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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Anglesey was regarded as the breadbasket of Wales according to Gerald of Wales in 1188. It was also significant that the Welsh in the northern, 'foreign', half of the country were not drawn into crusading zeal despite a visitation from no less a personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury on a bible-bashing mission, presumably combined anti-English and anti-Catholic forces at work.
Incredibly, again according to the blessed Gerald, there were beavers to be found, I forget which Welsh river it was, for use in river management.
| Also, there is no 'Mon' in Welsh - it's ONLY meaning is 'Anglesey'..... |
When did Monmouth (Welsh: Trefynwy = "town on the Monnow"), as in Geoffrey of Monmouth, appear, Pulp? It's on the River Monnow (Welsh Afon Mynwy).
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Obviously I spotted the beaver reference (for ignoramuses among you, there is a theory doing the rounds that beavers were trained by Ancient Man to do a bit of terraforming for him on the cheap) but I don't think the bloke with the umbrella (or Geraldo) was actually saying that beavers were used for that purpose...it was just useful work all the same. On the other hand the fact that beavers completely disappeared in the British Isles save for one Welsh river is one for our Mystery Extinction Files.
There were some language anomalies. It was never clear what language was being spoken. Gerald might have been the Welsh translator but he only had a Welsh granny so it's unlikely he actually spoke Welsh. The Archbish was a Norman. Persuading Welsh-speaking people to go on a crusade in Norman French must have been a bit tricky. "What d' he say, Da?" "Dunno, but they're giving out crosses....you wan' one?"
At one point it was claimed that two thousand had signed up. Well. given that crusading armies were only a few thousand at the time, and practically that number was acquired by a coupla elderly clerics in a coupla months...well, no wonder we conquered Jerusalem...no, we didn't that time, did we? Third Crusade. Never rely on the Welsh.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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What language did Gerald write in? We were told he spoke Latin and French, he was only a quarter Welsh so would have been regarded as an outsider despite being born there. (He never became Bishop of St. David's, preferred travel writing to preaching perhaps.)
| At one point it was claimed that two thousand had signed up. |
The recruits were drawn from the south of the country, sounds like the churchmen came away empty-handed from Anglesey. It was a way - the only way? - of terminating marriage vows (are Welsh women termagants?).
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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The Welsh for Monmouth (Trefynwy "Tre-vun-oy") comes from Tre or Tref for town and Mynwy (as in the river). Mynwy mutates to Fynwy in the town name.
If the Mon in Monmouth were Welsh it would be Abermon, wouldn't it?
_________________
Question everything!
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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Monmouth is probably a truncated form of Monnowmouth, and the river Monnow is very similar to Mynwy (pronounced Munoy)...... so not related to Ynys Mon.
_________________
Question everything!
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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Been looking at place names, specifically the 'Celtic' word for a small wooded valley - "combe", which appears all over southern England.
Now, if this were one of the few supposed 'celtic' loan words in English, then why oh why does this name or part name not appear in Cornwall?? It appears right down as far as the Tamar (Hollocombe, Devon) and then abruptly stops....... strange then that a 'celtic' word is used all over south England but is forgotten in Cornwall.
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Question everything!
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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My source says coombe comes from Anglo-Saxon - cumb = valley
But it is also related to the Irish camm and the Greek skambos = crooked
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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My source (Geography "O"-level) says that a "cwm, cirque or corrie" is an armchair hollow caused by glaciation. Since presumably an "armchair-hollow caused by glaciation" would not be in the everyday vocabulary of Early Brits, I expect cwm/coombe would mean any small closed-end valley. Since the feature occurs all over the British Isles (except unglaciated Cornwall of course) there has to be a term for it in all British languages.
Obviously it was one of the first things the Anglo-Saxons asked the Celts when they came over and discovered these novel features in the landscape. That's because they'd forgotten their own word for it on the boat coming over (Anglo-Saxia being slap bang in prime coombe-territory back in the Old Country).
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/29/I_Sea_Glacier2.jpg/300px-I_Sea_Glacier2.jpg
This would imply that the glacial cutoff was not Cornwall, but higher up, so there should be no cwm / combe around Stonehenge......
In Wales 'cwm' is used to refer to any small valley and more in the place of words like dingle or dell. I can see no reason why it should not exist in 'celtic' Cornwall placenames. I am certain it now exists in Kernow as a language though, as this is a modern construct stolen from Welsh....
PS - can't get the damned picture in!! AaaaH!! Technology. Humbug.
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TelMiles
In: London
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I have a new hypothesis, and it's this:
The ancient or native English speakers, of which Mick speaks, were none other than the Angles. They didn't come from Angeln, they didn't come from anywhere (when the historians said they did), they were where they always have been, in Angloland.
This makes a lot of sense and clears up a few more anomalies. I'm currently constructing my great work around this supposition so I am not at liberty to say much more (I probably will though).
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Against all Gods.
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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So at what point did Anglesey become the Isle of the Angles, or rather at what point did it become Ynys Mon??
_________________
Question everything!
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J Robinson
In: The Shires
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| Pulp History wrote: | "There is a small island almost adjoining to Anglesey, which is inhabited by hermits, living by manual labor, and serving God. This island is called in welsh Ynys Lenach, or the priests' island, because many bodies of saints are deposited there, and no woman is suffered to enter it." (Girald. Camb. Sir R. C. Hoare's translation, vol. ii. p. 106.)
Small island adjoining ..... Ynys Lenach = Priest's Island (but Welsh for priest is 'Offeiriad')........... can't find any Welsh words close to 'lenach' so don't know how he came to that translation.... |
How about Lleyn instead of Lenach - "Lleyn, the Canganorum promontorium of Ptolemy, was [...]that long neck of land between Caernarvon and Cardigan bays. Leland says, "Al Lene is as it were a pointe into the se."
Where's Bardsey Island (Mynydd Enlli or Ynys Enlli) in relation to Anglesey? Bardsey was supposed to be the island of the dead saints - with 20,000 of them supposedly buried there - are there that many dead saints? And enough to need 2 islands??
'Beyond Lleyn, there is a small island inhabited by very religious monks, called Caelibes, or Colidei. [maybe the priests mentioned in the earlier quote?] This island, either from the wholesomeness of its climate, owing to its vicinity to Ireland, or rather from some miracle obtained by the merits of the saints, has this wonderful peculiarity, that the oldest people die first, because diseases are uncommon, and scarcely any die except from extreme old age. Its name is Enlli in the Welsh, and Berdesey in the Saxon language; and very many bodies of saints are said to be buried there, and amongst them that of Daniel, bishop of Bangor.
This island once afforded, according to the old accounts, an asylum to twenty thousand saints, and after death, graves to as many of their bodies; whence it has been called Insula Sanctorum, the Isle of Saints. '
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| "Al Lene is as it were a pointe into the se." |
Why, pray, is Leland using the Arabic form of the name?
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J Robinson
In: The Shires
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | "Al Lene is as it were a pointe into the se." |
Why, pray, is Leland using the Arabic form of the name? |
Your guess is as good as mine...very confusing.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Bardsey was supposed to be the island of the dead saints - with 20,000 of them supposedly buried there - are there that many dead saints? And enough to need 2 islands?? |
There was a programme about Hereford cathedral's valiant campaign to get Thomas de Cantilupe canonised, it was a very lengthy process involving three papal emissaries which eventually ended 15 years later in Cantilupe's official sainthood based on evidence of miracles (great pains were taken to investigate possibilities of 'magic').
Presumably Bardsey was a pilgrim centre with that many 'saints' and, like other notable centres such as Hereford and Canterbury, would've derived a goodly income from visitors, the equivalent of today's tourist industry. (Apparently more canonisations took place in the twentieth century than in the entire medieval period).
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