Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/399

 9* s. ii. NOV. 12,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

391

Theydon- Gernon and Stansted-Montfichet villages in Essex. An account of this family is given by the Duchess of Cleveland in he 4 Battle Abbey Koll ' (ii. 103, 266) ; and notice of Gernons in Essex of later date than her; appear in the ' Rotuli Hundredorum.' In thi instance, "al Gernon" was shortened into " Gernon " on French soil.

Four centuries elapsed from the date of the Conquest before the original sobriquet o: William de Percy, "as Gernons " or "al Ger- non" (become "Algernon"), was bestowec on the fifth Earl of Northumberland, Henry Algernon Percy, to be borne about 150 yean later by Algernon Sidney. F. ADAMS.

106A, Albany Road, Camberwell.

HEXHAM PRIORY AND THE AUGUSTALES (9 th S. ii. 241). If MR. ADDY will turn to Prof. Kluge's German 'Etymological Dictionary,' s.v. 'Hagestolz,' he will see that the Germanic word represented by the Old English hagu- steald stands in no need of a derivation from the Latin. It is there derived from Germanic hagu (related to our haw, O.E. haga), and staldan, "to possess" (Gothic staldan)* Bor- rowing from the able article of Moritz Heyne in Grimm's ' Worterbuch,' Klugo tells us that the original meaning was that of younger son, who merely possessed a "haw, whilst the elder son, according to Germanic law, inherited the chief house, the "hof." This explanation accounts for the diverse Latin words by which hagusteald and its conti- nental forms are glossed, such as tirojuvenis, ccelebs, famulus, agricola, mercenarius. It will be seen from these glosses that the word does not necessarily connote a bachelor, but that it has developed that meaning in much the same way as bachelor itself has obtained its present signification, as has been pointed out by Kluge. Thus, on the ground of mean- ing alone, we must reject MR. ADDY'S deri- vation from the Latin augustalis, with the assumed meaning of " monk " or " celibate." Historically we must also reject it, for it so happens that the Germanic word is recorded in two Norse runic inscriptions of so early a date that they absolutely put out of court any suggestion of its being a loan-word from the Latin. One of these is the inscription at Strand and the other at Valsf jord, both in Norway. The form is HagustaldaR, which corresponds to an Icelandic *Ho'gstaldr. These inscriptions, which historically are older than the Gothic forms, are usually dated somewhere between the years 500 and 700 ;

us in the Lomhardic gastaldo.
 * The latter part of the compound is familiar to

but whatever their real date may be, it is certain that they are many centuries older than any state of Scandinavian society in which the Norsemen could have been fami- liarized with augustalis in the sense of "monk," if there ever was a time when they could have learnt the word with that meaning. Prof. Bugge, in Paul, Braune, and Sievers's 'Beitrage,' xxii. 131, quotes the modern Norwegian dialectal forms hogstall, /taugstall, which mean "widower." In the two inscriptions here cited HagustaldaR is a man's name. This is not one of the Germanic names belonging to the Aryan name system, but belongs to a class well represented in Old Norse, that is, it is a nickname or an epithet used as an ordinary personal name. Its nearest parallel is the name of Sweinn, and it may be compared with names like Karl (Old English Ceorl) in other branches of the Germanic name system, or with O.E. JSsne, which means " servant." Hence it is obvious that it may have been a personal name in Old English, where it occurs in a forged charter of 682 as Hcegstaldescumb ('Cartularium Saxoni- cum,' i. 97), and in the name of Hexham (Hagu- staldensis ecclesia in Bede).* It is, of course, not altogether impossible that Bede's Hagustald may have been etymologized by the first English settlers from an earlier Celtic or Latin name ; but it is not possible on philo- logical grounds that this can have been the Latin augustalis. To fit MR. ADDY'S theories we should have to assume so early a sorrowing of this word into English that we should expect the Latin au to be represented
 * >y English ea that is, it would have shared


 * ffagustafdccs-a' in Eddi, ' Vita Wilfridi ' (seventh
 * entury) ; Hayustaldes-ham or ea in the ' Chronicle ';

Hehstealdes-iy, &c., in Simeon of Durham. The gen. es is a strong presumption in favour of the lerivation from a masc. personal name. The old Northumbrian Hagiwtald produced by regular sound changes the later (tenth-century) hehstald cf. late West Saxon hcngsteald). This is the Hextold, tfextild, or Hestild of the later mediaeval forms of the name of Hexham (Hextildetiham, Hestildesham, &c.), ivhich present no difficulties as to sound develop- ment. From the compound has been disengaged the imaginary ?) brook name Htxtold or Hextild, now he Cockshaw Burn, to the west of the town. This hould clearly be added to the long list of bogus iver names evolved from local names. The sur- mme Hextall may, from its form, represent the lersqnal name Hagustald, &c. ; for scores of Old English personal names still exist as surnames. It a strange that MR. ADDY could doubt that the German Hagustalt, &c., in Forstemann's 'Namen- mch' was a man's name. Some of the examples re from lists of obits (necrologies). There can be .ttle doubt that the continental local names cited rom Forstemann are derived from this personal ame.