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than the Dee. And thus far we are certain of the conclusions. The former is evidently too southerly for it, and the latter is as evidently too northerly. But the geographer, ranging along the coast for 25 miles from the Mersey, turns with the turning shore, and goes ten miles to the west, to the harbour of the Sistuntii. This sufficiently argues the harbour not to be at the mouth of the Mersey. And this equally argues it not to be at the mouth of the Lune. Twenty-five miles to the north of the Mersey can carry us only to one place convenient for an harbour the mouth of the Kibble."
considerable an object as the Mersey could not be overlooked." But one considerable river betwixt the Seteia and Horicambe is actually overlooked by Ptolemy, and I have already assigned a reason why the Mersey should be overlooked rather than the Kibble. Secondly, we arc told, that " advancing twenty miles to the north, and turning thirty miles east from the mouth of Dee, we shall find ourselves at the mouth of the Mersey." Let the reader cast his eye on a common map of Lancashire and Cheshire, and say whether the mouth of Mersey is even ten miles north and five miles east from that of Dee. But if we stretch from the mouth of Dee twenty miles northward, according to the geographer's directions, we shall find ourselves out at sea indeed, but in a latitude exactly corresponding with the mouth of Kibble, and, turning thence at a right angle to the east for thirty miles, we shall stretch a little further inward than Mr. Whitaker's supposed station (which, however, was certainly not the Setantiorum Portus) near the Neb of iheNese. Again, the geographer ranges indeed twenty-five miles to the north, but only one to the west, if the figures in Bertius's Ptolemy be right. Supposing ourselves therefore to be stationed on the aBstuary near Ereckleton, we are southward from Lancaster about twenty-one English, 'or twenty-five of Ptolemy's miles, and westward about two English miles so clearly do the geographer's data lead us to seek for Belisama in the Kibble, and the Setantiorum Portus in Lancaster. But Mr. Whitaker had an unfortunate theory to support : he had implicitly addicted himself to the dreams of a monk, before whose unsupported conjectures 1 Hist. Mane, b. i. c. 5. BOOK I. CHAP. I.] HISTOEY OF WHALLEY. the contemporary l and decisive authorities of Antonine and Ptolemy were equally to give way for him the Coccium of the one was to be removed to Blackrod, and the Rigodunmn of the other to be merged in his misplaced Rerigonium ; * and, to give some appearance of consistency to this strange hypothesis, the Setantiorum Portiis was to be removed to the mouth of Ribble, that celebrated stream left without a name, and Belisama, which is obviously represented in the modern word, violently transferred to the Mersey ; 3 while Ptolemy's bearings and distances unanimously concurred in supporting the truth of the old hypothesis, and in demonstrating the impossibility of the new one.
etymology of the word, and to prove its identity with the modern Rabble. 4 Bel is am, or in the plural amon, in the British language signifies Head of the Waters, an appellation peculiarly adapted to the Kibble, which unites, and carries down with it to the sea, numbers of tributary streams. Again, in the same language, Hhiu bel, from which the present name is obviously formed, has exactly the same meaning, namely, the Head River. Of the word Am, as it occurs in the composition of this word, we shall have frequent occasion to make use hereafter, and it may therefore be worth while to remark the various forms in which it appears in the composition of the names of rivers. V and M are convertible in the British language. We have, therefore, the same radical in the twofold form of Av and Am; and, with the prepositive letters, Tarn and Sam Tav and Sav ; from whence come the Avon, the Thames, the Tay, the Towy ; and in our own country the Tame, the Chaw, the Savok. 5
receives near Mitton the Hodcler, which, coming down from Cross of Grete, for several of 1 Not with each other; for Ptolemy flourished under the first Antonines, and the compiler of the Itinerary was probably Antoninus Caracalla but contemporary with the actual existence of the two names in question, and therefore original authorities.
obscurity of the river so denominated in the Roman era. If we adopt the hypothesis that it was, at the time when it received its appellation, the boundary of the Mercian and Northumbrian kingdoms, its etymology will plainly be QOeprc-ea, the Mercian Water; if otherwise, CWeper-ea will sufficiently describe a river which, through the intervention of the Dane, the Fulbrook, and the Wever, is fed by nearly twenty large Meres, in the county of Chester. After all, it is a bold conjecture, but strongly supported by natural appearances, that the (estuary of Mersey did not exist in the Roman period, but that its waters, after passing the promontory of Frodsham, expanded over the flat and sandy tract of Wirral, and found an uncertain and irregular outlet into the Dee. The word is not even mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, but is, perhaps, first met with in the " Terra inter Eipam (Ribble) et Merseiam " of Domesday, though Ric. of Cirencester assigns to Merseia fl. a place in what he styles Mappa Britannise faciei Romance. 4 " Ribil riseth in Ribilsdale abowte Sallay Abbay, and so to Sawlley. A mi miles beneth Sawley it reseyvith Calder that cummeth by Walley, and after receyvith a nother water cawllid Oder. Walley a x miles from Preston ; Sawlley a .... miles or more." Leland's Itinerary, vol. vii. part 1, fol. 58, Blackburnshire.
British names of brooks injuriously omitted in modern maps, Short Taud and Dartow Small, two little country maids (Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 27), of which the former is the uncompounded radical word, and the first syllable of the latter is descriptive of its ancient accompaniment, Dar-taw, the Stream of Oaks. 8
HISTORY OF WHALLEY. [BOOK I. CHAP. L the last miles forms the boundary of Yorkshire and Lancashire, as it must originally have done between two British tribes, the word Odre in that language signifying a limit or bound. 1
of the whole district, is Pendle, which, though it wants the bold conical form of its northern rivals Penigent and Ingleborough, 2 and is, in fact, nothing more than a longitudinal ridge like its immediate neighbours, yet from its superior height and bulk, as well as insulated situation, presents on every side, and especially on the north, a bold and striking figure. Of this word the first syllable is pure British, and enters into the composition of many Celtic names the PENnine Alps, APENnines, &c. Ben, in the Gaelic dialect, with the slight difference in the two labials which marks the distinction between the pronunciation of South Britain and Caledonia, is the same word. The composition of the modern word is an instance, of which several others will occur in the course of this work, in which a name once significant, but become unintelligible by change of language, has had an explanatory syllable attached to it : thus the British Pen, or Head, became in the Saxon era Pcnlmll ; and this continued to be the orthography of the word till long after the Conquest : afterwards, however, the second syllable was melted down into the insignificant die, and required another explanatory addition, altogether constituting the modern Pendle Hill. Of its two rivals mentioned above, one retains its genuine British appellation Pen ffieyn, the White Head, or Pen gwynt, the Head of Winds : the latter, whatever it was, is lost in the Saxon Iiiffleboroiiffh. 3 For Clithcroe, of which the two first syllables are apparently British, see the conjec- tures which will be offered under that place. 4 Next is Pinhow, an high and heathy ridge, dividing the parish of Whalley on the north from those of Caiiton and Kildwick. This local name is compounded on similar principles to the former, of Pin, the same word, with a slight dialectic variation, and the Saxon How. With respect to the etymology of Hameldon, which twice occurs in this circuit, I can only offer the following conjecture, after premising that, at all events, and after repeated attempts to discover something Saxon in its composition, I can only refer it to the original language of Britain, Am ael don, ad supercilium montis. For Calder and Colne, the latter of which it must be remembered denoted the river and not the town, I can acquiesce either in Baxter's etymology Calai dwr, aqua httosa, or Mr. Whitaker's Coldwr, Narrow Water, for the former; and for the latter, Colaun, of the same meaning with the word immediately preceding, seems to be the true ortho- graphy.
Bremetonacaj. 4 I am now convinced that the word is Danish, from klettur a crag, and how an hill. BOOK I. CHAP. L] HISTORY OF WHALLEY. Criddon, a bold and lofty hill upon the confines of Uossendale, and commanding an extended prospect southward over the plains of Lancashire, is pretty obviously Keiru don, the Hill of Stags. It is precisely such an elevation as that animal affects during the heat of summer, while the fallow deer graze on the plains or slopes beneath ; and it might continue to merit an appellation acquired in the remotest ages of antiquity till within less than three centuries of the present time.
parish of Blackburn, a district singularly deficient in striking natural objects. Billinge, which is also the name of a mountain in Airedale, and of a third in the south of Lancashire, may have indeed some pretensions, but I am unable to assign any meaning to the word in our aboriginal tongue.
quality in which, though superior in some degree to the Blakeburn or yellow 1 stream which denominates the parish, it has little claim to rival its beautiful namesake in Cumberland, the full, deep, translucent inlet of Denvent Lake. For Rossendale, see the etymology of the word, under the Forest of that name, where it will also be proved that the Irwell has no pretensions to a British origin. The parish of Rochdale affords nothing of a British sound excepting the Rocli and the JBeil. The former of these, which is the latinized Rhesus of Harrison, 2 is in ancient charters generally spelt Rache, but sometimes, and that in the most ancient, Racked ; 3 and it is apparently formed by a slight metathesis from Rhi esJc, tractus aquce. The latter ortho- graphy is formed by the addition of Head, the Rack-head; and from this word was evidently derived the ancient and genuine name of the town itself, Reced-ham?
our old topographer Harrison describes the stream which rises from two principal sources, one in the root of Coldgreave, and the other within the township of Crompton, unites near Butterworth Hall, passes by Belfield to which it gives name, and falls into the Eoch near Wardleworth. This word is the simple British monosyllable Bel, or Head, and it may refer to the high and remote sources of the rivulet which it denotes. In the dreary and late reclaimed district of Saddleworth arc more remains of the original language than in those where the general use of it was early superseded by the Saxon. For within the space of a few miles are three streams, which still retain their significant British names : these are, the Diggles, the Tame, the Chaw. The first of these is evidently the same word with the Douglas of Lower Lancashire, recorded by Nennius for one of the victories of Arthur, and with the Douglas of Scotland, memorable for having given name to 1 See the reasons assigned for this etymology under BLACKBURN. 2 Description of Britain A.D. 1577, p. 65. 3 Townley MSS. 4 This is the orthography of Domesday Book, and of all the charters for two centuries. ROCHDALE. VOL. I. C See further under 10
HISTORY OF WHALLEY.
[BOOK I. CHAP. I. the most illustrious family in that kingdom. And it is no less evidently compounded of Dhuglas, atro-cceruleus?
the prepositive letters. Chaw is the same, though it may be difficult to assign a meaning or origin to the singular prefix. Keg seems to approximate nearer to it than any other word, and Kegaio would be gutter aqua;.
Green Withins ; opposite to which is the Withins Mouth ; and the Coucher Book of "Whalley mentions a third, within the township of Whitworth, from its elevation called Hore Withins. 2 We are not to suppose that these lofty ridges, so remote from each other, so uniform in their relative situation, should have received their appellation from the contemptible withy or sallow, which never grew in such situations, but rather from a circumstance more general, and which at an early period may be proved to have been common to them all Gueithiu, or the Woods. Akin to this word are the Goodgraves of Saddleworth and of Bowland, two fells at the distance of forty miles from each other. The common English adjective good in this con- nexion is perfectly insignificant ; but the real word is one which occurs much oftener in the composition of local names than we are aware of this is, the British coed, a wood, which is reflected in Coitmore, Cadbceston, Chatmoss, Catlow, and many others.
singly as it sometimes occurs, or in composition as it is more frequently found, denotes one of those deep and naked gullies which in the forests and on the sides of the hills we see excavated by torrents in the schistus and other minerals. But this by the bye. Such are the remains of our aboriginal language, which may be traced in local names through this widely-extended district names which, after the lapse of so many centuries, and the shock of so many revolutions, still subsist, and may probably continue as long as the objects which they denote. We now hasten forward from a period of extreme barbarism, barren alike of facts and of remains, to a partial and temporary scene of activity, civilization, and elegance. 1 Drayton, who is often learned as well as accurate in his epithets, calls the former " Swart Douglas." 2 A fourth, and that in a similar situation, has since occurred to me in Erringden. 11
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
EOMAN HISTORY. -L HE History of Roman Britain, when connected with remote and provincial topography, has an interest peculiar to itself. To combine names and facts, which had exercised the fancy in our happiest days of classical study, with the obscure hut romantic scenery in which those days were passed ; to confirm and particularise the general evidence of ancient history by contemporary remains ; to bring home, for instance, the narrative of Tacitus, and the operations of Agricola, to our own villages ; is a process of the mind which can dignify what else were mean, or endear what were indifferent. This charm, difficult as it may be to analyse, yet appears to be composed of two prin- cipal ingredients opposition and harmony : of opposition between familiar locality and distant greatness, between uncertainty of place produced by a long lapse of ages and existing remains which have defied their power : of harmony between historical truth and local appearances, at once so remote as to exercise the understanding in comparing, so clear as to produce conviction, and so interesting as to fill the imagination when once compared. For, overwhelmed, as every curious mind must be, on first visiting the ancient Mistress of the World, by the vastness of the objects and by the recollections which must accompany them, yet what ingenuous native of the district which we are describing would be equally affected by the image of Hadrian walking in the gardens of his own villa, or marching on foot and bareheaded over the fells of Lancashire by Constantino and Severus under their own triumphal arches, or leading the long file of their legions along the crest of Wat- ling-street by Agricola receiving triumphal ornaments at Rome, 1 or choosing with judicious eye the future site of Coccium ? In one situation they are expected and at home the splendour of the place is suited to the rank of its inhabitants ; in the other we are astonished to find the masters of the world, at the distance of nearly two thousand miles, traversing districts which are now scarcely visited but by a solitary sportsman or shepherd, and reposing in villages which will now scarcely accommodate a single traveller. Such are the feelings with which we enter upon the present chapter, and upon the 10th Iter of Antonine, which, passing in a direction nearly North and South through the original parish of Whalley for the space of more than 20 miles, will conduct us, about the middle of the line, to one of the most illustrious scenes of antiquity in Roman Britain. 1 Tac. Vit. Agr. c. 40. c2 12
HISTORY OF WHALLEY.
[BOOK I. CHAP. II. This road, which has been distinctly traced by Mr. Whitaker l through the parishes of Prestwich, Ratcliffe, and Bury, at the northern extremity of the last enters upon the parish of Whalley, where, in a perambulation of the manor of Tottington, A.D. 1686, 1 find that it constituted the N.W. boundary of the lordship, which was said to extend in that direction usque le Watling-streate. It then entered Musbury, crossed the top of Haslingden Grain, ascended the opposite acclivity, where however no remains of it appear at present, and entered upon the wild wastes of Oswaldtwisle, where, before the late inclosure, its agger was every- where conspicuous, as it is now at intervals, particularly in the fields near Knusden ; thence it disappears once more in the cultivated grounds of Little Harwood, and, having gained the summit of the hill, descends through the township of Clayton-le-Dale to the Roman ford above Ribchester. Of this station, the Rigodunum of Camden, 2 the Coccium of Horsley, and the Herigo- nium of Mr. Whitaker, 3 how, after the disagreement of such men shall a fourth antiquary presume to fix the appellation ? There is however the less presumption in this attempt, as the two former opinions are capable of being reconciled to each other, though the radical identity of the names never occurred to either of those great men ; but the third must stand or fall on the unsupported authority of Richard the Monk, to whose frauds or errors our ingenious and learned contemporary has unhappily done too much honour.
nomen mutarit, quod non nunquam usu venit. Hoc enim situ Ptolemoeus RIGODVNVM, si pro RIBODVNUM a Sibbechester non oninino abludit." Camdcn lirit. (ed. 158C) p. 401. In edition 1C07 he continues, " et ad hanc a Mancunio dis- tantiam, videlicet xviii miliarium COCCIVM, quod et Goccium in nonnullis legitur exemplaribus, locat Antoninus."] 3 I give Mr. Whitaker ample credit for the diligence of his inquiries and the accuracy of his representations with respect to the existence of a Roman road from Mancunium to Blackrod, and of the remains of a Roman fortress at that place. In his conclusion, however, that this obscure place was the Coccium of Antonine, and the Kigodunum of Ptolemy, I am compelled to differ from him, for the following reasons : 1st. A continuation of the road from Black- rod, through the Filde, to Lancaster, and thence to BremetonacED, has, since Mr. W.'s inquiries, been distinctly traced. Now, had this been the 10th Iter of Antonine, an intermediate station, of the importance of Lancaster, could never have been unnoticed. In the next place, the discovery of a miliary stone near Ashton, inscribed with the name of the Emperor Philip, renders it highly probable that this was a diversion of the great North-Western Iter to the frontier of Caledonia, made at that time for the two-fold purpose of taking Lancaster in the way to Bremetonace, and of avoiding the rugged and difficult line from Ribchester over Longridge, through Bowland, and by Cross of Greet, to Bentham. Once more : the direct line pursued by the road from Mancunium through Ribchester to Bremetonacae, and the firm and durable manner in which it was constructed, prove it to have been one of the great and original works of the Upper Empire ; whereas the line which leads from Manchester to Lancaster has been ascertained to consist of small stones, like a modern turnpike-road, and to have been constructed in a more slight and perfunctory manner. Lastly, the indubitable remains of the Higher Empire at Ribchester, the coins of the first Caesars, the residence of the entire Twentieth Legion there, ascertained by an inscription which from internal evidence appears to be coeval with Yüklə 4,81 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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