevi. After such a certain instance of philological
blundering as this, I for one am not inclined to place great faith in
such statements as that made by the _English Chronicle_ about
Chichester, which it attributes to the mythical South Saxon king Cissa.
Whatever Cissanceaster may mean, it seems to me much more likely that
it represents another case of double naming; for though the Roman town
was commonly known as Regnum, that is clearly a mere administrative
form, derived from the tribal name of the Regni. Considering that the
same veracious _Chronicle_ derives Portsmouth, the Roman Portus, from
an imaginary Teutonic invader, Port, and commits itself to other wild
statements of the same sort, I don't think we need greatly hesitate
about rejecting its authority in these earlier and conjectural
portions.
Silchester is another much disputed name. As a rule, the site has been
identified with that of Calleva Atrebatum; but the proofs are scanty,
and the identification must be regarded as a doubtful one. I have
already ventured to suggest that the word may contain the root Silva,
as the town is situated close upon the ancient borders of Pamber
Forest. The absence of early forms, however, makes this somewhat of a
random shot. Indeed, it is difficult to arrive at any definite
conclusions in these cases, except by patiently following up the name
from first to last, through all its variations, corruptions, and
mis-spellings.
The _Cesters_ are even more degraded (philologically speaking) than the
_Chesters_, but are not less interesting and illustrative in their way.
Their farthest northeasterly extension, I believe, is to be found at
Leicester and Towcester. The former we have already considered: the
latter appears in the _Chronicle_ as Tofe ceaster, and derives its name
from the little river Towe, on which it is situated. Anciently, no
doubt, the river was called Tofe or Tofi, like the Tavy in Devonshire;
for all these river-words recur over and over again, both in England
and on the Continent. In this case, there seems no immediate connection
with the Roman name, if the site be rightly identified with that of
Lactodorum; but at any rate the river name is Celtic, so that Towcester
cannot be claimed as a Teutonic settlement.
Cirencester, the meeting-place of all the great Roman roads, is the
Latin Corinium, sometimes given as Durocornovium, which well
illustrates the fluctuating state of Roman nomenclature in Britain. As
this great strategical centre--the key of the west--had formerly been
the capital of the Dobuni, whose name it sometimes bears, it might
easily have come down to us as Durchester, or Dobchester, instead of
under its existing guise. The city was captured by the West Saxons in
577, and is then called Ciren ceaster in the brief record of the
conquerors. A few years later, the _Chronicle_ gives it as Cirn
ceaster; and since the river is called Chirn, this is the form it might
fairly have been expected to retain, as in the case of Cerney close by.
But the city was too far west not to have its name largely rubbed down
in use; so it softened both its initials into Cirencester, while Cissan
ceaster only got (through Cisse ceaster) as far as Chichester. At that
point the spelling of the western town has stopped short, but the
tongues of the natives have run on till nothing now remains but
Cisseter. If we had only that written form on the one hand, and
Durocornovium on the other, even the boldest etymologist would hardly
venture to suggest that they had any connection with one another. Of
course the common prefix Duro, is only the Welsh Dwr, water, and its
occurrence in a name merely implies a ford or river. The alternative
forms may be Anglicised as Churn, and Churnwater, just like Grasmere,
and Grasmere Lake.
I wish I could avoid saying anything about Worcester, for it is an
obscure and difficult subject; but I fear the attempt to shirk it would
be useless in the long run. I know from sad experience that if I omit
it every inhabitant of Worcestershire who reads this article will hunt
me out somehow, and run me to earth at last, with a letter demanding a
full and explicit explanation of this silent insult to his native
county. So I must try to put the best possible face upon a troublesome
matter. The earliest existing form of the name, after the English
Conquest, seems to be that given in a Latin Charter of the eighth
century as _Weogorna civitas_. (Here it is difficult to disentangle the
English from its Latin dress.) A little later it appears in a
vernacular shape (also in a charter) as Wigran ceaster. In the later
part of the _English Chronicle_ it becomes Wigera ceaster, and Wigra
ceaster; but by the twelfth century it has grown into Wigor ceaster,
from which the change to Wire ceaster and Worcester (fully pronounced)
is not violent. This is all plain sailing enough. But what is the
meaning of Wigorna ceaster or Wigran ceaster? And what Roman or English
name does it represent? The old English settlers of the neighbourhood
formed a little independent principality of Hwiccas (afterwards subdued
by the Mercians), and some have accordingly suggested that the original
word may have been Hwiccwara ceaster, the Chester of the Hwicca men,
which would be analogous to Cant-wara burh (Canterbury), the Bury of
the Kent men, or to Wiht-gara burh (Carisbrooke), the Bury of the Wight
men. Others, again, connect it with the Braunogenium of the Ravenna
geographer, and the Cair Guoranegon or Guiragon of Nennius, which
latter is probably itself a corrupted version of the English name.
Altogether, it must be allowed that Worcester presents a genuine
difficulty, and that the facts about its early forms are themselves
decidedly confused, if not contradictory. The only other notable
_Ceasters_, are Alcester, once Alneceaster, in Worcestershire, the
Roman Alauna; Gloucester or Glevum, already sufficiently explained; and
Mancester in Staffordshire, supposed to occupy the site of
Manduessedum.
Among the most corrupted forms of all, Exeter may rank first. Its Latin
equivalent was Isca Damnoniorum, Usk of the Devonians; Isca being the
Latinised form of that prevalent Celtic river name which crops up again
in the Usk, Esk, Exe, and Axe, besides forming the first element of
Uxbridge and Oxford; while the tribal qualification was added to
distinguish it from its namesake, Isca Silurum, Usk of the Silurians,
now Caerleon-upon-Usk. In the west country, to this day, _ask_ always
becomes _ax_, or rather remains so, for that provincial form was the
King's English at the court of Alfred; and so Isca became on Devonian
lips Exan ceaster, after the West Saxon conquest. Thence it passed
rapidly through the stages of Exe ceaster and Exe cester till it
finally settled down into Exeter. At the same time, the river itself
became the Exe; and the Exan-mutha of the _Chronicle_ dropped into
Exmouth. We must never forget, however, that Exeter, was a Welsh town
up to the reign of Athelstan, and that Cornish Welsh was still spoken
in parts of Devonshire till the days of Queen Elizabeth.
Wroxeter is another immensely interesting fossil word. It lies just at
the foot of the Wrekin, and the hill which takes that name in English
must have been pronounced by the old Celtic inhabitants much like
Uricon: for of course the awkward initial letter has only become silent
in these later lazy centuries. The Romans turned it into Uriconium; but
after their departure, it was captured and burnt to the ground by a
party of raiding West Saxons, and its fall is graphically described in
the wild old Welsh elegy of Llywarch the Aged. The ruins are still
charred and blackened by the West Saxon fires. The English colonists of
the neighbourhood called themselves the Wroken-sætas, or Settlers by
the Wrekin--a word analogous to that of Wilsætas, or Settlers by the
Wyly; Dorsætas, or Settlers among the Durotriges; and Sumorsætas, or
Settlers among the Sumor-folk,--which survive in the modern counties of
Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset. Similar forms elsewhere are the Pecsætas
of the Derbyshire Peak, the Elmedsætas in the Forest of Elmet, and the
Cilternsætas in the Chiltern Hills. No doubt the Wroken-sætas called
the ruined Roman fort by the analogous name of Wroken ceaster; and this
would slowly become Wrok ceaster, Wrok-cester, and Wroxeter, by the
ordinary abbreviating tendency of the Welsh borderlands. Wrexham
doubtless preserves the same original root.
Having thus carried the _Castra_ to the very confines of Wales, it
would be unkind to a generous and amiable people not to carry them
across the border and on to the Western sea. The Welsh corruption,
whether of the Latin word or of a native equivalent _cathir_, assumes
the guise of Caer. Thus the old Roman station of Segontium, near the
Menai Straits, is now called Caer Seiont; but the neighbouring modern
town which has gathered around Edward's new castle on the actual shore,
the later metropolis of the land of Arfon, became known to Welshmen as
Caer-yn-Arfon, now corrupted into Caernarvon or even into Carnarvon.
Gray's familiar line about the murdered bards--'On Arvon's dreary shore
they lie'--keeps up in some dim fashion the memory of the true
etymology. Caermarthen is in like manner the Roman Muridunum or
Moridunum--the fort by the sea--though a duplicate Moridunum in South
Devon has been simply translated into English as Seaton. Innumerable
other Caers, mostly representing Roman sites, may be found scattered up
and down over the face of Wales, such as Caersws, Caerleon, Caergwrle,
Caerhun, and Caerwys, all of which still contain traces of Roman
occupation. On the other hand, Cardigan, which looks delusively like a
shortened Caer, has really nothing to do with this group of ancient
names, being a mere corruption of Ceredigion.
But outside Wales itself, in the more Celtic parts of England proper, a
good many relics of the old Welsh Caers still bespeak the
incompleteness of the early Teutonic conquest. If we might trust the
mendacious Nennius, indeed, all our Casters and Chesters were once good
Cymric Caers; for he gives a doubtful list of the chief towns in
Britain, where Gloucester appears as Cair Gloui, Colchester as Cair
Colun, and York as Cair Ebrauc. These, if true, would be invaluable
forms; but unfortunately there is every reason to believe that Nennius
invented them himself, by a simple transposition of the English names.
Henry of Huntingdon is nearly as bad, if not worse; for when he calls
Dorchester 'Kair Dauri,' and Chichester 'Kair Kei,' he was almost
certainly evolving what he supposed to be appropriate old British names
from the depths of his own consciousness. His guesswork was on a par
with that of the schoolboys who introduce 'Stirlingia' or 'Liverpolia'
into their Ovidian elegiacs. That abandoned story-teller, Geoffrey of
Monmouth, goes a step further, and concocts a Caer Lud for London and a
Caer Osc for Exeter, whenever the fancy seizes him. The only examples
amongst these pretended old Welsh forms which seem to me to have any
real historical value are an unknown Kair Eden, mentioned by Gildas,
and a Cair Wise, mentioned by Simeon of Durham, undoubtedly the true
native name of Exeter.
Still we have a few indubitable Caers in England itself surviving to
our own day. Most of them are not far from the Welsh border, as in the
case of the two Caer Caradocs, in Shropshire, crowned by ancient
British fortifications. Others, however, lie further within the true
English pale, though always in districts which long preserved the Welsh
speech, at least among the lower classes of the population. The
earthwork overhanging Bath bears to this day its ancient British title
of Caer Badon. An old history written in the monastery of Malmesbury
describes that town as Caer Bladon, and speaks of a Caer Dur in the
immediate neighbourhood. There still remains a Caer Riden on the line
of the Roman wall in the Lothians. Near Aspatria, in Cumberland, stands
a mouldering Roman camp known even now as Caer Moto. In Carvoran,
Northumberland, the first syllable has undergone a slight contraction,
but may still be readily recognised. The Carr-dyke in Norfolk seems to
me to be referable to a similar origin.
Most curious of all the English Caers, however, is Carlisle. The
Antonine Itinerary gives the town as Luguvallium. Bæda, in his
barbarised Latin fashion calls it Lugubalia. 'The Saxons,' says
_Murray's Guide_, with charming _naïveté_, 'abbreviated the name into
Luel, and afterwards called it Caer Luel.' This astounding hotchpotch
forms an admirable example of the way in which local etymology is still
generally treated in highly respectable publications. So far as we
know, there never was at any time a single Saxon in Cumberland; and why
the Saxons, or any other tribe of Englishmen, should have called a town
by a purely Welsh name, it would be difficult to decide. If they had
given it any name at all, that name would probably have been Lul
ceaster, which might have been modernised into Lulcaster or Lulchester.
The real facts are these. Cumberland, as its name imports, was long a
land of the Cymry--a northern Welsh principality, dependent upon the
great kingdom of Strathclyde, which held out for ages against the
Northumbrian English invaders among the braes and fells of Ayrshire and
the Lake District. These Cumbrian Welshmen called their chief town Caer
Luel, or something of the sort; and there is some reason for believing
that it was the capital of the historical Arthur, if any Arthur ever
existed, though later ages transferred the legend of the British hero
to Caerleon-upon-Usk, after men had begun to forget that the region
between the Clyde and the Mersey had once been true Welsh soil. The
English overran Cumberland very slowly; and when they did finally
conquer it, they probably left the original inhabitants in possession
of the country, and only imposed their own overlordship upon the
conquered race. The story is too long a one to repeat in full here: it
must suffice to say that, though the Northumbrian kings had made the
'Strathclyde Welsh' their tributaries, the district was never
thoroughly subdued till the days of Edmund the West Saxon, who harried
the land, and handed it over to the King of Scots. Thus it happens that
Carlisle, alone among large English towns, still keeps unchanged its
Cymric name, instead of having sunk into an Anglicised Chester. The
present spelling is a mere etymological blunder, exactly similar to
that which has turned the old English word _igland_ into _island_,
through the false analogy of _isle_, which of course comes from the old
French _isle_, derived through some form akin to the Italian _isola_,
from the original Latin _insula_. Kair Leil is the spelling in
Geoffrey; Cardeol (by a clerical error for Carleol, I suspect) that in
the _English Chronicle_, which only once mentions the town; and Carleol
that of the ordinary mediæval historians. The surnames Carlyle and
Carlile still preserve the better orthography.
To complete the subject, it will be well to say a few words about those
towns which were once _Ceasters_, but which have never become Casters
or Chesters. Numerous as are the places now so called, a number more
may be reckoned in the illimitable chapter of the might-have-beens; and
it is interesting to speculate on the forms which they would have
taken, 'si qua fata aspera rupissent.' Among these still-born Chesters,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne may fairly rank first. It stands on the Roman site,
called, from its bridge across the Tyne, Pons Aelii, and known later
on, from its position on the great wall, as Ad Murum. Under the early
English, after their conversion to Christianity, the monks became the
accepted inheritors of Roman ruins; and the small monastery which was
established here procured it the English name of Muneca-ceaster, or, as
we should now say, Monk-chester, though no doubt the local
modernisation would have taken the form of Muncaster. William of
Normandy utterly destroyed the town during his great harrying of
Northumberland; and when his son, Robert Curthose, built a fortress on
the site, the place came to be called Newcastle--a word whose very form
shows its comparatively modern origin. _Castra_ and _Ceasters_ were now
out of date, and castles had taken their place. Still, we stick even
here to the old root: for of course castle is only the diminutive
_castellum_--a scion of the same Roman stock, which, like so many other
members of aristocratic families, 'came over with William the
Conqueror.' The word _castel_ is never used, I believe, in any English
document before the Conquest; but in the very year of William's
invasion, the _Chronicle_ tells us, 'Willelm earl came from Normandy
into Pevensey, and wrought a castel at Hastings port.' So, while in
France itself the word has declined through _chastel_ into _château_,
we in England have kept it in comparative purity as castle.
York is another town which had a narrow escape of becoming Yorchester.
Its Roman name was Eburacum, which the English queerly rendered as
Eoforwic, by a very interesting piece of folks-etymology. _Eofor_ is
old English for a boar, and _wic_ for a town; so our rude ancestors
metamorphosed the Latinised Celtic name into this familiar and
significant form, much as our own sailors turn the Bellerophon into the
Billy Ruffun, and the Anse des Cousins into the Nancy Cozens. In the
same way, I have known an illiterate Englishman speak of
Aix-la-Chapelle as Hexley Chapel. To the name, thus distorted, our
forefathers of course added the generic word for a Roman town, and so
made the cumbrous title of Eoforwic-ceaster, which is the almost
universal form in the earlier parts of the _English Chronicle_. This
was too much of a mouthful even for the hardy Anglo-Saxon, so we soon
find a disposition to shorten it into Ceaster on the one hand, or
Eoforwic on the other. Should the final name be Chester or York?--that
was the question. Usage declared in favour of the more distinctive
title. The town became Eoforwic alone, and thence gradually declined
through Evorwic, Euorwic, Eurewic, and Yorick into the modern York. It
is curious to note that some of these intermediate forms very closely
approach the original Eburac, which must have been the root of the
Roman name. Was the change partly due to the preservation of the older
sound on the lips of Celtic serfs? It is not impossible, for marks of
British blood are strong in Yorkshire; and Nennius confirms the idea by
calling the town Kair Ebrauc.