Stanley, Nigel Edward
(2024)
Latin loan-words in English place-names: a study of their
linguistic, archaeological and chronological contexts, with
special reference to Latin vīcus and Old English wīc.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
In the English place-name Wickham, derived from Old English wīc‒hām, the first element is OE wīc, loaned from Latin vīcus. This thesis explores in depth the hypothesis proposed by various place-name scholars, especially by Margaret Gelling from 1967‒97, that Wickham might refer to a Roman settlement site, and that in place-names such as Wickford, the specific wīc might sometimes refer to Roman settlement. Owing to a great increase in the number of Roman sites excavated since the 1970s, and the availability of information from sources such as the Portable Antiquities Scheme and Roman Rural Settlement project, this thesis is able to use modern archaeological knowledge unavailable to Gelling and twentieth-century place-name scholars, to explore the potential relationship between place-names and Roman archaeology.
The main findings of the thesis are: 1) that OE wīc‒hām can refer to various types of Roman rural settlement, including a small town, roadside settlement, village, villa, and perhaps also a farmstead; and 2) that in some place-names such as Wickford, the specific wīc is likely to refer to a Roman settlement or institution known in Latin as vīcus. The thesis concludes by suggesting that place-name scholars have traditionally based their explanations of place-name chronology, and of Germanic migration to Britain, on medieval sources such as the Chronicle and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. To explain how place-names such as Wickham and Wickford might refer to Roman settlements, a new historical narrative may now be necessary, based on patterns of English place-name evidence, on archaeology and on linguistic evidence, including Latin loan-words in Old English.
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