Place Names 1
In his study of English place-names (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (fourth edition, Oxford, 1960), Eilert Ekwall lists 60 towns or villages in England which have a saint’s name. This does not take into account suffixes used to identify a number of settlements with the same name. But of these 60, 43 are in Cornwall. Wales like Cornwall is part of the Celtic world and there the ‘llan’ place name, which means church of, is ubiquitous. In France, a look at a gazetteer will show how widespread is the practice of naming places after saints. Does this mean that the Anglo-Saxon and Danish parts of England were inherently less religious than their neighbours?
In his study of English place-names (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (fourth edition, Oxford, 1960), Eilert Ekwall lists 60 towns or villages in England which have a saint’s name. This does not take into account suffixes used to identify a number of settlements with the same name. But of these 60, 43 are in Cornwall. Wales like Cornwall is part of the Celtic world and there the ‘llan’ place name, which means church of, is ubiquitous. In France, a look at a gazetteer will show how widespread is the practice of naming places after saints. Does this mean that the Anglo-Saxon and Danish parts of England were inherently less religious than their neighbours?
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interesting!!
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