Etymology, Names and the Search for Origins: Deriving the Past in Early Modern England

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Etym ology Nam es and the Search for Origins:

Deriving the Past in Early M odern England

In the

Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem.

his

ars

historic first

published in 1566, the French jurist Jean Bodin argues that the key to

unearthing historical origins, perhaps even the key to all historical inquiry,

lies in language. Musing on various possible ways of discovering origins,

Bodin concludes that it is linguistic traces, in which the proof of origins

chiefly Ues . To demonstrate this he refers to the Celts, tracing the extent of

their colonisation of Europe by listing the various subject peoples , from the

Celto-Scythians in the East to the Celtiberians in the West, whose names

derive from them. He describes these names as clearly marked footprints for

the everlasting record of posterity .^ They are, he suggests, records which are

not subject to the ravages of time, proofs of descent or derivation which all

future generations will be able to trace. They are vestigia permanently

marked on the land. In effect, therefore, Bodin lays out a method which will

enable his readers to gloss the geography of the world, to read the past

through unpicking place names or peoples names. More specifically, he lays

out an etymological method for history. Predicated on the

belief

common at

the time, that origins are perpetually present in linguistic traces, his method

places etymology at the heart of historical inquiry.^ By tracing the origins of

names, the linguistically adept and historically curious would also be tracing

the origins of peoples or the foundations of places. Whilst Bodin recognises

other means of establishing origins, such as sources or writers whose relia-

bility is pro ved , and the situation and character of the region where a

particular people are found, none are as verifiable as linguistic traces. These

alone continuously transm it origins to the present, and therefore these alone

continuously communicate between the past and the present.

Bodin s

M ethodus

was amongst the most popular of all rtes historic e in



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translation of its fourth chapter appeared, the first time any part of it had

been translated, as the preface to his translation of Sallust's Jugurtha and

Catiline.^

The chapter instructs readers of history in how to make a prope

critical appraisal of historians. Its relevance as the introduction to the works

of a Roman historian is clear. Degory Wheare, the first holder of the Cam-

den chair in history at the University of Oxford, made extensive use of the

Methodus

in his guide to history,

De

ratione

et methodo

legendi historias

di

sertatio

(1623). Other English writers to cite or refer to Bodin include Sir

Philip Sidney, Gabriel Harvey, William Harrison and Edmund Bolton.

This article is concerned with the reception of just one aspect of the

Methodus its ideas about etymology. Although the interest in etymology as a

proof of origins was widespread in the early modern period , few works offer

a more eloquent articulation of its importance for the establishment of his-

torical origins than Bodin's treatise.^ As this article shows, its influence on

early modern English historiography was profound. Discussing works

including William Camden's Britannia Michael Drayton's

Poly Olbion

an

Edmund Spenser's

View of the Present S tate of Ireland.

as well as consi

ering the papers delivered to the Society of Antiquaries, it demonstrates the

centrality of etymology to historical inquiry in early modern England. It

shows how writers in a variety of genres, but particularly those with anti-

quarian interests, turned to linguistic traces, in exactly the same way as Bodin

suggested, to access the past and to reveal historical origins. Etymology, a

linguistic strategy seemingly more associated with poetry than with history,

became integral to the latter, explaining the origins of peoples and revealing

the histories of places. Names became a rich source of knowledge about the

past; linguistic derivation became identified with historical narrative. The

etymological method brought the study of language to the centre of history,

blurring the conventional distinction between poetry and history in a way

that was increasingly characteristic of the early modern period.' In parallel,

though, to this etymological turn, the article also reveals an opposite strand

of thought, which denied any straightforward correspondence between

words or names and their origins or meanings, a strand which would appear

to undermine the certainty of etymologicaily derived history. If etymology

was central to historical inquiry, it was also contentious and uncertain. Thus

the last section of the article discusses this apparent paradox, considering

why, despite its contentiousness, etymology retained such a central role in the

early modern w riting of the past.



DERIVING THE PAST IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

the work which stands at the head of western etymological tradition, and,

more specifically, from the position of Cratylus in that dialogue.' Concerned

with the relationship between words and things, Plato's dialogue investigates

whether words derive from nature or from convention. Cratylus is a strong

advocate of the former, believing tha t 'everything has a right name of ts own,

which comes by nature, and that a name is not whatever people call a thing

by agreement, just a piece of their own voice applied to the thing, but that

there is a kind of inherent correctness in names, which is the same for all

men, both Greeks and barb arian s'. Gerard Genette has shown that the

ratylus

spawned 'a sort of etymological herm eneutics' which persisted into

the Middle Ages and beyond via the works of Christian exegetes such as St

Jerome and Isidore of Seville.'^ For Isidore, etymology was the basis of all

knowledge. As he states in the first book of his

Etymologiae,

meaning can

always be deduced by tracing w ords and names back to their origins, origins

which are always latent in them . Meaning and origin are essentially the

same thing. It is the derivation of a word, its origin, which invests it with its

signification, its force, and this origin is always present in the word. Etymol-

ogy is the m eans to unlock th at origin and so also to unlock the signification.

Isidore proceeds to offer in the rest of the Etymologiae an encyclopedic sur-

vey of knowledge, all of which is estabhshed and proved by deriving the

origins of names and w ords. The

Etymologiae

were extremely popular in the

Renaissance, and, after the publication of the

editio princeps

in 1472, a con-

stant stream of editions followed.''' As with the

Cratylus,

their infiuence on

Bodin is apparent. Bodin's concern may have been more narrowly with his-

torical inquiry, but he shared Isidore's beliefs that the origins of words and

names are perpetually present and tha t etymology holds the key to discover-

ing those origins.

The belief in cratylic or natural language was most often associated in the

early modern period with Hebrew. William Lisle, the early seventeenth-

century Anglo-Saxon scholar, describes Hebrew as a language in which even

the simplest element, the most basic morphem e, conveys its proper meaning

and in which every name is a record of the fame, deeds or actions of the

named: 'Thou hast no word but wai'th; thy simplest elements / Are full of

hidden sense; thy points have Sacraments. / O holy dialect, in thee the prop er

names / Of men, tounes, countries, are th'abridgements of their fames / And

mem orable de ed s'. Heb rew nam es. Lisle argues, are akin to historical

records, documenting, preserving and communicating past deeds to future

generations. But they are also historical reco rds compiled before that history

has taken p lace, prescribing w hat will happen as well as describing w hat did

happen. They are, therefore, names which correspond perfectly with the



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published in 1613, argued that Hebrew names for animals always contain

their histoire

naturelle

citing the stork, eagle, horse, lion, whale and croco-

dile as examples.'' The stork, ch sid in Hebrew, a word which also means

meek, charitable or pious, is renowned for its charity towards its parents.

Thus, Duret argues, its Hebrew name clearly corresponds w ith and describes

its na ture. The same goes for the other five examples. Drawing on kabbalis-

tic traditions, D uret proceeds to assert that any man instructed in the secrets

of Hebrew and its alphabet will understand 'l'essence, vertu, action, &

ressort de toutes les choses de cest univers' and concludes therefore that

'l'Etimologie en langue Hebraique est sur toutes autres langues si forte & si

pregnante'.*' It is clear, however, that Hebrew was not considered the only

language whose names and words preserve the origin and nature of the

named. Bodin's method, after all, suggests that in all languages proper names

may be a source of historical knowledge and that in all languages etymology

provides the best access to that knowledge.

The influence of Bodin's idea of etymology on English historiography

cannot be overstated. The antiquaries, in particular, adopted his method of

turning to linguistic traces to establish histories and origins. The papers deliv-

ered to meetings of the Society of Antiquaries were often little more than

short etymological discussions of topics of legal, historical or archaeological

interest, which traced the origin and history of a custom, office or practice

through tracing the etymology of its nam e. Topics whose etymology came

under discussion included dukes, on which Thomas Doyley and Arthur

Agard presented papers on 27 November 1590, the terms and times for the

administration of justice in England, on which Erancis Thynne presented a

paper on 2 November 1601, and towns, on which Sir Robert Cotton pre-

sented a paper on 23 June 1602.^° Sir Henry Spelman also prepared a paper

on the antiquity and etymology of the terms and times for the administration

of justice, apparently as a result of the inadequate discussion of them in law-

books and chronicles.^' However, the paper was never delivered because

Spelman wrote it for the 1614 meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, banned

on the orders of James I. Having defined term as that portion of the year

when cases are heard in court, Spelman immediately turns to the origin of

the word, reinforcing his definition w ith his etymology. He derives term from

'the Greek

Tepixa

which signifieth the Bound, End, or Limit of a thing, here

particularly of the Time for law-matters'.^^ Spelman repeats this method

throughout the paper, subjecting various other legal practices to the same

etymological scrutiny. Amongst the most extended etymologies are those

found in an anonymous paper, 'Of the Antiquity, Variety, and Etimology of

Measuring Land in Cornwayl', delivered to the Society on 20 November



DER IVING T HE PAST IN EARLY M OD ERN ENGLA ND

Society, such

s

Joseph Holland's 'Of the Antiquity, Etymology and Privilege

of Towns', are inconclusive, giving a range of possible etymons rather than

a single, definitive orig in . However, nearly all the papers engage with

etymology in one way or another.

It has been suggested that William Camden, the pre-eminent antiquary of

the day, was responsible for introducing the etymological method of Bodin

to other English antiquaries. Camden certainly makes etymology the basis

of his own inquiries into the past. In the prefatory epistle to the

Britannia

his monumental antiquarian and chorographic survey of Britain, Camden

announces that he 'm ade search' in the work 'after the Etymologie of Britaine

and the first inh abitan ts'. This, incidentally, is testimony to the much wider

signification which etymology had in the early modern period, since etymol-

ogy is almost synonym ous here with genealogy. M oreover, later in the

Britannia

Camden reiterates Bodin's method almost word for word, when

he argues tha t language is 'the surest proofe of peoples originall'.^* This idea

is particularly infiuential in the first part of the

Britannia

where Camden

seeks to establish the origins of the various peoples who had colonised part

or all of Britain from antiquity onw ards - the Britons, the Romans, the Picts,

the Scots, the Irish, the Saxons, the Danes and the Normans. His method is

to establish the peoples' origins through etymologising their names. So con-

fident is he in the reliability of linguistic traces as a proof of origins that he

argues that, even if no history had ever recorded descents or derivations, they

could still have been established on the basis of linguistic affinity:

No man, I hope, will deny, that they which joine in community of language, con-

curred also in one and the same originall. And if all the histories that ever were

had miscarried and perished; if no writer had recorded, that we Englishmen are

descended from Germanes, the true and naturall Scots from the Irish, the Britons

of Armorica in France from our Britans; the society of their tongues would easily

confirme the same: yea and much more easily, than the authority of most sufficient

Historiographers.

Despite this confidence, Camden recognised that etymology was not infall-

ible. He adm its elsewhere in the ritannia that 'the first originalls of nations

are obscure by reason of their profound antiquitie'.' Eurtherm ore, Camden

is openly critical of some of the more exotic branches of etymologising such

as onomancy, which he describes as a 'superstitious kinde of Divination'.

Nevertheless, etymology is clearly central to Camden's writing of the past.

For Camden, the origin of a people is invariably the same as the origin of

their name.



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Britons derive from Gomer,

the

oldest

son of

Japheth

and a

grandson

of

Noah:

Gomer

his

eldest sonne,

in

these farthest

and

remotest borders

of

Europe, gave

both beginning and name to the Gomerians, which were after called Cimbrians

and Cimerians. For, the name of Cimbrians or C imerians filled in some sort this

part of the world: and not onely in Germanie, but also in Gaule spred exceeding

much. They which now are the Gaules, were, as Josephus and Zonaras write,

called of Gomer, Gomari, Gomersei and Gomeritse. From these Gomarians or

Gomeraeans of Gaule, I have alwaies thought that our Britans drew their begin-

ning, and from thence, for a proofe of the said beginning, brought their nam e: the

very proper and peculiar name also of the Britains, hath perswaded me thereunto.

For even they call themselves ordinarily Kumero, Cymro and Kumeri: like as a

British woman Kumeraes,

and the

tongue

it

selfe, Kumeraeg.

This alternative genealogy owes

its

substance

to

Genesis 10, that biblical pas-

sage vkfhich describes the re-colonisation of the postdiluvian world by Noah

and

his

descendants,

and to

Christian exegetes such

as St

Jerome

who

expanded

the

rather sketchy details

of

Genesis. Camden demonstrates that

this alternative derivation

is

linguistically sound

as

well

as

genealogically

credible by reference to the Britons' name in their own tongue, Kttmeri. He

derives Kumeri from Gomari Gomeraei

or Gomeritae the

former names

o

the Gauls,

the

ancestors

of the

Britons, names which

in

turn derive from

Gomer. Through etymology Camden

has

traced

the

Britons back

to

their

originator or progenitor. His method is the same as that of Bodin. As a fur-

ther

proof,

Camden turns

to the

signification

of the

name Gomer

itself. He

argues that 'Gomer

in the

Hebrew tongue, betokeneth utmost Bordering',

a

signification which corresponds exactly with Gomer's descendants colonis-

ing Germany, France and Britain, the 'farthest and remotest borders of

Europe'.^

Later

in

tbe

ritannia

Camden explains why the

Kumeri

came

to be

know

as Britons. Again,

his

explanation

is

etymological.

He

derives Briton from

brith the Welsh for painted or coloured, and suggests that the name arose

because of the Britons' habit of tattooing their bodies with woad.^' He notes

this habit

on

the authority

of

Caesar, Pliny

and

Pomponius M ela. He asserts

moreover, that

the

Britons

had no

marke whereby they might

be

distin-

guished and knowen from the borderers, better than by that maner of theirs

to paint their bod ies'. Kumeri on the other hand, was common to them and

their 'borderers'. Thus, Camden suggests,

the

name Briton

was

coined,

a

signifier

of

difference between

the

Britons

and

their bordering nations

whose origin or etymon lay in the Britons' most striking and individua




national and religious priority founded on the derivation from Noah 's grand-

son.^' Whether Gamden intends to evoke an actual sense of kinship between

late Elizabethan England and the grandson of Noah is debatable. What is not

debatable is that through the derivation Camden seeks to evoke a British (and

therefore an ancient) heritage for the English. The phrase 'our Britans', or

Britanni nostri

in the original Latin, is telling.^' The bloodline may not be

English, but Camden clearly intends the origins and the heritage derived

from it to belong to the English. The force of the derivation alters in the

greatly expanded and definitive sixth edition of 1607 and the 1610 transla-

tion. By the time of these editions, Camden was contributing not to a sense

of Englishness, but to that sense of British identity which James I sought to

promote in the early years of his reign.' ' The derivation needs therefore

to be read in the context of the debate over the proposed union between

Scotland and England, which remained an important political topic until the

parliamentary opposition of 1607.' If Camden made etymology historical,

he also made it political, turning to linguistic traces to establish antiquity and

turning to that antiquity to derive heritage and identity.

II

The antiquarian interest in etymology as a source of origins and in traces of

language as historical records may come as something of a surprise. After a ll,

etymology has long been recognised as ludic, a locus for linguistic play as

much as for historical inquiry. The Cratylus for example, may be a serious

investigation into the relationship between words and things, but it is clear

that Plato recognised the potential of etymology for linguistic jokes. At the

beginning of the dialogue Hermogenes reports that Cratylus had once said to

him, ' Well, your name is not Hermogenes, even if all mankind call you so ',

an observation which leaves Hermogenes, unsurprisingly, rather puzzled. ^

Socrates explains that Cratylus is making an etymological pun on his name:

'But as for his saying that Hermogenes is not truly your nam e, I suspect he is

making fun of you; for perhaps he thinks that you want to make money and

fail every time'.''^ The pun plays on the gap between the name Hermogenes,

which means son of Hermes, the patron deity of trade and commerce, and

Hermogenes' apparent failure to make any money. The name, Cratylus

implies, cannot be correct: it fails to correspond with Hermogenes' nature.

The ioke sets the tone for the rest of the dialogue, particularly for the long

central section in which Socrates resorts to a series of often fanciful ety-

mologies as he investigates the origins of names and words. Even Isidore of



ANGUS VINE

traces to be more certain, more reliable, than even the most approved histo-

riography.

This does not, however, mean tha t the ludic element was entirely absent in

early modern England. It was able to find a voice in other forms of history

and in other genres. The chronicle read by Prince Arthur in Eumnestes'

chamber in The aerie Queene is one such example. Partly a response to

existing literary tradition, partly a response to the Galfridian account of the

British past and partly a response to antiquarian etymologising, the chroni-

cle is larded with place names which record their founders and memorialise

British history. Many of the derivations in the chronicle are familiar. Spenser

repeats the Corineus-Cornwall, Albanact-Albania, Humber-Humber and

Sabrine-Severn etymologies, all of which derive ultimately from Geoffrey of

Monmouth's

Historia

Regum

Britanniae. ^

Others, however, are Spenseri

inventions, reminiscent of the etymologies from the central section of the

Cratylus.

During the course of his reading Arthur encounters such figur s as

Debon, whose 'shayre' was Devonshire, and Ganutus, who 'had his portion

from the rest, / The which he cald Ganutium, for his hyre; / Now Gantium,

which Kent we commenly inquire', both Trojan princes who arrived with

Brutus.''* Both were instrumental in the Trojan defeat of the Giants, the pre-

vious inhabitants of Britain, Debon defeating Coulin and Canutus defeating

'Great Godmer'. ^ And both appear to be Spenserian inventions, unknown

from any previous source or account. Bart Van Es has argued convincingly

that the etymologies 'are here taken to what seems like demonstrative

excess', and that Spenser thereby indicates the nonsense of much of the

matter of Britain narrated in the rest of the chronicle. ' The etymologies are

learned jokes, satirising the Galfridian tradition and the names and deriva-

tions that form such an important part of it. But Spenser also seems to be

reflecting on etymology more generally, musing on its potential problems for

the establishment of origins and for the identification of founders or prog-

enitors. With such patently false derivations Spenser interrogates the rela-

tionship between history, poetry and tradition and investigates the link

between etymology and historical inquiry, as well as indicating his own

doubts about the veracity of the matter of Britain.' Importantly, though, as

the fabric of the chronicle itself testifies, Spenser does not disavow etymol-

ogy altogether.

Somewhere between Spenser's chronicle in

The aerie Queene

and th

papers delivered to the Society of Antiquaries lies Michael Drayton's Foly-

Olbion, the most antiquarian and the most Spenserian of early seventeenth-

century poems. Drayton's major work, P oly-Olbion surveys the geography

and history of England and Wales in thirty books. Its first part, the first eigh-



DERIVING TH E PAST IN EARLY MO DE RN ENGLA ND

ing the names. As Drayton and his Muse journey northwards and eastwards

in the poem, they read the landscapes through which they travel, etymolo-

gising the names of places to reveal the histories and traditions preserved

within.

Poly Olbion

app ears , the n, to be testim ony to the influence of Bodin

on early modern historical method and, more generally, to his influence on

early mo de rn historical consciousness. After all, as well as resp ond ing to a nti-

quarian method and practice, Drayton was also reflecting the popular con-

sciousness of the age, where the land was, in the words of a recent historian,

'a vast repo sitory of mem ory'.^ Th e landsc ape explain ed the origins of place

names and the origins of place names explained particular features of the

landscape. Examples abound in

Poly Olbion.

Th ere is, for instan ce, the

Welsh county Breckn ockshire, whose nam e Dra yton traces back to Brecan, 'a

Prince once fortun ate and grea t / (Wh o dying, lent his nam e to that his nobler

seat)'.^' Evidently a popular tradition, local historians today maintain the ety-

mology, arguing that before the rule of Prince Brecan the region was known

as G arth m arth rin . Furtherm ore, Drayton also explains the topography of

Brecknockshire by reference to Brecan. He suggests that the many rivers that

rise in the county were once the daughters of Brecan, transformed because

of their love for pure ness and their beauty . Tradition explains the local place

name and the local topography, and the place name preserves that tradition.

Camden also records the t radi t ion, albei t without the metamorphosis of

Brecan's daughters, and he too gives the etymology: 'Brechnock-shire, in the

British Brechineau [was] so named, as the Welshmen relate, of a Prince

named Brechanius ' .

A similar example is the town Halifax. Again, a local tradition is attached

to the name, and again the implication is that the name is the mnemonic

which ensures that the tradition is not forgotten. Moreover, again, it is a tra-

dition of antiquarian as well as of popular interest. Drayton notes that the

town was once called Horton, but that, following a brutal murder there, i t

was renamed Halifax, the new name a footprint or marker of the story's

most unusual detail:

Halifax,

Which Ho rton once was cald, but of a Virgins haire,

Martyr that was made, for Chastity, that there

Was by her Lover slaine) being fastned to a tree:

The people that would needes it should a Relique be.

It Halifax since nam'd, which in the Northerne tongue

Is Holy haire .

The virgin's hair, it appears, was attached to the tree as a form of memorial,



ANGUS VINE

according to the OED an archaic word in northern dialect for hair on the

head. s with Brecan and Brecknockshire, D rayton 's source is the Britannia

Camden too notes this local (and, no doubt, also oral) tradition surrounding

Halifax:

A certaine Clerke, as they call him, was farre in love with a maiden who when he

might not have his purpose of her, for all the faire meanes and entisments hee

could use, his love beeing turned un to rage (vilanous wretch that hee was) cut off

the maides head: which being hung afterwards upon an Eugh tree, the common

people counted as an hallowed relique, untill it was rotten, yea and they came

devoutly to visit it, and every one gathered and carried away with him a branch or

sprig of the sayd

tree.

But after the tree was bare and nothing left but the very stock

(such was the credulity of that time) it maintained the opinion of reverence and

religion still. [.. .] Hereupon, they that dwelt there about repaired on pilgrimage

hither, and such resort there was unto it, that Horton beeing but a little village

before, grew up to a great towne, and was called by a new name Halig-Fax, or

Hali-fex, that is. Holy haire.

The new name is a memorial of the virgin, her story preserved within it and

deducible through etymologising it. The tradition is both an etymology and

an aetiology, explaining the linguistic origin of the name Halifax and

providing a reason \vhy it was so named. Its inclusion by Drayton and

Camden demonstrates that both considered names to be valuable historical

sources and suggests that both considered oral tradition as important a rem-

nant of the past as the more conventional texts, manuscripts and artefacts.

Furthermore, it reinforces the view that etymology was central to both anti-

quarian and popular historical thought.

The examples of Brecknockshire and Halifax indicate the influence of

antiquarian etymology on D rayton. Just as influential, though, was the play-

ful etymologising of Spenser. Take the example of Cornwall. Superflcially,

Drayton repeats the familiar Galfridian etymology, which derives the name

from Corineus. Drayton writes that Brutus gave the land of Cornwall to

Corineus and then named it after him to memorialise his defeat of the giant

Gogmagog in single combat: 'For which, the conquering Brute, on Corineus

brave / This horne of land bestow 'd, and markt it with his name; / Of Corin,

Cornwall call'd, to his immortall fame'.^'* Corineus's victory, Drayton

implies, is preserved forever in the name Cornwall, an indelible record of an

event from the very earliest days of British history. However, just as with the

names in Spenser's catalogue in The aerie Queene Drayton gives a tangibl

indication that he does not really believe the etymology. In referring to

Cornwall as 'this horne of land', Drayton is in fact punning on the etymol-

ogy current at the time amongst antiquaries and chorographers. They



DERIVING TH E PAST IN EARLY M OD ERN ENGLAN D

Drayton: 'So, if you beleeve the tale of Corin, and Gogmagog: but rather

imagine the name Cornewall from this promontory of the lands end; extend-

ing it selfe like a horne, which in most tongues is Corn, or very neere'.''° In

fact, Selden was more generally sceptical about the validity of the etymolog-

ical approach to history. For example, in his 'Notes' on Sir John Fortescue's

De laudibus legum Angliae he asserts: 'Scarce indeed is there a nation in

Europe, whose deduction from a like name of the first autor, is of sufficient

credit '. With his pun on cornu Drayton indicates that he too was aware of

a doubt about etymology as an absolute proof of origins. However, the very

fact that alternative etymologies exist, one derived from Geoffrey of Mon-

mouth and one topographical, is for Drayton a source of opportunity. Like

Spenser before him, Drayton indulges in an etymological joke, setting the

Galfridian and antiquarian etymologies against one another. Neither is priv-

ileged, since, as the example of Halifax shows, Drayton was as interested in

traditions preserved through etymologies and names as he was in histories

preserved in this way. The derivation from Corineus may be bunkum, but for

Drayton this does not lessen its importance as part of the construct, that col-

lection of rem nants, stories and traditions, which is the national past.

As well as antiquarian research into origins and traditions surrounding

places and place names, Drayton's etymologies also reflect Ovidian aetiology,

where natural phenomena are explained by metamorphoses, and where

features of the landscape become associated with persons or events from

myth or history. The story of Myrrha in the Metamorphoses which finds an

echo in Drayton's metamorphosis of Sabrina into the river Severn, typifies

Ovidian aetiology. Consumed by incestuous lust for her father Cinyras,

Myrrha is eventually transformed into a tree, as her body parts arborise, with

her toes becoming roots, her b lood sap, her arms branches, her fingers twigs

and her skin bark . Moreover, in an important anticipation of Drayton,

Myrrha's story is preserved forever in her tears, the droplets of myrrh which

distil from her bark: 'quae quamquam amisit veteres cum corpore sensus, /

flet tamen, et tepidae manant ex arbore guttae. / est honor et lacrimis, stil-

lataque cortice murra / nom en erile tenet nulloque tacebitur aevo'.* Ovid's

story purports to offer an explanation for the origin of myrrh, an aetiology,

and an explanation for the origin of its name, an etymology. Similarly,

Drayton gives derivations which are both etymologies and aetiologies. The

case of Brecan and Brecknockshire is one such example, an explanation of a

name that also becomes an explanation of the landscape. Another is his

derivation for Cornwall. Taking his cue from the element of doubt in

Camden and Carew, Drayton inscribes the etymology from Geoffrey of

Monmouth, which traces Cornwall to Corineus, on antiquarian accounts,



ANGUS VINE

able to make antiquarian etymology an explanation for tradition and myth

as v ell as for history and topography. M oreover, in bringing Ovid and anti-

quarian scholarship together in this way, Drayton further hlurs the conven-

tional boundary between poetry and history, revealing a shared interest in

origins and a shared sense of the problem of establishing these origins for

certain.

Ill

So far, so etymological. How ever, early m odern attitudes tow ards etymology

were not always this straightforward. The problem was that, despite the

lengthy and evidently vigorous etymological tradition detailed ahove, an

opposite strand of thought also obtained, which denied any innate corre-

spondence between words and things and so also between names and origins,

progenitors or founders. Aristotle, for example, had argued in

De

interpre-

tatione that words have meaning by convention alone, not as an instrument

of their nature.*' This is also the argum ent of H ermogenes in the

Cratylus.^

This anti-cratylic position had a number of adherents in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. M ontaigne , for instance, was sceptical of any real con-

nection between names and essences. He describes names as 'three or four

pen-strokes', easily corrupted and bearing little actual relation to whom or

what they name.*' To exemplify his point he asks the following questions:

'What can stop my ostler calling himself Pompey the Great? When all is

said and done, what means or links are there which can securely attach that

glorious spoken name or pen-strokes either to my ostler, once he is dead, or

to tha t other man whose head was severed in Egypt, in such a way tha t they

can profit by

them?'.**

Names, Montaigne imphes, have no secure link to the

named and therefore have no real power as a sign or index of the nature of

the named. A century later John Locke denied altogether any natural con-

nection between words and ideas. Discussing their relationship, Locke argues

that they are linked 'n ot by any natural connexion, that there is between par-

ticular articulate Sounds and certain Ideas, for then there would be but one

Language among all Men; but by a voluntary Imposition, whereby such a

Word is made arbitrarily the M ark of such an Idea'.*'

Moreover, etymology itself was also a moot subject in the early modern

period. Among the humanists of Northern Europe, for example, attacks

on etymology were commonplace.™ Erasmus was one such opponent. In

'Synodus grammaticorum' Erasmus attacked and satirised etymology

through demonstrating its potential absurdity. As Erasmus indicates in 'De




the name of a sect of Palestinian Christians who denied M ary 's perpetual vir-

ginity, should have in fact read antimarionos or antidicomariones. The seven

speakers in the 'Synodus grammaticorum', however, remain unaware of the

solecism. They take it in turn to gloss anticomaritas through recourse to a

series of fanciful and frequently scatological etymologies, deriving it from

Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Chaldaic roots. Thus one speaker, Bertulf sug-

gests that it means 'a kind of beet, called by the ancients swimming beet ,

with a twisted and knotty stalk', which smells worse than excrement, an ety-

mological pun on the name of another of Erasmus's Sorbonne opponents,

Noel Beda. A second speaker, Diphylus, argues that it means girls who are

'ill-mated', deriving it from

ante quo

and

maritae

and a third, Eumenius,

that it means 'one w ho annoys everybody with his boorish cha tter', deriving

it from

avTi

Kw/xrj and oapiCeiv.^^ The targets of the satire are Cousturier,

whose solecism forms the basis of the colloquy's iokes, and the seven speak-

ers, who offer such preposterous derivations without for a moment imagin-

ing that the w ord might be a mistake. Etymology, the colloquy implies, could

be a source of

iokes,

but not of meanings or origins.

Etymological history was further problematised by a num ber of early mod-

ern studies of language. Perhaps the most relevant of these here is Edward

Brerewood's

Enquiries Touch ing the Diversity of

Languages

and Religions

through

the

heife Parts

of

the

World

published posthumously in 1614, but

written some years before. H older of the first chair of astronomy at Gresham

College, Brerewood argues in this work that all languages are subiect to their

own internal changes, thus recognising the phenomenon which linguists

today describe as drift.'^ Brerewood emphasises the gradualness of linguistic

change and he refutes the orthodox early modern assumption that languages

changed only if they were subject to violent external forces. He cites Greek

and Latin as examples. Both, he argues, changed and degenerated without

any external pressure or force. s his discussion of Greek indicates, he attrib-

utes such changes simply to the passage of time:

The learned Grecians themselves, acknowledge it to bee very ancient, and are

utterly ignorant, when it began in their language: which is to me a certaine argu-

ment, that it had no violent nor sodaine beginning, by the mixture of other for-

rain nations among them, but hath gotten into their language, by the ordinarie

change, which time and many common occasions that attend on time, are wont to

bring to all languages in the world, for which reason, the corruption of speech

growing upon them, by little and litde, the change hath beene unsensible.

When he turns to Latin, Brerewood reiterates that 'there is no language,



ANGUS VINE

in June 1565, and the year after Aldus Manutius pubhshed its inscription.^*

Brerewood transcribes the inscription, notes that it is written in an archaic

form of Latin, renders it in Ciceronian Latin and then analyses the linguistic

and orthographic changes between the tw o. He then reasserts his central

argument that 'time is wont to wo rke ' great 'altera tion ' and change in all lan-

guages.'*

Brerewood's argument in the nquiries would seem to undermine funda-

mentally the etymological method described in this article, since that method

was dependent on the permanence of language and the durability of linguis-

tic

traces. Yet

patently, this was not the case: etymology continued to be cen-

tral to early modern writing about the past. There are a number of possible

explanations for this. Eirstly, it is possible that Brerewood's theory of

linguistic drift - the same goes more generally for the anti-cratylic and anti-

etymological tradition described earlier - was neither widely nor well

received. This, however, seems unlikely given the positive reception of

the Enquiries after Brerewood's death. Subsequent editions were brought

out in 1622, 1625, 1635 and 1674, and a Erench translation by Jean de la

M ontagne was published in 1640, 1662 and 1667 . The w ork was also trans-

lated into Latin. Moreover, there is evidence that during his life Brerewood's

researches were widely disseminated in scholarly and antiquarian circles. A

second possible explanation is that theory is rarely mirrored straightfor-

wardly in practice. A third (and, perhaps, the most satisfactory) answer lies

in the pohticisation of etymology in the early modern period.*

s

Camden's

derivations of the Britons and the Lowland Scots show, etymology was a mat-

ter of politics as much as of

history,

a matter of blood as much as of language.

Etymology was integral to attempts to define national heritage and identity,

and it may well have been that very element of doub t, highlighted by the likes

of Erasmus, which made it so useful for these attempts. The uncertainty

opened up a linguistic space or gap which partial and politicised, bu t appar-

ently authoritative, etymologies could fill. Politicised etymologies could be

celebratory, as in the case of Camden's derivation of the Britons, but they

could also be pejorative, intended to slur the origins of a people or to

besmirch a particular p ractice, custom or

belief.

Few works better exemplify the potential of etymology for pejoration than

Spenser's View of the Present State of

Ireland

Etymology is integral to its

rhetoric, as linguistic origins underpin Spenser's attempts to articulate the

barbarism and dangerousness of various Irish customs and practices.*' Ety-

mologies are given for tanistry, palatine, coigne, livery, kincogish, Scot, fer-

ragh and gallowglass. ^ In almost every case, the etymology is negative and

derogatory. Take the etymology of

palatine.*^

The etymology is occasioned by




(I suppose) first named Palatine of a pale, as it were a pale and defense to

their inward lands, so as it is called the English Pale, and therefore is a

Palsgrave named an Earle Palatine. Others thinke of the Latine,

palare

that

is,

to forrage or out-run, because those marchers and borderers use com-

monly so to doe . So as to have a Countie Palatine, is, in effect, to have a priv-

iledge to spoyle the enemies borders adjoyning'. It is hard to imagine that

Spenser or, indeed, any of his readers would have believed either of these

derivations. The correct derivation, from palatium was well-known in the

early modern period.'^ However, linguistic accuracy is not the real concern

here.

Instead, as the rest of Irenseus's explanation makes clear, the etymology

is primarily a rhetorical strategy, a means through which Spenser can attack;

counties palatine by investing them with deliberately negative linguistic ori-

gins.

Irenseus proceeds to link his second derivation to Tipperary, the sole

surviving palat inate in Ireland, which was under the almost total

autonomous control of Thomas Butler, the Earl of Ormond. Irenaeus asserts

that Tipperary 'is, by abuse of some bad ones, made a receptacle to rob the

rest of the Counties about it, by meanes of whose priviiedges none will fol-

low their stealthes'.** The current political state in Tipperary supposedly

demonstrates the truth of the derivation, the unruliness of the county pala-

tine reflecting the unruly linguistic origin. The pejorative etymology under-

scores the inconvenience of the palatinate status of Tipperary. It is a means

through which Spenser can draw his readers' attention - and, perhaps, the

attention of one reader in particular, Elizabeth I - to the threat which he

believed the palatinate status of Tipperary to pose for the maintenance of

order in Ireland. The politics of this particular etymology are clear.

The discussion of the etymology of palatine typifies the derivations given

in the

Vietv.

Spenser's speakers look to the linguistic origins of a custom or

practice to reveal its essence, and in revealing this essence more often than

not they offer a critique or even a condem nation of it Thus, in turn, the View

itself typifies the idea of etymology described in this article. On the one hand,

in reaching for etymology to establish and explain origins, the View recalls

the papers delivered to the Society of Antiquaries. Of course, the View is a

work suffused with antiquarian concerns, as Spenser also turns his attention

to such areas as ethnography, genealogy and legal history. This antiquarian-

ism is only emphasised in the first printed edition, b rought out by the Dublin

antiquary Sir James Ware in 1633. In his preface Ware draws particular

attention to Spenser's 'proofes [. . .] concerning the originall of the language,

customes of the Nations, and the first peopling of the severall parts of the

Hand'. On the other hand, though, Spenser's fictitious etymologies also

recall that tradition of ludic etymologising traceable back to Plato. Given the



ANGUS VINE

not. The etymologies form an integral part of the View's rhetoric and they

play a crucial role in its argument for the necessity of military, political and

social reform in Ireland. Etymology has been polemicised; it has become a

feature of political, as well as of antiquarian and poetic, discourse.

The

View

puts the lie to Bodin s argum ent that linguistic traces are an

unimpeachable source of origins, the most authoritative record of the past.

But the

View

is also testimony to the influence of Bodin s argument, since the

derivations and origins, however partial, are intended to carry the full weight

of antiquarian scholarship. ** Etymology was clearly central to Spenser s w rit-

ing of the past, even if he recognised its problems and its limitations. In this,

Spenser was typical. Despite the anti-etymological tradition described above,

etymology was integral to early modern historical thought and etymologies

integral to early m odern historiography. For poets and an tiquaries alike, ety-

mology held the key to the past. It underpinned genealogies and descents: it

allowed writers to trace a hierarchy of nations, to seek the derivation of a

people in the derivation of their name. It bestowed the veneer of authority

and scholarship. Most important of all, it offered the possibility of access to

antiquity, that most elusive, that most sought after, period from the past.

And, for writers in early modern England, that possibility appears to have

been hard to resist.

Centre for Research in the Social Sciences,

Arts Humanities,

University

of

Cambridge ANGUS VINE

Notes

I should like to thank Raphael Lyne, John Kerrigan, Claire Preston and Daniel Woolf

for reading this article in its earlier incarnations and for their many insightful sugges-

tions and com ments.

1 Jean Bodin,

Method for the Easy Comprehension of History,

trans. Beatrice

Reynolds (New York Columbia University Press, 1945), pp. 3 37 -8 .

2 Ibid. p. 347.

3 For a discussion of this belief see Marian Rothstein, Etymology, Genealogy, and

the Imm utability of Origins , Renaissance Quarterly, 43 (1990), 332 -47.

4 Bodin,

Method

p. 336.

5 Leonard R Dean, Bodin s Methodus in England Before 1625 , Studies in Philol

ogy,

39 (1942), 160-6. Dean suggests that this positive reception may have been

due to B odin s visit to England between 1579 and 1581 as part of the Duke of

Anjou s entourage.

6 Sallust,

The Two M ost Worthy and Notable

Histories Which Rentaine Unmaine



DERIVING

THE

PAST

IN

EARLY MOD ER N ENGLAND

R. Borc hardt, Etym ology

in

Tradition

and in

the Nor thern Renaissance , /o«r«a/

of the History of Ideas,

29

(1968), 41 5- 29 , Paul Zum thor , Langue, texte, enigme

(Paris,

Editions

du

Seuil, 1 975 ),

p.

154, Umberto Eco,

The Search for the Perfect

Language,

trans. Jam es Fentress (London , FontanaPress,

1997;

first published

1 9 9 5 ) , p. 80, and

Vivian Salmon , Effort

and

A ch ievement

in

Seventeenth-

Ce ntur y British Ling uistics ,

in

Language

and

Society

in

Early Modem England:

Selected Essays, 1981-1994,

ed.

Konrad Koerner (Amsterdam, Joh n Benjamins,

1996),

p p .

3-29

(pp . 19-2 0) .

8

It is

impor tant , though,

to

remember here that

in the

early modern period

ety-

mology had

a

wid er signification tha n

the

philological sense

of

today. See Marvin

Spevack, Etymology

in

Shakespeare ,

in Shakespeare s Universe: Renaissance

Ideas

and

Concep tions, Essays

in

Honour

of

W .

R.

Elton,

eds

John Mucciolo ,

Steven

J.

Doloff

and

Edward

A.

Rau chut (Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1996),

pp.

187-93

(p. 187).

9

On

this blurring, see Don ald

R.

Kelley

and

David Ha rris Sacks, eds.

The Histori-

cal Imagination in Early Modern Britain: History Rhetoric and Fiction

1500-1800

(Cam bridge, Cam bridge University Press, 199 7).

10

For

three very different studies

of

the influence

of

the Cratylus, see Ernst Robert

Curtius , Etymology

as a

Category

of

Though t ,

in European Literature and the

Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard

R.

Trask (London, Routledge

Kegan Paul,

1953), pp.

49 5-5 00 , Anne Bar ton ,

The

Names

of

Comedy (Oxford, Clarendon

Press,

1990) ,

and

Gerard Gene tte,

M imologics,

trans. Thais

E.

M organ (Lincoln,

Nebraska,

and

Lo ndo n, University

of

Neb raska Press, 1995 ).

11 Plato,

Cratylus,

t rans . Harold

N.

Fowler, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge,

Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1996; first pubhshed 1926), 383a-b.

12 Genette, M imologics,

p. 29. For an

excellent accou nt

of

etymology

in

late antiq-

uity

and the

early medieval period,

see R.

Howard Bloch ,

Etymologies and

Genealogies:

A

Literary Anthropology

of the

Erench Middle Ages (Chicago

and

London, University

of

Chicago Press, 1983), pp.

4 0 - 6 3 .

13

'Nam dum

videris un de ortum

est

nomen, citius

vim

eius intellegis , Isidore

of

Seville, Etym ologiarum sive originum libri

XX ed.

W allace

M.

Lindsay,

2

vols

(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1985; first published 1911), I.xxix.ii.

14 Rothstein, E tymo logy ,

p.

3 3 3 .

15 William Lisle,

Part of Du Bartas, English and French, and in his Owne Kinde of

Verse, So Neare

the

French Englished, As May Teach

an

English-man French, or a

French-man English

(London, 1625), sig.

Nlr.

Wai th

in the

first line cited

is a

variant form

of

we ighe th , and so Lisle s point is simply th at all wo rds

in

Hebrew

are significant

and to be

esteemed. See

OED

we igh , sense

17.

16

On the

search

for the

Adamic language,

see

David

S.

Katz,

'The

Language

of

Adam

in

Seventeenth-Century England ,

in

History

and

Imagination: Essays

in

Honour of H. R. Trevor-Roper, eds

H ug h Lloy d-Jone s, Valerie Pearl

and

Blair

Worden (London, Duckworth, 1981),

pp.

1 3 2 - 4 5 ,

and

Allison

P

Couder t ,

ed..

The Language of Adam

(Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1999).



ANGUS VINE

20 A Collection of Curious Discourses Written by Eminent ntiquaries upon Sev

Heads in our English Antiquities ed. Thom as H earne, rev. Joseph Ayloffe, 2 vol

(London, 1771), I, 1 8 3 ^ , I, 184-6 ,1, 33-8 and I, 105-7.

21 7Wd., II, 33 1- 75 .

22 Ibid. II, 332 .

23 Ibid. I, 195-7 .

24 Ibid. I , 1 9 2 ^ .

25 Kevin Sharpe, Sir Robert Cotton 1586-16 31: History and Politics in Early Mod

em England (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 21.

26 William Camden, Britain or Chorographicall Description of the Most Flouri

ing Kingdomes England Scotland and Ireland and the Hands

Adjoyning

o

the D epth of Antiquitie trans. Philemon Holland (London, 1610), sig. 7t4r.

27 For more on the relationship between etymology and genealogy, see Marvin

Spevack, Beyond Individualism: Nam es and Namelessness in Shakespeare ,

Huntington Library Quarterly 56 (1993), 383 -98 .

28

Cumden

Britannia

p. 16.

29 Ibid. p. 16.

30 Ibid. sig. 7t4r.

31 William Camden, Remains Concerning Britain ed. Robert D. Dunn (Toronto,

Buffalo and London, University of Toronto Press, 1984), p. 50.

32 Camden, Britannia p. 10.

33 Jerome wrote that the seven sons of Japheth colonised Europe as far west as

Gades (now Cadiz) and that they bestowed their names upon the peoples and

places which they founded, Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Ceneseos (Turnholt

Brepols, 1959), 10.2.


35 Ibid. p. 26.

36 Julius Caesar, The Gallic War trans. Henry J. Edwards, Loeb Classical Library

(Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1997; first published

1917), V14, Pliny, N atural History trans Harris Rackham et al Loeb Classical

Library, 10 vols (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 19 38 -63),

XXII.2, and Pomponius Mela, De chorographia libri tres ed. Carolus Frick

(Stuttgart, Teubner, 1968), III.51.


38 Philip Schwyzer has recently shown that in the sixteenth century expressions of

English national identity frequently depended on just such appropriations of

British and Welsh heritage and history. Literature

Nationalism and Memory in

Early Modern England and Wales (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

2004).

39 William Camden, Britannia sive florentissimorum regnorum Angliae Scoti

Hiberniae et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica desc

tio (London, 1586), p. 9.

40 For a recent account of James I and Britishness, see Jenny W ormald, James VI,




originair, another derivation dependent on language and etymology, Britannia,

119. Crucially, this derivation does not appear in any edition before that of

1607. There is, therefore, little doubt that the accession of James I was the cir-

cumstance which led

to

its inclusion, firstly hecause

it

legitimises James as king of

England

and

secondly because

it

offers support

for the

policy

of

union between

the two kingdoms.

42 Plato,

Cratylus,

383b.

43

Ibid.,3i4c.

44 Barton,

Names of Comedy, p.

12.

45 Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. Albert C. Hamilton (London

and

New

York, Longman, 1977), II.x.12.2-5, II.x.14.2-3, ILx.16.6-9 and II.x.19.7-8, and

Geoffrey

of

Monmouth, The History ofthe Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe

(Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1966), i.l6, ii.l, ii.2 and ii.5.

46 Spenser, Faerie

Queene, II.x.

12.6-9.

47 Ibid., II.x.11.1-9.

On the

belief that giants were

the

first inhabitants

of

Britain,

see Daniel

Woolf,

'Of Danes and Giants: Popular Beliefs about the Past in Early

Modern England', Dalhousie Review, 71 (1991), 166-209, and Arthur B. Fergu-

son,

Utter Antiquity: Perceptions

of Prehistory in

Renaissance England

(Durham

and London, Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 106-13.

48 Bart Van Es, Spenser s

Forms of History

(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002),

41.

49 These doubts find an echo in Irenseus's claim in A Vieia of the Present State of

Ireland

that

it is

'impossible

to

proove, that there

was

ever

any

such Brutus

of

Albion or England', Edmund Spenser, A Yievu ofthe State of

Ireland,

eds Andrew

Hadfield and Willy Maley (Oxford, Blackwell, 1997), p. 44. The text of Hadfield

and Maley's edition

is

that

of

the first printed edition

of

1633.

50 Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in Fngland, 1500-1700 (Oxford, Claren-

don Press, 2000), p. 215. See also Keith Thomas,

The Perception ofthe Past

in

Early Modem England

(London, The Creighton Trust Lecture, 1983), pp. 4-5,

and Adam Fox, 'Remembering the Past in Early Modern England: Oral and Writ-

ten Tradition',

Transactions ofthe Royal Historical Society,

n. s. 9 (1999), 233-56

(pp. 233-4).

51 Michael Drayton,

Poly-Olbion,

in

The Works of Michael Drayton,

eds J. William

Hebel, Kathleen Tillotson

and

Bernard

H.

Newdigate,

5

vols (Oxford, Basil

Blackwell, 1961; first published 1931-41), IV95-96.

52 Theophilus Jones,

A History of the County of Brecknock,

rev. Sir Joseph Russell

Bailey, 4 vols (Brecknock, Blissett, Davies, 1909-30), I, 1-3, and Dewi Davies,

Brecknock Historian

(Brecon, D. G. A. S. Evans, 1977), p. 3.

53 Drayton, ?o/y-O/fc/ow, IV95-106.

54 Camden,

Britannia, p.

627.

55 Drayton, Poly-Olbion, XXVIII.60-66.

56 Camden,

Britannia,

pp. 691-92.

57 Francis Bacon noted this same diversity of interests amongst the antiquaries. He



ANGUS VINE

58 Drayton,

Poly-Olbion,

1.504 6.

59 Camden,

B ritannia,

pp . 1 8 3 ^ , and Richard Carew, The Survey

of

Cornwall (Lon

don, 1602), p. 1.

60 Drayton, Poly-Olbion, p. 27. For the first eighteen books of P oly-Olbion, John

Selden, the great antiquary, legal scholar and orientalist, provided a series of

extremely scholarly annotations, clarifying matters of history and philology. The

relationship between Dray ton s songs and Selden s notes has generated extensive

debate amongst literary critics and historians. See, for example, Thomas D.

Kendrick,

British

Antiquity (London, Methuen, 1970; first published 1950), pp.

114-5 , Frank Smith Fussner, The Historical Revolution: English Historical

Writing

and

Thought

1580-1640 (London, Routledge

c

Kegan Paul, 1962), pp

46-7, Joseph Levine, Humanism and

History:

Origins of Modem English Histo

riography (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 52 , Anne Lake

Prescott, Drayton s Muse and Selden s Story: The Interfacing of Poetry and His-

tory in Poly-Olbion , Studies in

Philology,

87 (1990), 128-35, and Anne Lake

Prescott, Marginal Discourse: Drayton s M use and Selden s Sto ry , Studies in

Philology,

88 (1991), 307-28.

61 Sir John Fortescue,

De laudibus legum

Angliae (London, 1616), sig. ^B8v. See

also Andrew Hadfield, Spenser, Drayton and the Question of Britain , Review

of

English

Studies,

n. s. 51 (2000), 58 2-9 9 (p. 593).

62 Drayton, Fo/y-O/Won, VI .171 -8.

63 Ovid,

Metamorphoses,

trans. Frank Justus Miller, rev. George P Goold, Loeh

Classical Library, 2 vols (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press,

1994;

first published 1916), X .48 9-9 4.

64 Though she has lost her old-time feelings with her body, still she weeps, and the

warm drops trickle down from the tree. Even her tears have honour: and the

myrrh which distils from the bark preserves the name of its mistress and will be

remembered through all the ages . Ibid. X.499-502.

65 Aristotle,

O n Interpretation,

trans. Harold P Cook, Loeb Classical Library (Cam-

bridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1962; first published 1938),

16a20, 16a27 and 17al.

€6 Plato, C ratylus, 384c-d.

67 Michel de Montaigne, Of Names , in The Complete Essays, trans. Michael A.

Screech (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 19 91 ; first published 1987), pp. 30 8-1 3 (p.

311).

68 Ibid. p. 312.

69 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human

Understanding

ed. Peter H. Niddit

(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975), lll.ii. l.

70 Borchardt, Etymology in Tradition , pp .

Al\-1.

71 The Colloquies of

Erasmus,

trans. Craig R. Thompson (Chicago and London ,

University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 632.

72

Ibid.

pp. 396-9.

73 On Brerewood s linguistic studies, see Giuliano Bonfante, Una descrizione lin-



DERIVING THE PAST IN EARLY M OD ERN ENGLAN D

Arabick Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Cen tury England,

ed. Gul A. Russell (Leiden, Brill, 1994), pp. 54-69 (p. 55).

74 Edward Brerewood,

Enquiries Touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions

through the Cheife Parts ofthe Wo rld (London, 1614), p. 10.

75 Ibid., p. 42.

16 See Rodolfo Lanciani, Storia d egli scavi di Rom a, 4 vo l s (Rome, Ermanno

Loescher, 1902-12), II, 188, and Aldus Manutius, the younger, Orthographiae

ratio (Venice, 1566), pp.

1 4 2 - 3 .

77 Enquiries, pp. 4 3 ^ . It should be pointed o ut that scholars today believe the

archaisms of the inscription to be false, arguing that the co lumn was restored and

re-carved at the time of Aug ustus, He ikki Solin, Analecta epig raph ica , Arctos, 15

(1981) , 1 01 -2 3 (pp. 113—4), and

Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae,

eds Eva

Margareta Steinby et al, 6 vols (Rome, Quasar, 1993-2000), I , 309.

78 Enquiries, p. 4 4 .

79 John Ward, The Lives ofthe Professors of Gresham College: To W hich Is Prefixed

the Life of the Found er, Sir Thom as Gresham . With an Append ix, Consisting of

Orations, Lectures, and Letters, Writen by the Professors, with Other

apers

Serv-

ing to Illustrate the Lives (London, 1740), p. 74.

80 Eor a rece nt, if brief discussion of the politics of early modern language studies,

see Peter Burke,

Languages and Communities in Early Modem Europe

(Cam-

bridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.

1 6 0 - 3 .

81 O n Sp ense r s etym ologies, see Jo hn W. Dra per, Spe nser s Linguistics in

The

Present State of

Ireland ,

Modem Philology, 17 (1919-20) , 471-86, and Anne

Eogarty, Th e Co lonization of Langua ge: Narrative Strategy in A View ofthe Pre-

sent State of Ireland and T he Faerie Queene, Book VI , in Spenser and Ireland: An

Interdisciplinary Perspective, e d. Patricia Co ughlan (Cork, C ork University Press,

1989),

p p . 7 5 - 1 0 8 .

82 Spenser, View, pp . 18 , 37 , 40 -3 , 45 , 60 - 1 and 74 .

83 See the discussion of this etymology in David J. Baker, Off the Map: Charting

Uncertainty in Renaissance Irelan d , in Representing Ireland: Literature and the

Origins of Conflict, 1534-1660,

eds Brendan Bradshaw, An drew Hadfield and

Willy Maley (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 76-92 (pp.

8 7 -9 0 ) .

84 Spenser, View, p. 3 7 .

85 John Selden, for example, gives it in his magisterial Titles of Honour (London,

1614),

p . 2 4 1 .

86 Spenser, View, p. 3 7 .

87 Ibid., p. 6.

88 Ware himself poin ts out to the readers that Spenser s etymologies are full of good

reading; and doe shew a sound jud gem ent . Ibid., p. 6.

Address for Correspondence



Documents

Etymology, Names and the Search for Origins: Deriving the Past in Early Modern England