Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/449

 ii s. in. JUNE 10, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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fought in 1548, they brought to their aid " four thousand. Irish archers," who were the first " that ran away " (see Patten's ' Expedition into Scotland ' in ' Tudor Tracts,' Constable & Cc., London, 1903, p. 113). It was here, says Mr. A. F. Pollard in his introduction to the volume, p. xix, that " the Protector [Somerset] inflicted on the Scots one of the most crushing defeats in the whole of their history." It is there- fore manifest that neither Scots nor Irish could overcome our English bowmen. Could the French ? Textor does not dare to say so, but he quotes an Italian's words for the purpose, as Ascham thinks, of decrying the skill of his own nation in the use of the weapon. That seems to be the reason of his furious outburst against the Gaul, who purposely avoids any mention of our bow- men's exploits in his own country. One of them is thus related in our old writer's book with a little pardonable exaggeration :

" Kynge Henrie the fifte a* prince pereles and moste vyctoriouse conqueroure of all that euer dyed yet in this part of the world, at the battel of Agin court with VII. thousand fyghtynge men, and yet many of them sycke, beynge suche Archers as the Cronycle sayeth that mooste parte of them drewe a yarde, slewe all the Cheualrie of Fraunce to the nomber of XL. thousand, and rnoc, and lost not paste XXVI. Englysshe men." ' Toxophilus,' p. 87.

Roger Ascham is one of the most English of all our English writers.

JOHN T. CUBBY.

B AND G CONFUSED IN DOMESDAY AND FEUDAL AIDS.

THOSE who have devoted much time and attention to the study of the Domesday Survey of Cornwall have hitherto regarded Gluston of the Exchequer copy and Glustona of the Exeter version as identifiable with the manor of Blisland in the Hundred of Trigg. Bliston (Bluston in the ' Testa de Nevill ') is undoubtedly that manor now known as Blisland, a change which is paralleled in the present-day name of Climesland for the old manor-name of Climston. The exact cause of this confusion of terminal ton and land is not quite clear. It apparently is not due to aural confusion, such as we get in the case of Marazion with its seventy variant spellings. It is, perhaps, the submerging of the actual name of the town by a similar name for the district or township immediately surrounding the original steading.

This, however, is not the chief point of interest in connexion with this identification

of a Domesday manor-name. The interesting feature is not in the terminal, but in the initial part of the name.

Why, if this identification be correct, should there be G in place of B as the initial letter ?

B is not a consonant that easily evolve* from g. The labial and the throat letters are in their production as widely separated as any two sets of consonants can be.

It apparently is not a case of organic evolution such as one gets when t becomes d, or either dental becomes s (a peculiar feature in Cornish place - names), or when; p becomes / (ph), or when di becomes j.

It is not a case, I am disposed to think, of aural confusion, where one scribe, writing from dictation, mishears Bl, and puts down 01.

It looks as if it is a matter of palaeography, and as if the scribe, when he made from a roughly written draft the fair copies which are now at Exeter and in the British Museum, misread Gl for Bl.

A careful examination with a lens of the facsimile copy (would that the Record Office facsimiled the Exeter version !) furnishes, however, no support to this theory. The G's and the B's are easily distinguishable. This is certainly the case in the script of the Exchequer copyist, who, nevertheless, may not have drawn up the original rough drafts. Every capital G is distinctly a G, and uniform with the others, except, per- haps, the second g in Gargalle (col. 9 in the facsimile of Cornwall).

That some confusion between G and B forms existed is inferable from a consideration, of the Feudal Aid of 1306 (for Cornwall),, wherein Gloyou occurs for Bloyou, God- rugan for Bodrugan, Godbran for Bodbran, Gotriaus for Botriaus, Gere for Bere, and Gruere for Bruere. In only one of these is the combination with I met with, namely, Bloyou.

That the original name for Bliston was a trisyllabic word beginning with G, and having an, at present unknown, vowel (representable by an asterisk) immediately succeeding it and preceding the 6, as G*bliston, is a theory that might be put forward ; but its claims to consideration are weakened by the examples of G and B con- fusion met with in the Feudal Aids.

One way out of this difficulty, but a way which lands one in further and more serious difficulties, is to identify Gluston with Glaz- don in St. Germans, Clusion in Lansallos, or Gluvias(ton) in Gluvias. Sir John Mac- lean, however, advances facts which strongly