2017, Volume 14, Issue 1
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Andrew Breeze John Leland’s Caer Urfe: Tynemouth or Chepstow?
Voprosy onomastiki, 2017, Volume 14, Issue 1, pp. 56–65 Received 2 June 2016 Abstract: The paper focuses on the problem of identification of Caer Urfe, one of the Twenty-Eight Cities of Britain listed by John Leland (d. 1552) from Henry of Huntingdon (d. 1155) after the ninth-century Historia Brittonum. Many of the twenty-eight have defied identification; but Leland’s proposal of Tynemouth for Caer Urfe is now maintained by archaeologists on Tyneside, in the north of England. The author argues that Caer Urfe is to be associated with St Cynfarch, near Chepstow, in south-east Wales. It is one of ten Welsh religious communities named in the catalogue together with cathedral cities and ancient British hillforts, none of them on Tyneside. The paper also examines the case of Arbeia, recorded by Notitia Dignitatum as the name of the Roman fort at South Shields, Tyneside. The author shows that Arbeia has no link with Caer Urfe, nor does it mean ‘Arabs,’ supposedly relating to the garrisoning there after 300 CE of troops from Iraq. Many Roman forts in Britain were called after streams close to them; Arbeia is hence best understood on the basis of Welsh erfin ‘turnips,’ also the name of a stream near Aberystwyth, as ‘<fort by a> stream noted for wild turnips’. The article is supplemented with an appendix containing a list of the twenty-eight cities from Leland’s catalogue, with toponyms rectified after the twelfth-century Book of Llandaff and other Welsh documents. Key words: Latin language, Welsh language, Celtic languages, Historia Brittonum, Twenty-Eight Cities of Britain, place-names, historical toponymy, etymology, textual criticism References Breeze, A. (2001). The British-Latin Place-Names Arbeia, Corstopitum, Dictim and Morbium. Durham Archaeological Journal, 16, 21–25. Breeze, A. (2004). The Roman Place-Names Arbeia and Corstopitum: A Reply. Archaeologia Aeliana, 33, 61–64. Breeze, A. (2009). Arbeia and Corstopitum Revisited. Durham Archaeological Journal, 18, 115–117. Bromwich, R., & Evans, D. S. (Eds.) (1992). Culhwch and Olwen. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Charles, B. G. (1963). The Welsh: Their Language and Place-Names in Archenfield and Oswestry. In Angles and Britons: O’Donnell Lectures (pp. 85–110). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Cowley, F. G. (1977). The Monastic Order in South Wales 1066–1349. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Davies, W. (1979). The Llandaff Charters. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales. Evans, T. (1716). Drych y Prif Oesoedd [A Mirror of Early Times]. Shrewsbury: John Rhydderch. Fitzpatrick-Matthews, K. J. (2015). The XXVIII Civitates Britanniae of the Historia Brittonum: Antiquarian Speculation in Early Medieval Wales. Journal of Literary Onomastics, 4, 1–19. Hodgson, N. (2002). The Roman Place-Names Arbeia and Corstopitum. Archaeologia Aeliana, 30, 173–174. Hodgson, N. (2005). The Roman Place-Names Arbeia and Corstopitum: A Response to the Response. Archaeologia Aeliana, 34, 151–152. Jackson, K. H. (1938). Nennius and the Twenty-Eight Cities of Britain. Antiquity, 12, 44–55. Leland, J. (1774). De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea (2nd ed., vols. 1–6). Londini: Benjamin White. Leland, J. (1907–1910). Itinerary (Ed. by L. T. Smith, vols. 1–5). London: George Bell and Sons. Lloyd-Jones, J. (1931–1963). Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg [Glossary of Early Welsh Poetry] (Fascicles 1–8). Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru. Morris, J. (Ed.). (1980). British History and The Welsh Annals. Chichester: Phillimore. Owen, H. W., & Morgan, R. (2007). Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales. Llandysul: Gomer. Petrovskaia, N. I. (2015). Medieval Welsh Perceptions of the Orient. Turnhout: Brepols. Rivet, A. L. F., & Smith, C. (1979). The Place-Names of Roman Britain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Williams, I. (1929–1931). Enwau ac Anryfeddodau Ynys Prydain [Names and Wonders of the Island of Britain]. Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 5, 19–24. |
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