Delphi collected works o.., p.847
Delphi Collected Works of Grant Allen, page 847
However this may be — and I confess I have been a little puritanically minute upon the subject — the English settlers learned to use the word from the first moment they landed in Britain. In its earliest English dress it appears as Ceaster, pronounced like Keaster, for the soft sound of the initial in modern English is due to later Norman influences. The new comers — Anglo-Saxons, if you choose to call them so — applied the word to every Roman town or ruin they found in Britain. Indeed, all the Latin words of the first crop in English — those used during the heathen age, before Augustine and his monks introduced the Roman civilisation — belong to such material relics of the older provincial culture as the Sleswick pirates had never before known: way from via, wall from vallum, street from strata, and port from portus. In this first crop of foreign words Ceaster also must be reckoned, and it was originally employed in English as a common rather than as a proper name. Thus we read in the brief Chronicle of the West Saxon kings, under the year 577, ‘Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Welsh, and offslew three kings, Conmail and Condidan and Farinmail, and took three ceasters, Gleawan ceaster and Ciren ceaster and Bathan ceaster.’ We might modernise a little, so as to show the real sense, by saying ‘Glevum city and Corinium city and Bath city.’ Here it is noticeable that in two of the cases — Gloucester and Cirencester — the descriptive termination has become at last part of the name; but in the third case — that of Bath — it has never succeeded in doing so. Ages after, in the reign of King Alfred, we still find the word used as a common noun; for the Chronicle mentions that a body of Danish freebooters ‘fared to a waste ceaster in Wirral; it is hight Lega ceaster;’ that is to say, Legionis castra, now Chester. The grand old English epic of Beowulf, which is perhaps older than the colonisation of Britain, speaks of townsfolk as ‘the dwellers in ceasters.’
As a rule, each particular Roman town retained its full name, in a more or less clipped form, for official uses; but in the ordinary colloquial language of the neighbourhood they all seem to have been described as ‘the Ceaster’ simply, just as we ourselves habitually speak of ‘town,’ meaning the particular town near which we live, or, in a more general sense, London. Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the Roman capital of the province; as when the Chronicle tells us that ‘John succeeded to the bishopric of Ceaster’; that ‘Wilfrith was hallowed as bishop at Ceaster’; or that ‘Æthelberht the archbishop died at Ceaster.’ In the south it is employed to mean Winchester, the capital of the West Saxon kings and overlords of all Britain; as when the Chronicle says that ‘King Edgar drove out the priests at Ceaster from the Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them with monks.’ So, as late as the days of Charles II., ‘to go to town’ meant in Shropshire to go to Shrewsbury, and in Norfolk to go to Norwich. In only one instance has this colloquial usage survived down to our own days in a large town, and that is at Chester, where the short form has quite ousted the full name of Lega ceaster. But in the case of small towns or unimportant Roman stations, which would seldom need to be mentioned outside their own immediate neighbourhood, the simple form is quite common, as at Caistor in Norfolk, Castor in Hunts, and elsewhere. At times, too, we get an added English termination, as at Casterton, Chesterton, and Chesterholme; or a slight distinguishing mark, as at Great Chesters, Little Chester, Bridge Casterton, and Chester-le-Street. All these have now quite lost their old distinctive names, though they have acquired new ones to distinguish them from the Chester, or from one another. For example, Chester-le-Street was Conderco in Roman times, and Cunega ceaster in the early English period. Both names are derived from the little river Cone, which flows through the village.
Before we pass on to the consideration of those castra which, like Manchester and Lancaster, have preserved to the present day their original Roman or Celtic prefixes in more or less altered shapes, we must glance briefly at a general principle running through the modernised forms now in use. The reader, with his usual acuteness, will have noticed that the word Ceaster reappears under many separate disguises in the names of different modern towns. Sometimes it is caster, sometimes chester, sometimes cester, and sometimes even it gets worn down to a mere fugitive relic, as ceter or eter. But these different corruptions do not occur irregularly up and down the country, one here and one there; they follow a distinct law and are due to certain definite underlying facts of race or language. Each set of names lies in a regular stratum; and the different strata succeed one another like waves over the face of England, from north-east to south-westward. In the extreme north and east, where the English or Anglian blood is purest, or is mixed only with Danes and Northmen to any large extent, such forms as Lancaster, Doncaster, Caistor, and Casterton abound. In the mixed midlands and the Saxon south, the sound softens into Chesterfield, Chester, Winchester, and Dorchester. In the inner midlands and the Severn vale, where the proportion of Celtic blood becomes much stronger, the termination grows still softer in Leicester, Bicester, Cirencester, Gloucester, and Worcester, while at the same time a marked tendency towards elision occurs; for these words are really pronounced as if written Lester, Bister, Cisseter, Gloster, and Wooster. Finally, on the very borders of Wales, and of that Damnonian country which was once known to our fathers as West Wales, we get the very abbreviated forms Wroxeter, Uttoxeter, and Exeter, of which the second is colloquially still further shortened into Uxeter. Sometimes these tracts approach very closely to one another, as on the banks of the Nene, where the two halves of the Roman Durobrivæ have become castor on one side of the river, and Chesterton on the other; but the line can be marked distinctly on the map, with a slight outward bulge, with as great regularity as the geological strata. It will be most convenient here, therefore, to begin with the casters, which have undergone the least amount of rubbing down, and from them to pass on regularly to the successively weaker forms in chester, cester, ceter, and eter.
Nothing, indeed, can be more deceptive than the common fashion, of quoting a Roman name from the often blundering lists of the Itineraries, and then passing on at once to the modern English form, without any hint of the intermediate stages. To say that Glevum is now Gloucester is to tell only half the truth; until we know that the two were linked together by the gradual steps of Glevum castrum, Gleawan ceaster, Gleawe cester, Gloucester, and Gloster, we have not really explained the words at all. By beginning with the least corrupt forms we shall best be able to see the slow nature of the change, and we shall also find at the same time that a good deal of incidental light is shed upon the importance and extent of the English settlement.
Doncaster is an excellent example of the simplest form of modernisation. It appears in the Antonine Itinerary and in the Notitia Imperii as Danum. This, with the ordinary termination affixed, becomes at once Dona ceaster or Doncaster. The name is of course originally derived in either form from the river Don, which flows beside it; and the Northumbrian invaders must have learnt the names of both river and station from their Brigantian British serfs. It shows the fluctuating nature of the early local nomenclature, however, when we find that Bæda (‘the Venerable Bede’) describes the place in his Latinised vocabulary as Campodonum — that is to say, the Field of Don, or, more idiomatically, Donfield, a name exactly analogous to those of Chesterfield Macclesfield, Mansfield, Sheffield, and Huddersfield in the neighbouring region. The comparison of Doncaster and Chesterfield is thus most interesting: for here we have two Roman Stations, each of which must once have had two alternative names; but in the one case the old Roman name has ultimately prevailed, and in the other case the modern English one.
The second best example of a Caster, perhaps, is Lancaster. In all probability this is the station which appears in the Notitia Imperii as Longovico, an oblique case which it might be hazardous to put in the nominative, seeing that it seems rather to mean the town on the Lune or Loan than the Long Village. Here, as in many other cases, the formative element, vicus, is exchanged for Ceaster, and we get something like Lon-ceaster or finally Lancaster. Other remarkable Casters are Brancaster in Norfolk, once Branadunum (where the British termination dun has been similarly dropped); Ancaster in Lincolnshire, whose Roman name is not certainly known; and Caistor, near Norwich, once Venta Icenorum, a case which may best be considered under the head of Winchester. On the other hand, Tadcaster gives us an instance where the Roman prefix has apparently been entirely altered, for it appears in the Antonine Itinerary (according to the best identification) as Calcaria, so that we might reasonably expect it to be modernised as Calcaster. Even here, however, we might well suspect an earlier alternative title, of which we shall get plenty when we come to examine the Chesters; and in fact, in Bæda, it still bears its old name in a slightly disguised form as Kaelca ceaster.
First among the softer forms, let us examine the interesting group to which Chester itself belongs. Its Roman name was, beyond doubt, Diva, the station on the Dee — as Doncaster is the station on the Don, and Lancaster the station on the Lune. Its proper modern form ought, therefore, to be Deechester. But it would seem that in certain places the neighbouring rustics knew the great Roman town of their district, not by its official title, but as the legion’s Camp — Castra Legionis. At least three such cases undoubtedly occur — one at Deva or Chester; one at Ratæ or Leicester; and one at Isca Silurum or Caerleon-upon-Usk. In each case the modernisation has taken a very different form. Diva was captured by the heathen English king, Æthelfrith of Northumbria, in a battle rendered famous by Bæda, who calls the place ‘The City of Legions.’ The Latin compilation by some Welsh writer, ascribed to Nennius, calls it Cair Legion, which is also its name in the Irish annals. In the English Chronicle it appears as Lege ceaster, Læge ceaster, and Leg ceaster; but after the Norman Conquest it becomes Ceaster alone. On midland lips the sound soon grew into the familiar Chester. About the second case, that of Leicester, there is a slight difficulty, for it assumes in the Chronicle the form of Lægra ceaster, with an apparently intrusive letter; and the later Welsh writers seized upon the form to fit in with their own ancient legend of King Lear. Nennius calls it Cair Lerion; and that unblushing romancer, Geoffrey of Monmouth, makes it at once into Cair Leir, the city of Leir. More probably the name is a mixture of Legionis and Ratæ, Leg-rat ceaster, the camp of the Legion at Ratæ. This, again, grew into Legra ceaster, Leg ceaster, and Lei ceaster, while the word, though written Leicester, is now shortened by south midland voices to Lester. The third Legionis Castra remained always Welsh, and so hardened on Cymric lips into Kair Leon or Caerleon. Nennius applies the very similar name of Cair Legeion to Exeter, still in his time a Damnonian or West Welsh fortress.
Equally interesting have been the fortunes of the three towns of which Winchester is the type. In the old Welsh tongue, Gwent means a champaign country, or level alluvial plain. The Romans borrowed the word as Venta, and applied it to the three local centres of Venta Icenorum in Norfolk, Venta Belgarum in Hampshire, and Venta Silurum in Monmouth. When the first West Saxon pirates, under their real or mythical leader, Cerdic, swarmed up Southampton Water and occupied the Gwent of the Belgæ, they called their new conquest Wintan ceaster, though the still closer form Wæntan once occurs. Thence to Winte ceaster and Winchester is no far cry. Gwent of the Iceni had a different history. No doubt it also was known at first as Wintan ceaster; but, as at Winchester, the shorter form Ceaster would naturally be employed in local colloquial usage; and when the chief centre of East Anglian population was removed a few miles north to Norwich, the north wick — then a port on the navigable estuary of the Yare — the older station sank into insignificance, and was only locally remembered as Caistor. Lastly, Gwent of the Silurians has left its name alone to Caer-Went in Monmouthshire, where hardly any relics now remain of the Roman occupation.
Manchester belongs to exactly the same class as Winchester. Its Roman name was Mancunium, which would easily glide into Mancunceaster. In the English Chronicle it is only once mentioned, and then as Mameceaster — a form explained by the alternative Mamucium in the Itinerary, which would naturally become Mamue ceaster. Colchester of course represents Colonia, corrupted first into Coln ceaster, and so through Col ceaster into its present form. Porchester in Hants is Portus Magnus; Dorchester is Durnovaria, and then Dorn ceaster. Grantchester, Godmanchester, Chesterfield, Woodchester, and many others help us to trace the line across the map of England, to the most western limit of all at Ilchester, anciently Ischalis, though the intermediate form of Givel ceaster is certainly an odd one.
Besides these Chesters of the regular order, there are several curious outlying instances in Durham and Northumberland, and along the Roman Wall, islanded, as it were, beyond the intermediate belt of Casters. Such are Lanchester in Durham, which maybe compared with the more familiar Lancaster; Great Chesters in Northumberland, Ebchester on the northern Watling Street, and a dozen more. How to account for these is rather a puzzle. Perhaps the Casters may be mainly due to Danish influence (which is the common explanation), and it is known that the Danes spread but sparingly to the north of the Tees. However, this rough solution of the problem proves too much: for how then can we have a still softer form in Danish Leicester itself? Probably we shall be nearer the truth if we say that these are late names; for Northumberland was a desert long after the great harrying by William the Conqueror; and by the time it was repeopled, Chester had become the recognised English form, so that it would naturally be employed by the new occupants of the districts about the Wall.
No name in Britain, however, is more interesting than that of Rochester, which admirably shows us how so many other Roman names have acquired a delusively English form, or have been mistaken for memorials of the English conquest. The Roman town was known as Durobrivæ, which does not in the least resemble Rochester; and what is more, Bæda distinctly tells us that Justus, the first bishop of the West Kentish see, was consecrated ‘in the city of Dorubrevi, which the English call Hrofæs ceaster, from one of its former masters, by name Hrof.’ If this were all we knew about it, we should be told that Bæda clearly described the town as being called Hrof’s Chester, from an English conqueror Hrof, and that to contradict this clear statement of an early writer was presumptuous or absurd. Fortunately, however, we have the clearest possible proof that Hrof never existed, and that he was a pure creation of Bæda’s own simple etymological guesswork. King Alfred clearly knew better, for he omitted this wild derivation from his English translation. The valuable fragment of a map of Roman Britain preserved for us in the mediæval transcript known as the Peutinger Tables, sets down Rochester as Rotibis. Hence it is pretty certain that it must have had two alternative names, of which the other was Durobrivæ. Rotibis would easily pass (on the regular analogies) into Rotifi ceaster, and that again into Hrofi ceaster and Rochester; just as Rhutupiæ or Ritupæ passed into Rituf burh, and so finally into Richborough. Moreover, in a charter of King Ethelberht of Kent, older a good deal than Bæda’s time, we find the town described under the mixed form of Hrofi-brevi. After such a certain instance of philological blundering as this, I for one am not inclined to place great faith in such statements as that made by the English Chronicle about Chichester, which it attributes to the mythical South Saxon king Cissa. Whatever Cissanceaster may mean, it seems to me much more likely that it represents another case of double naming; for though the Roman town was commonly known as Regnum, that is clearly a mere administrative form, derived from the tribal name of the Regni. Considering that the same veracious Chronicle derives Portsmouth, the Roman Portus, from an imaginary Teutonic invader, Port, and commits itself to other wild statements of the same sort, I don’t think we need greatly hesitate about rejecting its authority in these earlier and conjectural portions.
Silchester is another much disputed name. As a rule, the site has been identified with that of Calleva Atrebatum; but the proofs are scanty, and the identification must be regarded as a doubtful one. I have already ventured to suggest that the word may contain the root Silva, as the town is situated close upon the ancient borders of Pamber Forest. The absence of early forms, however, makes this somewhat of a random shot. Indeed, it is difficult to arrive at any definite conclusions in these cases, except by patiently following up the name from first to last, through all its variations, corruptions, and mis-spellings.
