The English Language Before England: An Epigraphic Account

276 Pages·2022·11.953 MB·

by  Bernard Mees

The English Language Before
England
This pioneering work explores epigraphic evidence for the development
of English before the Anglo-Saxon period, bringing together linguistic,
historical and archaeological perspectives on early inscriptions, making
them more accessible to a wider audience.
The volume offers a new account of the Germanic development of
Anglo-Saxon England, beginning with an examination of the e arliest
inscriptions from northern Europe and the oldest inscriptions preserving
Germanic names, many of which have only been discovered since the
1980s. The book charts the origins of key terms such as Angle, Saxon and
Jute and early writing systems used by Germanic peoples. Drawing on
epigraphic evidence from northwestern Germany through to southwestern
Denmark and sub-Roman Britain, Mees situates the a nalysis within
historical and linguistic frameworks but also provides archaeological
contextualisations, assessed chronologically, for the inscriptions. Taken
together, the work re-examines existing models of the early development
of English through the lens of contemporary approaches, opening paths
for new directions in research on historical dialectology.
This book is key reading for students and scholars interested in the
history of English and historical linguistics.
Bernard Mees taught history, linguistics and business at the University
of Melbourne, RMIT University and the University of Tasmania. He
received his PhD from the University of Melbourne and his previous
publications include The Science of the Swastika (2008), Celtic Curses
(2009) and The Rise of Business Ethics (2020).
Routledge Studies in Historical Linguistics
Edited by Claire Bowern,
Yale University, USA.
The Diachrony of Verb Meaning
Aspect and Argument Structure
Elly van Gelderen
Advances in Proto-Basque Reconstruction with Evidence for the
Proto-Indo-European-Euskarian Hypothesis
Juliette Blevins
Historical Linguistics and Endangered Languages
Exploring Diversity in Language Change
Patience Epps, Danny Law and Na’ama Pat-El
The English Language Before England
An Epigraphic Account
Bernard Mees
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Studies-in-Historical-Linguistics/book-series/RSHL
The English Language
Before England
An Epigraphic Account
Bernard Mees
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 Bernard Mees
The right of Bernard Mees to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-21417-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-21418-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-26832-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003268321
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of figures vi
List of tables vii
Epigraphic conventions viii
Preface ix
1 Introduction 1
2 The entry of the Germani 17
3 Runic and Roman 42
4 Northern bogs 72
5 Roman Britain 109
6 Saxons and Frisians 141
7 Angles and Jutes 177
8 Conclusion 212
Bibliography 216
Word Index 248
Subject Index 251
Figures
1.1 Excerpt from a medieval edition of Ptolemy’s Geography
showing the location of the Saxons in Greater Germany 8
2.1 The Pansdorf inscription 23
2.2 The Negau B inscription 28
2.3 The Würmlach inscription 31
3.1 The inscription on the Meldorf fibula 46
3.2 Early Tungrian coins 49
3.3 The dedication to Mars Halamarđus 51
3.4 The funerary memorial of Leubius son of Claupus 52
3.5 Early inscriptions – northwestern Europe 61
3.6 The Osterrönfeld sherd 65
4.1 The inscription on the Thorsberg shield boss 79
4.2 The inscriptions on the Thorsberg scabbard chape 82
4.3 The Vimose buckle 88
4.4 The Vimose plane 94
5.1 Letter of Chrauttius to Veldedeius 117
5.2 Dedications from Roman Britain – Hadrian’s Wall 123
5.3 The dedication to Mars Thincsus 129
6.1 The Skonager bracteate 147
6.2 The Sandstedt inscription 154
6.3 The Fallward footstool 160
6.4 The Schweindorf coin 167
7.1 Migration period finds – northwestern Europe 178
7.2 The Caistor St Edmund astragalus 182
7.3 The runic stamp on the Spong Hill urns 186
7.4 The Undley bracteate 189
7.5 The Chessell Down scabbard mouth 194
7.6 The Loveden Hill urn 195
7.7 The Guilton pommel 198
7.8 The West Heslerton brooch 200
7.9 The inscription on the Watchfield purse mount 202
Tables
1.1 The early Germanic dialects 5
2.1 Grimm’s law 18
2.2 The main North Etruscan alphabetic traditions 22
4.1 The Germanic letter-names 74
4.2 Evidence for West Germanic developments in the earliest
bog depositions 100
5.1 The Roman and West Germanic days of the week 134
Epigraphic conventions
abc transliteration of text
ạ unclear letterform
a͡ b ligature (‘bind-rune’)
× irregular letterform
[.] damaged/unreadable letterform
[---] lacuna in text
· single-dot interpunct
: double-dot interpunct
⁝ triple-dot interpunct
⁞ quadruple-dot interpunct
| end of line
|| text continues on another part of the object
abc normalisation of text
(n) implied spelling
[a] restoration of a damaged/unreadable letterform
[[a]] letterform erased in antiquity
{a} redundant letterform
a correction of a spelling error
‹a› restoration of an omitted letterform
⌜. .⌝ . interpretatively unclear section
Preface
Somewhere in the United Kingdom, a collector has the medal and clasps
presented in 1886 to Lance Sergeant Joseph F. Mees of 31 Company,
Plymouth Division. The medal was awarded to my great-grandfather for
his service in Egypt and the Sudan during the attempt to relieve Gen-
eral Gordon during the Siege of Khartoum. I don’t know how the medal
passed out of my family, but as my father told me shortly before he died,
‘the old man thought he was a hero’. We grew up with stories of his feats,
of how he saved Lord Kitchener’s life, carrying him on his shoulder – and
a copy of an account of the ‘Dash for Khartoum’ used to sit on the book-
case in a room at the back of my grandparents’ house in Melbourne. But
that is the only way that we knew of him. Joseph Mees died at the family
home in East London the year my father was born.
I sometimes wonder how much of Joseph Mees’s life is known to the
collector who has his medal. Confronted with the inscription ‘J. Mees
Pte R.M. H.M.S. “Seagull” ’ on its rim, the collector could compare the
medal with others issued at the time. The medal is of the type that has
‘Victoria Regina et Imperatrix’ and ‘Egypt 1882’ struck on it, the clasps
attached to its ribbon reading ‘The Nile 1884–85’ and ‘Abu Klea’. Joseph
Mees’s ‘Camel Corps’ unit fought in one of the most celebrated battles
of the Victorian era, and it does not take much effort to imagine what
life was like in the British Marines at the time, as plenty of books, paint-
ings and movies have been produced that tell the story of the campaigns
against the forces of the Mahdi. I suppose that the collector could have
looked up my great-grandfather’s service record, the history of his regi-
ment and even his commander’s diaries. But there is a limit to how much
inscriptions can tell you. The collector could never be expected to find
out much more about Joseph Mees’s life, how he moved to London when
he retired, and how his two sons followed him into the navy. One of the
few things I’ve inherited from my grandfather, apart from an allegiance
to his old football club Arsenal, is a nineteenth-century edition of Hume’s
History of England. But your ancestors only get mentioned in works like
that if they were very famous. Saving Kitchener’s life doesn’t count.