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Welsh and English in Medieval Oswestry: The Evidence of Place-Names

Welsh and English in Medieval Oswestry: The Evidence of Place-Names

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Description

The region around Oswestry in north-west Shropshire is a remarkable corner of England in which, for much of the last thousand years, Welsh has been spoken at least as widely as English. This study offers a detailed analysis of some rich medieval sources which record the names of fields, farms and enclosures, hillocks, streams and copses in the local landscape. These, together with the names of the people who bought, sold and worked the land, offer an extraordinary insight into the linguistic communities of a bilingual area between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The surviving material is presented in full and constitutes a valuable ‘new’ source for both medieval Welsh and English languages. Discursive chapters consider what the evidence suggests about linguistic boundaries and identities at the time of the documents, and about how the later medieval situation may have developed in a borderland traversed by the great Anglo-Saxon earthworks of Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke.

Details

ISBN: 9781911640103 

Publication Date: 2023

Publisher: The English Place-Name Society

Author: David Parsons

Format: Hardback, 222 x 142 mm, 265 pages

Language: English

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    Reviews

    Customer Reviews

    Based on 1 review
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    P
    Pyers Symon
    An academic but fascinating read

    The influence of Wales upon Oswestry runs deep - it has, with justification, been called the "most Welsh town in England - and this book shows why. It looks at the historical records from the Medieval ages then the place names to identify what parts of the Oswestry Hundred was Welsh and which were English. A few "false friends" are identified - Selattyn is an English name that has been changed into a near Welsh one ( Prestatyn in N Wales, Sychtyn near Morda another). Maesbury, despite the appearance of being a Welsh-English hybrid, is purely English (Maes is from the OE for "marsh"). The real surprise is that the border between the Welsh speaking (and possibly legal) area and England is not Offa's Dyke which is decidedly in the Welsh area but the almost unheard of Wat's Dyke which runs through thenear centre of Oswestry ( you can see the line through the large housing estates just to the east of Salop Road). This is of historical importance since it possibly reflects a retreat of English influence and power from Offa's Dyke to the later Wats.

    It isn't an easy read being very academic but it is worth keeping on because the story it tells is fascinating.

    I will be buying the follow on volume, also by David Parsons, that describes the Oswestrian place names in detail

    Customer Reviews

    Based on 1 review
    100%
    (1)
    0%
    (0)
    0%
    (0)
    0%
    (0)
    0%
    (0)
    P
    Pyers Symon
    An academic but fascinating read

    The influence of Wales upon Oswestry runs deep - it has, with justification, been called the "most Welsh town in England - and this book shows why. It looks at the historical records from the Medieval ages then the place names to identify what parts of the Oswestry Hundred was Welsh and which were English. A few "false friends" are identified - Selattyn is an English name that has been changed into a near Welsh one ( Prestatyn in N Wales, Sychtyn near Morda another). Maesbury, despite the appearance of being a Welsh-English hybrid, is purely English (Maes is from the OE for "marsh"). The real surprise is that the border between the Welsh speaking (and possibly legal) area and England is not Offa's Dyke which is decidedly in the Welsh area but the almost unheard of Wat's Dyke which runs through thenear centre of Oswestry ( you can see the line through the large housing estates just to the east of Salop Road). This is of historical importance since it possibly reflects a retreat of English influence and power from Offa's Dyke to the later Wats.

    It isn't an easy read being very academic but it is worth keeping on because the story it tells is fascinating.

    I will be buying the follow on volume, also by David Parsons, that describes the Oswestrian place names in detail

    Customer Reviews

    Based on 1 review
    100%
    (1)
    0%
    (0)
    0%
    (0)
    0%
    (0)
    0%
    (0)
    P
    Pyers Symon
    An academic but fascinating read

    The influence of Wales upon Oswestry runs deep - it has, with justification, been called the "most Welsh town in England - and this book shows why. It looks at the historical records from the Medieval ages then the place names to identify what parts of the Oswestry Hundred was Welsh and which were English. A few "false friends" are identified - Selattyn is an English name that has been changed into a near Welsh one ( Prestatyn in N Wales, Sychtyn near Morda another). Maesbury, despite the appearance of being a Welsh-English hybrid, is purely English (Maes is from the OE for "marsh"). The real surprise is that the border between the Welsh speaking (and possibly legal) area and England is not Offa's Dyke which is decidedly in the Welsh area but the almost unheard of Wat's Dyke which runs through thenear centre of Oswestry ( you can see the line through the large housing estates just to the east of Salop Road). This is of historical importance since it possibly reflects a retreat of English influence and power from Offa's Dyke to the later Wats.

    It isn't an easy read being very academic but it is worth keeping on because the story it tells is fascinating.

    I will be buying the follow on volume, also by David Parsons, that describes the Oswestrian place names in detail