ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3039
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3039
************************************

31 May 2006
From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked our help choosing a name for your Society branch,
specifically for Old English or German place names meaning "three
bridges", "tower on the plains", or "river garrison".  In one of your
earlier notes, you asked about a name meaning "burning ember"; and
that prompted some research with results that might interest you.

Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time it has
taken us to complete this report, and hope that this information is
still useful to you.

We'll begin with possible place-names of Old English origin, then look
at medieval German possibilities, and conclude with an Old Norse
suggestion that you might find appealing.  First, however, we will
eliminate one of the ideas: we have not found any historically
plausible way to construct English or German place names meaning
'tower on the plains.  We could translate that phrase word for word,
but we have no reason to believe that the result is a place name
likely to have been used in either language in our period.

Along the way we'll be using a number of special notations for letters
that are not part of the standard Roman alphabet; for convenience of
reference we list them here.

 {th} for the letter thorn, written like a 'p' with its vertical
      stroke extended up the same distance as it goes down; and
      pronounced like the <th> in <thing>.

 {ae} for the letter aesc (ash), written like an 'a' and 'e' squashed
      together so that share a vertical stroke.

 {dh} for the letter edh, written like a backward '6' with a
      crossbar on the upper limb; and pronounced in Old Norse like the
      <th> in <this>.

 a*   for the Swedish letter 'a' with a small circle over it.

 a/   for an 'a' with an acute accent mark.

 a"   for an 'a' with an umlaut.

 u"   for a 'u' with an umlaut.

 o"   for an 'o' with an umlaut.

 o|   for a Swedish slashed-o.

OLD ENGLISH FORMS

Before getting to the names themselves, we have to explain a little
bit about Old English grammar.  Old English was an inflected language,
and an Old English noun took different forms depending on how it was
used in a sentence.  Modern English retains a vestige of this
characteristic: we still change <man>, for instance, to <man's> in a
possessive phrase like <a man's home>.  Old English, however, went
much further: a noun used in a prepositional phrase generally required
a slightly different form from the same noun used as the subject of a
sentence.  For example, we have 

    <Seo brycg is eald> 'The bridge is old',

but
  
    <{ae}t {th}{ae}re ealdre brycge> 'at the old bridge',

with <brycge> instead of <brycg>, where modern English uses the same
form, <bridge>, for both.  The form used for the subject of a sentence
is called the nominative case; the form that was used after 
prepositions specifying a location is called the dative case.

Now place-names are very often used in prepositional phrases; some
modern English examples are <from London>, <in Africa>, and <at the
White House>.  So common are such phrases, in fact, that some modern
English place-names are descended not from the nominative (subject)
case of the Old English name, but rather from the dative case; we'll
suggest such a development for one of our recommendations.  This
grammatical technicality is also important for anyone who wishes to
form an authentic Old English byname meaning 'of X', where X is the
name of your branch.

An Old English name meaning 'three bridges' is quite plausible.  It's
true that the Old English word <{th}reo> 'three' most often appears in
place-names referring to hills, mounds, trees, or measures of land,
but there is a place-name <Three Houses> in Hertfordshire that derives
from Old English, and on that model we can construct the Old English
place-name <{th}reo brycga> 'three bridges'. [1]  This is the
nominative case of the place-name, the form that would be used for the
subject of a sentence.  The dative case is <{TH}rim brycgum>, so an
Old English equivalent of <Edwin of Three Bridges> is <Eadwine {ae}t
{th}{ae}m {TH}rim brycgum>.  In Middle English this might well have
developed into a place-name <Thrimbrigge>, pronounced roughly
\THRIM-bridge\. [2]  (Here \TH\ stands for the sound of <th> in
<thing>, not the sound in <this>.)

If we construe 'garrison' in its old sense of 'fort, stronghold', then
it is reasonable to equate it with the Old English place-name element
<ceaster>, a borrowing of Latin <castra> 'camp'.  Although its primary
meaning in literary sources is 'a city', it also meant 'an old
fortification', a sense that is found in many place-names.  This
element is often combined with a word denoting a nearby landmark, and
in fact <Acaster> in the place-name <Acaster Malbis> is from Old Norse
<a/> 'a river' and Old English <c{ae}ster>, a northern dialect variant
of <ceaster>; the original sense of the name was 'Roman fort on the
river'.  It's likely that the name was originally entirely Old
English, <a/> having replaced Old English <ea> 'a river, a stream', a
word found in such place-names as <Eaton>. [11, 12, 13]  Thus, the
compound <Eaceaster> 'old river fort' has approximately the desired
sense and is a fine Old English place-name.  Alternatively, we can
combine <ea> with the very common Old English place-name element
<burh> 'a fortified place' to produce an Old English place-name
<Eaburh>. [14]

These are the nominative cases of these names; the dative cases are
<Eaceastre> and <Eabyrig>.  A man named <Eadwine> living at one of
these places might have been recorded in Old English as <Eadwine {ae}t
Eaceastre> or <Eadwine on Eabyrig>.  (The Old English prepositions
<{ae}t> and <on> seem to have been largely interchangeable in such
bynames.)

<Eaceaster> might have evolved into Middle English <Echestre> or
<Yachestre> in the 14th century and then to <Eachester> or <Yachester>
a bit later in the SCA period.  Old English <Eaburh> might have
produced a 14th century <Ebury> and a 16th century <Ebury> or
<Eabury>.  In southwestern England it might have become <Yobury> or
<Yeobury> in the 14th century, the latter of these being possible for
the 15th or 16th centuries as well. [15]

GERMAN FORMS

German was not a uniform language in our period, but rather a
collection of dialects that varied from one region to the next.  These
dialects fall into two major groups: Low German in the north and High
German in the centre and south, including Bavaria, Austria, and
German-speaking Switzerland.  The High German dialects are further
divided between the Upper German dialects of Switzerland, Austria, and
southernmost Germany, especially Bavaria, and the Middle German
dialects of central Germany.  The medieval Low German dialects of the
northwest were closely related to the eastern Dutch dialects. 

An element meaning 'three' seems to have been rare in German
place-names, but it is occasionally found.  For example, the 1357
bynames <der Dryhaupel> (masculine) and <die Dryha"pplin> (feminine)
both refer to someone holding a farm known as the 'three hillocks'. 
<Dry> is a common 14th century Middle High German spelling of the
word; another byname example is <Dryperd> 1341 'three horse(s)'.  In
the late 14th century and into the 15th century the element was often
spelled <drey>, as in the surnames <Dreyschillinch> 1370 and
<Dreylinge> 1415. [21]  Additional indirect support for the element is
found in the place-name <Driebergen> 'three hills' in Utrecht province
of the Netherlands, which is recorded as <Thriberge[n]> as early as a
14th century forgery of a document of 1159: High German, Low German,
and Dutch place-naming all follow similar patterns, and unlike some
very specific topographical terms, the 'three' word (with minor
variations in form) is common to all of these dialects. [22]  Finally,
the place-name <Drieberg> in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, found as 
<Dryberche> in 1348 and 1498 and as <Dryberge> in 1530 and 1535, is
almost certainly a Low German counterpart of the Dutch place-name. [23]

The modern German word for 'bridge' is <Bru"cke>, plural <Bru"cken>. 
In the Upper German dialects, however, the usual medieval forms were
<brucke> and <brugge>, with plurals <brucken> and <bruggen>, <brugge>
being especially common in the southwest. [24, 25]  <Brugge> is also a
normal Low German form, as is <bru"gge>; examples include <Joh.
Bruggemann> 1301 and <der Bruggeman> 1408, both from Pommerania, and
<bru"ggentreder> 1318 and <bru"ggenmaker> 1325, both from Lu"beck.
[26, 27]  Finally, we found one Middle German citation, <Hans
Brockeman> 1396. [28]

There are now over 150 place in Germany with names ending in <-bruck>
or <-bru"ck>, at least another 24 with names ending in <-brucke> or
<-bru"cke>, and over 30 with names ending in <-brugge> or <-bru"gge>;
a few may have other origins, but in general the second element of
these names is 'bridge' in various dialect forms.  In addition there
are at least 24 with names ending in <-bru"cken> and at least three
with names ending in <-bruggen> or <-bru"ggen>; with the same caveat
as before, these names have a second element 'bridges' in one or
another dialect form. [29]  While it is of course possible that some
of these place-names were created after 1600, it's clear that the
'bridge' word must actually be a rather common element in German
place-names of the SCA period.  In fact, there is even a 
<Zweibru"cken> 'two bridges' in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz; the
earliest documentary mention of the place-name is from about 1170, in
the personal name <Wicherus de Zweinbrucken>.  There's no doubt about
the etymology of the name: the French name of the place is <Deux
Ponts> 'two bridges'. [30, 31]

On this evidence a place-name meaning 'three bridges' is possible
throughout the German language area.  In the north the spelling
<Drybruggen> is suitable for the 14th and 15th centuries.  In the
south it's suitable for the later 13th and 14th centuries, especially
in the southwest.  <Drybrucken> is also suitable for this period in
much of the south and probably in much of the centre as well.  By the
15th century it appears that <Dreybruggen> and <Dreybrucken> would be
better choices in the south and centre.  The pronunciations are
roughly as follows, where \oo\ stands for the vowel of <book> and
<look>, and \@\ stands for the sound of <a> in <sofa> and <about>:

    Drybruggen: \DREE-broog-g@n\
    Drybrucken: \DREE-brook-k@n\
    Dreybruggen: \DRAY-broog-g@n\
    Dreybrucken: \DRAY-brook-k@n\

All have secondary stress on the second syllable, i.e., the same
stress pattern as English <icebreaker>.

OLD NORSE FORMS

The practice of slash-and-burn cultivation in Scandinavia is
commemmorated in many place-names.  One is the Norwegian place-name
<Brandval>, from an unattested Old Norse place-name <Brandva/ll>
'burnt clearing'. [32, 33]  This is similar enough to your earlier
idea 'burning ember' that we thought that it might appeal to you.

We hope this letter has been useful.  Please write us again if any
part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions.  I was
assisted in researching and writing this letter by Gunnvor Silfraharr,
Walraven van Nijmegen, Talan Gwynek, Geoffrey of Blesedale, Juetta
Copin, Maridonna Benvenuti, Ursula Georges, and Ari Ansson.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur, Calybrid ine Tere, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael
  31 May 2006


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

References and Notes:

[1] Smith, A.H.  English Place-Name Elements (Cambridge: At the
University Press, 1956), s.vv. <brycga>, <{th}reo>.

[2] The 'bridge' element shows up in a variety of forms in Middle
English, including <-brigge>, <-brige>, <-brugge>, <-bruge>, and
others.  We chose the spelling <-brigge> because it is common
throughout the Middle English period and not confined to any
particular dialect area; some examples are <Corebrigge> 1158,
<Exebrigge> 1255, and <Troughbrigge> 1358, 1395. [3, 4]

The 'three' element is rare enough that we found only two examples
showing Middle English developments of the Old English dative form
<{th}rim>: the name of one of the Warwickshire hundreds appears in
Domesday Book as <Tremelau>, from Old English <({ae}t {th}{ae}m)
{th}rim hlawum> '(at the) three mounds or hills', and we found an
undated but evidently early <{TH}rem burghen>, from Old English
<({ae}t {th}{ae}m) {th}rim beorgum> '(at the) three barrow mounds or
hills', another name for Barrow Hills in Surrey. [5, 6]  On the face
of it these suggest <Thrembrigge> rather than <Thrimbrigge>; however,
it is likely that both are somewhat unrepresentative of typical Middle
English developments.

Old English /i/, as in <{th}rim>, normally becomes Middle English /i/,
spelled <i> or <y>. [7, 8]  In Domesday Book, however, it sometimes
appears as <e>, in keeping with a more general Anglo-Norman tendency
to substitute <e> for <i>; another example is <Belingei>, a Domesday
Book form of <Billinghay>, from Old English *<billing> plus <eg>. [9,
10]  We have chosen to suggest the normal development, but
<Thrembrigge> would also be possible, especially in the earlier
post-Conquest period.

[3] Watts, Victor, ed., in association with John Insley and Margaret
Gelling.  Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the
Collections of the English Place-Name Society (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004); s.nn. <Exebridge>, <Trowbridge>, <Cambridge>.

[4] Ekwall, Eilert.  The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English
Place-names, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); s.n.
<Corbridge>.

[5] Smith, op. cit. s.v. <{th}reo>.

[6] 'Warwickshire', LoveToKnow 1911 Online Encyclopedia (WWW:
LoveToKnow, 2003, 2004).
http://37.1911encyclopedia.org/W/WA/WARWICKSHIRE.htm

[7] Moore, Samuel, rev. by Albert H. Marckwardt.  Historical Outlines
of English Sounds and Inflections (Ann Arbor: George Wahr Publishing
Co., 1964); pp. 66-8.

[8] Mosse/, Ferdinand.  A Handbook of Middle English, trans. James A.
Walker (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968); p. 10.

[9] von Feilitzen, Olof.  The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday
Book (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1937); pp. 50f.

[10] Watts, op. cit. s.n. <Billinghay>.

[11] Smith, op. cit. s.v. <ceaster>.

[12] Watts, op. cit. s.n. <Acaster Malbis>.

[13] Ekwall, op. cit. s.n. <Eaton>.

[14] Smith, op. cit. s.v. <burh>.

[15] Old English <ceaster> developed in a variety of ways in Middle
English, but the spelling <-chestre>, seen for example in the 14th
century spellings <Manchestre>, <Silchestre>, and <Wodechestre>, was
quite common.  <Burh> shows even more variety in its Middle English
developments, but <-bury>, from the dative case <byrig>, was common
from at least the late 13th century on.  Some examples are <Estbury>
1290 and 1456 for what is now <Eastbury>, <Marbury> 1289 to the
present, and <Hamedebury> ca.1301, <Hendeybury> throughout the period
1288-1468, and <Henbury> from 1383 on for modern <Henbury>. [16] 

The Old English diphthong in the word <ea> 'river' was pronounced
roughly \A@\, where \A\ stands for the vowel in <cat> and \@\ for the
sound of <a> in <sofa> and <about>.  In Middle English this sound
normally simplified to the <cat> vowel.  (In fact it was a little
longer in duration than the vowel in <cat>, so it was actually more
like the vowel in <had> or <lamb>, but that's a very fine
distinction.)  In early Middle English it was often spelled <ea> or
simply <e>; this is how Old English <ea-tun> 'river settlement' became
Middle English <Eton>, <Etone>, and <Eaton>, for instance. [17, 18]

However, at the beginning of a name the diphthong could develop very
differently, to \yah\.  This development is especially characteristic
of Somerset and Devon in the southwest, where <ya> and <yeo> were very
common dialect terms for a river or stream, but it can also be seen
for example in the Yorkshire place-name <Yafforth>, from Old English
<ea-ford> 'river ford', which is found as <Yafford> by 1283. [19, 20]

These observations account for all of the suggested Middle English
spellings.

[16] Watts, op. cit. s.nn. <Manchester>, <Silchester>, <Woodchester>,
<Eastbury>, <Henbury>, <Marbury>.

[17] Moore and Marckwardt, op. cit., pp. 66, 76.

[18] Watts, op. cit. s.n. <Eaton>.  Eaton Bishop is found as <Eton>
and <Etone> from 1241 to 1506; Eaton Socon is found as <Etone> from
1086 to ca.1360 and as <Eaton> in 1208 and 1247; and Eaton Hall is
found as <Eaton> from 1313 on.

[19] Reaney, P.H., and R.M. Wilson.  A Dictionary of English Surnames
(London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995); s.n. <Yea>.

[20] Watts, op. cit. s.n. <Yafforth>.

[21] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann.  Etymologisches Wo"rterbuch der
deutschen Familiennamen (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag,
1957-1960); s.nn. <Dreipferd>, <Dreiha"upel>, <Dreischilling>, <Dreiling>.

[22] Ku"nzel, R. E., D.P. Blok, & J.M. Verhoeff.  Lexicon van
Nederlandse Toponiemen tot 1200 (Amsterdam: P.J. Meertens, 1989); s.n.
<Driebergen>.

[23] Dittmer, Georg Wilhelm.  'Urkunden u"ber einige dem St.
Johannis-Kloster zu Lu"bek vormals zugeho"rig gewesene Besitzungen in
Meklenburg und die daraus bezogenen Hebungen', in Verein fu"r
Mecklenburgische Geschichte und Altertumskunde: Jahrbu"cher des
Vereins fu"r Mecklenburgische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, vol. 21
(1856), pp. 193-214 (WWW: LBMV Schwerin).
http://portal.hsb.hs-wismar.de/pub/lbmv/mjb/jb021/355160900.html

The 1348 citation, in a Latin context, and the 1535 citation, in a Low
German context, may be inflected forms.

[24] Paul, Hermann, & Walther Mitzka.  Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik,
19th edn. (Tu"bingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1963); pp. 69, 114.
  
[25] Brechenmacher, op. cit. s.nn. <Brucker>, <Bruckenmeister>,
<Bruckhei>, <Bruck>, <Bruckschlegel>, offers examples ranging
geographically from Switzerland to Austria, among them <Heinr. an der
Brugge> 1307 'Heinrich by the bridge', <Heinr. uf der brugge> 1270
'Heinrich on the bridge' and <dictus Bruggenmaister> 1300 'called
Bridge-master', <Diepolt der Bruggehai> 1294 'Diepolt the
Bridge-guard', <Haini ze der Brugg> 1430 'Haini at the bridge', and
<dictus Bruckslegel> 1260.

[26] Brechenmacher, op. cit. s.n. <Bruggemann>.

[27] Bahlow, Hans.  Deutsches Namenlexikon, Familien- und Vornamen
nach Ursprung und Sinn erkla"rt.  Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 65 (Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985); s.n. <Bru"ggemann>.

[28] Mulch, Roland.  Arnsburger Personennamen: Untersuchungen zum
Namenmaterial aus Arnsburger Urkunden vom 13. - 16. Jahrhundert. 
Quellen und Forschungen zur Hessischen Geschichte, 29 (Darmstadt und
Marburg: Hessische Historische Kommission Darmstadt und Historische
Kommission fu"r Hessen, 1974); p. 107.

[29] Heavens Above international location database (WWW: Heavens-Above
GmbH).
http://www.heavens-above.com/countries.asp

In counting names we ignored those listed as an alias of another
place-name, though many of these are probably old, and we ignored
simplex names like <Brucken>, since we're interested in a two-element
name.

[30] 'Stadtinfo: Rosenstadt Zweibru"cken' (WWW: Zweibru"cken city
government); p. 10. http://img.wekacityline.de/pdf/66482.pdf

[31] Grand Larousse encyclope/dique en dix volumes (Paris: Librairie
Larousse, 1960); s.n. <Deux Ponts>.
  
[32] Sawyer, Birgit and Peter.  Medieval Scandinavia from Conversion
to Reformation ca. 800-1500 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1993); pp. 31-2:

    Most of the land that was cultivated, and much of the
    pasture, had once been wooded.  The first stage in
    clearing woodland was to burn the trees and undergrowth.
    Numerous place-names refer to burning and include such
    words as the verbs <brenna> or <svi{dh}a>.  Many such
    names are modern, and some may refer to the effect of
    natural fires, but others certainly reflect early
    clearances.  Some are even more specific; over a hundred
    placenames in Norway include the noun <va*l>, meaning
    'trunks or roots of burnt trees, stumps in burnt ground'.

[33] Sandnes, Jo|rn, & Ola Stemshaug.  Norsk Stadnamnleksikon, 4th ed.
(Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1997); s.v. <va*l>, s.n. <Brandval>.