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| As I say, they might be useful to deter casual Roman forays but with the Roman garrison on the Wall offering an inexhaustible ready market, and cattle roving being the national sport thereabouts, I expect the hill forts were nightly punctuations on the droving roads. |
The function possibly, yes, but at a much earlier period since apparently they are Iron Age.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Please explain your point as quite a few in the Midlands have 'Celtic' elements in the place name. If you mean actual villages with Celts then most since we still carry the genes. |
So you keep saying. Me, I just keep on asking you to provide a few names. I have now issued seven hundred and fifty three challenges to 'people who make specific claims' and each time the result is the same: they chat about it for a bit but never quite get round to giving us the examples. So come on, Frank, let's start with a few of these 'Midland villages with Celtic elements' of yours. We're in need of a laugh.
| The early Dioceses can be traced almost exactly from the flow lines which I believe is a significant pointer to the administrative structure after the proposed invasion. |
'ang about, we were discussing pre-Roman population movements, weren't we? Even Bronze Age maybe. Are you seriously saying that a bunch of medieval episcopal bureaucrats would be guided by these considerations? Personally, I like this...as I do all ancient survivals...but I wouldn't care to place too much weight on it. So far this is the only evidence you have advanced for your entire theory!
| The function possibly, yes, but at a much earlier period since apparently they are Iron Age. |
Don't follow. The 'English Iron Age' is conventionally abutted to the Roman Conquest (as being the start of history in the southern part of the island). The Scottish Iron Age kinda overlaps with the Roman period because of the difficulty of having so few historical sources for North Britain. However all this "Ages" stuff is a classical way that orthodoxy uses to hide anomalies so perhaps you could re-explain matters using a simple dating scheme.
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| let's start with a few of these 'Midland villages with Celtic elements' |
Gelling and others list the Midlands villages of Penn, Pensnett, Barr, Bredon, Coundon and quite a few more.
| Are you seriously saying that a bunch of medieval episcopal bureaucrats would be guided by these considerations? |
Replace 'administration' by tribal which then fits the Roman description also - as I explained with the map.
| The Scottish Iron Age kinda overlaps with the Roman period because of the difficulty of having so few historical sources for North Britain. |
According to Hogg the Borders Hill forts appear to be about mid 1st century BC.
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I'd say the default position would be independent Celtic populations in the north and west
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If so, no wonder some other people with a better strategy for lowland land use came in and took over.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Gelling and others list the Midlands villages of Penn, Pensnett, Barr, Bredon, Coundon and quite a few more. |
I don't doubt it. That's not what I asked for. You, you, Frank H, claimed that "quite a few in the Midlands have 'Celtic' elements in the place name". So please, provide (let us say) five of these villages, indicating -- since we're not necessarily au fait in this area -- the Celtic element.
I'd say the default position would be independent Celtic populations in the north and west
If so, no wonder some other people with a better strategy for lowland land use came in and took over. |
This is so cryptic as to defy all my attempts at decipherment. Please re-explain.
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| This is so cryptic as to defy all my attempts at decipherment. Please re-explain. |
Well, if you live up in the hills, don't be surprised if some other people find a better use for the lowlands if this land is a sitting target... just a suggestion.
On the place names point I'm only taking the specialists' guidance who give Bre, Penn etc. as so-called Celtic.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Well, if you live up in the hills, don't be surprised if some other people find a better use for the lowlands if this land is a sitting target... just a suggestion. |
Frank, I am merely stating the position that as far as I know is absolutely universal. Speaking as 'people' myself, I wouldn't want to do the actual farming...just be the overlord of those that do. But whether I live down there or up here will probably be a matter of personal (or seasonal) taste. If you want to present another model you'll have to spell it out.
| On the place names point I'm only taking the specialists' guidance |
Well don't. Not here. You can agree with them all you like but if you want to use their arguments you have to adopt them yourself. Which in this case would require you to convince us that such ludicrously commonplace sounds as Bre and Pen are diagnostically Celtic.
Try to remember, these people are morons. Make use of their low-level information hoovering processes by all means but leave the higher brain functions to us. Or you. If you want.
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| whether I live down there or up here will probably be a matter of personal (or seasonal) taste. If you want to present another model you'll have to spell it out. |
Not really, either model will do for me. I'm only pointing out in my map making efforts an observed possible relationship between Hill forts and burys/worths, which perhaps resulted from an invasion and may have produced the historical tribes, Kingdoms and dioceses.
Whether this displaced Celtic or modified an indigenous Germanic or Scandinavian dialect I would be interested to learn, beyond the vague vast time scale of development for English now being put about by a few language researchers.
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The letter below has been sent to The Times.
Dear Sir,
A Museum of English
That there is to be a museum of the English language would be welcome were it not clear that it will feature the largely fictional creation myth of the English people. The myth was invented by English scholars who wanted to disassociate the English from wimpish 'Britons' who succumbed to the Romans, and instead make them the descendants of Germanic heroes, apt at slaughtering Roman legions.
DNA studies have cast serious doubts upon the 'migrations' which archaeologists once deduced so freely, and they oblige us to review the origins of the English and other nations. Using DNA and other research scholars now argue that English, a closer cognate of the Norse languages than of German, has been spoken in England and many other locations in the British Isles including Ireland since at least 1500 BC, and very probably since the end of the Ice Age. Sadly the English truly were wimps for they allowed themselves to be ruled by foreign elites for 1400 years from the beginning of the age of literacy, firstly by the Romans, then by a piratical Anglo-Saxon elite, and finally by the Norman French, with the result that there is almost no written English till the 12th century. Anglo-Saxon, far from being the ancestor of English is now thought to be a cognate dialect spoken by a small ruling elite, and it died out as did the languages of many small conquering elites in Europe in that era.
One of the reasons for believing that English, not Brythonic (Welsh &c.), was spoken in England in Roman times is the almost complete absence of Brythonic inscriptions in most of England. Welsh origins for a few English place names have been proposed but on examination they may be seen to have an acceptable Norse etymology. An example is the suggestion that 'Lud's gerd', the tenth century version of Lydiard near Swindon, was derived from the Welsh 'garth', meaning garden, whereas the Norse 'gard' for 'farm' is much more likely. The fact that several rivers in England are called 'Avon' is advanced as evidence of Welshness in England, but even this is dubious as the oldest form of the Wiltshire Avon is 'Havrene', a word with Norse antecedents as in the place name Le Havre. The Norse 'Haven' may supply the etymology, and one English river, that at Grimsby, is indeed called 'The Haven'. The use of the modern spelling 'Avon' maybe the result of a dropped 'h' or misguided pedantry. 'Walcot' in Swindon is said to mean 'The cottage of the Welsh'. But the Germanic 'Wal(h)' means 'foreigners', though Tolkien, writing as a serious philologist, suggested it was used only of people who spoke Latin or latinate languages.
National creation myths are hilariously inconsistent with one another. The Danes believe they are descended from a 'Celtic' tribe, the Anglii. So the Danes must believe the English are Celts and the Welsh and Irish are not. As 'Celtic' and 'Gallic' both have an etymological connection with the Germanic 'Wal' those adjectives too should mean 'foreigner'.
Yours,
Geoffrey Gardiner
_________________
G W Gardiner
Author of Towards True Monetarism and The Evolution of Creditary Structures and Controls
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A Museum of English
Geoffrey Gardiner |
Apparently the orthodox view for the lack of a Germanic element notably in the surviving place-names of Roman Britain (largely drawn from the Antonine Itinerary) rests on the assumption that they are mostly Latinised versions of pre-existing 'Celtic' place-names.
I wonder what the place-name specialists would have derived for these Roman road stops had they assumed 'English' had been the indigenous spoken language rather than the supposed 'Celtic'.
Quite different I would imagine!
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admin
Librarian
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You might be interested to know that THOBR will form the third programme in the AEL series of DVDs. You can see the first two in the New Concepts section under The AEL Goes AudioVisual.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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As usual, they put a spade in the ground in a developed area and Iron Age remains turn up: 4 burials on one the London Olympic development sites.
It's Iron Age burials that are incredibly rare in Britain, innit?
"The four skeletons were discovered in separate graves in a cemetery. The early Londoners lived in thatched circular huts on what would have been a small area of dry land on the edge of the river valley, surrounded by lakes, rivers and marshes."
Small area of dry land? Sparsely populated then. But they can make room for a cemetery? What are the chances of us finding it?
Well, pretty good actually, since the attractions of low lying land and river confluences are timeless. That's just what Mick has been saying in THOBR all along, but the professionals formally disagree. London was established by the Romans. Allegedly.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The origin of London is worth a thought or three. Clearly, since the Thames is the major barrier to communication from the Continent to (the rest of) Britain, it follows that the lowest crossing point must be of huge significance.
However, why should this be London? The lowest bridging point will depend on contemporary technology (it's presently Dartford!) but the lowest crossing point ie using a ford or other natural feature (are fords necessarily natural?) is presumably a haphazard occurrence. Did the Romans build a bridge? Could the Ancient Brits have used a ford? etc etc
However, all this is complicated by the other Big Question: what is the highest point of the Thames navigable by ocean-going ships? Curiously enough this is now also 'Dartford' (or at any rate, Tilbury). And the two things do go together since a) bridges and fords are navigational hazards and b) it may be worth building a bridge at the point where the ships can reach.
But now I come to think about it there are other reasons to connect the two factors viz
1. dredging shipping lanes creates stuff useful for building fords and bridges
2. building jetties is only a step away from building bridges.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| it may be worth building a bridge at the point where the ships can reach. |
Rather, it's worth building a bridge where they can't quite reach: where they're not bothered that they can't get through, but they're glad of the extra quayside.
The Thames is only a bar to overland travel. For, what, the whole of the south and east coasts? you're better off at sea anyway: inlets, marshes, fens... there's hardly a direct route even now. And the major ancient roads connect the west coast ports to the east coast. Is it all about sea farers? The earliest London export I've heard of is salt fish: not an especially English thing: London might not even have been an English city.
---
Everyone was taught ox-bow lakes. (Terribly geography-y, not terribly pertinent to anything else.) Silt builds up, the loop widens, eventually gets cut off... but the river keeps on flowing. A ford, a hump, a shallow bit all the way across, sounds distinctly unnatural, now you mention it. If the hump was there first, the river would go around... (Unless people... beavers... interfering with the banks make the flow suddenly slow down... But fords are generally at narrow spots.)
Anyway, why are there so many places called cattleford, hartford, deerford, ducksford, swinesford... as if only one local wild animal was known for crossing the river at that point? 'Course if the fords were installed by drovers in order to move their particular livestock...
Fords are for mass transit: ferries, punts, felled trees would do for pedestrian traffic. Innit? (Like stiles vs. gates.)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Rather, it's worth building a bridge where they can't quite reach: where they're not bothered that they can't get through, but they're glad of the extra quayside. |
A roundabout way of agreeing with me. The point is that crossing points get more and more likely as you go upriver, whereas ocean navigation gets less and less likely. They do not necessarily overlap but human intervention might make them do so and it is in humans' interest that they do.
We're definitely on the nose with this ford question. It may not be so much that they are man-made as man-chosen and then un-chosen. There's a London Bus going eastwards that has Old Ford on the front...anyone got the story on that?
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