From Abbas Combe to Zennor, this dictionary gives the meaning and origin of place names in the British Isles, tracing their development from earliest times to the present day.
Norman Scarfe explores place names, the Sutton Hoo ship burial, the coming of Christianity, and the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, concluding with an evocative study of five Suffolk places - Southwold, Dunwich, Yoxford, and Wingfield and Fressingfield. The modern landscape of Suffolk is still essentially a medieval one, though much of it is even earlier: the five hundred medieval churches and ten thousand 'listed' houses 'of historic or architectural interest', and the 'Hundred'lanes going back at least to the tenth century, are often found to be set in a landscape created before the Roman conquest. Suffolk in the Middle Ages opens with a discussion of the earliest written records, the place-names, as a guide to settlement-patterns, including the setting of Sutton Hoo. Among the grave-goods found in that celebrated ship and discussed here was the whetstone-sceptre; asked to carry it from its showcase in the British Museum to the laboratory, the author acknowledges a closer feeling of involvement even than helping to re-open the ship in its mound in 1966. His explanation of the presence of the whetstone-sceptre, printed here, has never been challenged. The identification of a carved Anglo-Saxon cross at Iken in 1977 prompted the essay here on St Botolph and the coming of East Anglian Christianity. This leads to a consideration of the Danish invasion of East Anglia, and a reexamination of the posthumous victory of King Edmund and Christianity as portrayed in an imaginary Breckland warren on the front of this book. Scarfe's carefully reasoned argument that the Metropolitan Museum's famous walrusivory cross was made for the monks' choir at Bury has never been refuted. Life in Bury abbey is vividly reconstructed: it was the most richly documented flowering of the work of East Anglia's apostles, Felix and Fursa, which alsoled to the phenomenal establishment in Suffolk by 1086 of four hundred of the five hundred medieval churches. In four East Suffolk essays, Southwold, Dunwich, Yoxford and Wingfield are exposed to Norman Scarfe's interpretativeskills. He reveals a past few could have guessed at, often quite as curious as the 'Two Strange Tales' unravelled in his concluding pages.
The origin of the names of many English towns, hamlets and villages date as far back as Saxon times, when kings like Alfred the Great established fortified borough towns to defend against the Danes. A number of settlements were established and named by French Normans following the Conquest. Many are even older and are derived from Roman placenames. Some hark back to the Vikings who invaded our shores and established settlements in the eighth and ninth centuries. Most began as simple descriptions of the location; some identified its founder, marked territorial limits, or gave tribal people a sense of their place in the grand scheme of things. Whatever their derivation, placenames are inextricably bound up in our history and they tell us a great deal about the place where we live.
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An enlightening journey into the languages, meanings, and history behind the names on England’s map. The origins of the names of many English towns, hamlets, and villages date as far back as Saxon times, when kings like Alfred the Great established fortified borough towns to defend against the Danes. A number of settlements were established and named by French Normans following the Conquest. Many are even older and are derived from Roman place names. Some hark back to the Vikings who invaded and established settlements in the eighth and ninth centuries. Most began as simple descriptions of the location; some identified its founder, marked territorial limits, or gave tribal people a sense of their place in the grand scheme of things. Whatever their derivation, place names are inextricably bound up in history—and these are the stories behind them.
Containing entries for more than 45,000 English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and immigrant surnames, The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland is the ultimate reference work on family names of the UK. The Dictionary includes every surname that currently has more than 100 bearers. Each entry contains lists of variant spellings of the name, an explanation of its origins (including the etymology), lists of early bearers showing evidence for formation and continuity from the date of formation down to the 19th century, geographical distribution, and, where relevant, genealogical and bibliographical notes, making this a fully comprehensive work on family names. This authoritative guide also includes an introductory essay explaining the historical background, formation, and typology of surnames and a guide to surnames research and family history research. Additional material also includes a list of published and unpublished lists of surnames from the Middle Ages to the present day.
There is no populated place without a name, and every name is chosen for a reason. This fascinating dictionary unveils the etymological roots and history of thousands of locations and landmarks from around the world. It contains over 11,000 entries, and covers an enormous range of country, region, island, city, town, mountain and river names from across the world, as well as the name in the local language. Place names are continually changing, and new names are adopted for many different reasons such as invasion, revolution, and decolonization. The Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names includes selected former names, and, where appropriate, some historical detail to explain the transition. The names of places often offer a real insight into the places themselves, revealing religious and cultural traditions, the migration of peoples, the ebb and flow of armies, the presence of explorers, local languages, industrial developments and topography. Superstition and legend can also play a part. This new edition has been updated to include over 750 new names, including Azincourt, Kropyvnyts'kyy , and Tlaxcala. It has also been edited to reflect socio-political and geographical shifts, notably the reorganisation of the French regions, and their consequent name alterations, as well as the decommunization of Ukrainian place-names. In addition to the entries themselves, the dictionary includes two appendices: a glossary of foreign word elements which appear in place-names and their meanings, and a list of personalities and leaders from all over the world who have influenced the naming of places.
`The Sutton Hoo `princely' burials play a pivotal role in any modern discussion of Germanic kingship.'EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE The age of Sutton Hoo runs from the fifth to the eighth century AD - a dark and difficult age, where hard evidenceis rare, but glittering and richly varied. Myths, king-lists, place-names, sagas, palaces, belt-buckles, middens and graves are all grist to the archaeologist's mill. This book celebrates the anniversary of the discovery of that most famous burial at Sutton Hoo. Fifty years ago this great treasure, now in the British Museum, was unearthed from the centre of a ninety-foot-long ship buried on remote Suffolk heathland. Included in this volume are 23 wide-ranging essays on the Age of Sutton Hoo and director Martin Carver's summary of the latest excavations, which represent the current state of knowledge about this extraordinary site. That it still has secrets to reveal is shown by the last-minute discovery of a striking burial of a young noble with his horse and grave goods.M.O.H. CARVER is Professor of Archaeology at York University, and Director of the Sutton Hoo Research Project.