d'ar gêr ! ***** à la maison ! ***** back home !

England

Bro Saoz

East-Bridgford

contenant de site de 

Castel-Hill

Margidunum

Nottinghamshire

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* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

Extrait de la carte Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain.

Cet établissement se trouve sur la Fosse Way, première route stratégique romaine de G. Bretagne, reliant Lindum / Lincoln au nord-ouest à Isca Dumnoniorum / Exeter au sud-ouest. Il s'agit donc probablement d'une situation romaine de la première génération.

* Rivet & Smith, p 413-414 : 

SOURCE

- AI 477₆ (Iter VI ) : MARGIDUNO, var. MARGEDUNO 

- AI 479₁ (Iter VIII) : MARGIDUNO

DERIVATION. 

Holder II, 424 lists *marga 'marl', early borrowed into Latin from Gaulish as marga, from which derive Spanish and Italian marga, etc. For -dunum, see BRANODUNUM. The sense thus seems to be 'marly fort', i.e. with an earthwork of marly soil, as is accepted by Jackson in Britannia, I (1970), 77. However, R. Coates in a paper in the press (of which we have kindly been given notice) challenges this on the grounds that Margidunum with composition-vowel -i-cannot have as its first element * marga 'marl', since Celtic -a stems form compounds in either -a- (Bannaventa) or -o- (Samara—Samarobrivae). Hence Coates looks for a first element with -i stem (cf. *mori- in Moridunum). His view is that this element is *mrogi 'boundary', preserved in Old Irish mruig 'boundary'; so the meaning is 'border fort', the border in question being not that of the Coritani, in whose lands this fort is central, but that of the 'Foss Way on which Margidunum stood [as] a temporary limes in the Claudian invasion'. In support, Coates cites a Markedunum > Marquain (Hainault, Belgium ; first recorded m A.D. 902) and another place of the same name > Marquion (Pas-de-Calais, France; first recorded in the tenth century), which he thinks of like origin, and both of which he is able to justify as 'border forts'. There are no obviously analogous names in Holder, but there was a Margus river in Moesia (now the Morava) with Margum on its bank (AI i324, TP, etc.), now Orasje near Dubravitza (Yugoslavia). These may suggest that there was another Celtic element, neither * marga nor *mrogi, used in toponymy. It should be noted that Coates's argument about the possible 'boundary' at Margidunum is unsound, for the early boundary lay not on the Foss Way itself but on the Trent,1 1/2 miles away; moreover, it is doubtful whether this boundary was conceived as anything sufficiently permanent to warrant a name being based on it, and we know that in practice it represented merely one stage in an advance. It is also possible that AI's composition-vowels is not to be trusted absolutely; the name may well have been *Margadunum or *Margodunum, with uncertainty over unstressed vowel".

IDENTIFICATION

The Roman town (succeeding a presumed fort) at Castle Hill, East Bridgford, Nottinghamshire (SK 7041).

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Renvoi JCE : anglais marl = marne terre marneuse. 

Il serait indispensable de connaître la géologie du site, particulièrement près de la source, avant d'écarter tout référence à un endroit marneux, sachant toutefois que ce type de sol n'est pas a priori propice à la construction d'un camp, à moins que ce camp, bâti hors de la zone marneuse, ait pu être entouré d'un talus fait avec cette terre marneuse ! ? Question en suspend.

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Castle Hill : la colline du château. Bridgford :  * E. Ekwall : "Brugeford, Domesday Book; Est-brigeford, 1201 Tax" : gué près d'un pont. * A.D Mills : ""Brugeford 1086 DB : Old English brycg + ford". (pont + gué)

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- Eilert Ekwall : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Places Names. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1936-1980.

- Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain.

- ALF Rivet & Colin Smith : The Place-Names of Roman Britain. Batsford Ltd. London. 1979.

- A.D Mills : Oxford dictionary of British Place Names.Oxford University Press. 1991-2003

Autres liens traitant de Castle Hill, en East Bridgeford / Margidunum : 

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

hast buan, ma mignonig  vas vite, mon petit ami

go fast, my little friend