Field-Names: An abbreviated corpus glossary complete with medieval picture

In case anyone is looking for it, the (very trimmed down) glossary specific to my thesis on medieval field-names in the English Midlands is right here.  I’ve included a picture that may or may not be of any help/interest, but I haven’t yet converted every OE (Old English) character that needs converting.  That’ll be tomorrow’s project.

Calendar page for July: Farm workers scything.

A glossary of p.n./f.n. elements from the corpus
æ þ ð ā ē ō ū ȳ Æ Þ Ð ī

æcer OE, amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day; ‘a plot of arable or cultivated land, a measure of land (an acre) which a yoke of oxen could plough in a day’;

ald OE (Angl), eald (kt, WSax), adj., ‘old’.

beonet OE ‘bent grass’

beorg, burh, berg (Barroacr’) OE ‘a hill, a mound’

blæc (blacan wk. obl.) OE adj., ‘black, dark-coloured, dark’

bōth ODan, ‘a booth, a temporary shelter’

botm, *boðm OE, ‘a bottom, a valley bottom’

brād (brādan wk. obl.) OE adj. ‘broad, spacious’

brēc OE (Angl, Kt), braēc (WSax), brēche ME, ‘breaking, breach, land broken up for cultivation’

brēr OE (Angl) ‘briar’

 

brōc OE, ‘a brook, a stream’

brōm OE ‘broom’

būr OE ‘a cottage, a dwelling’

burna OE, ‘a spring, a stream’

butte ME, ‘a strip of land abutting on a boundary’, also ‘a short strip or ridge at right angles to other ridges, a short strip ploughed in the angle where two furlongs meet’

cald OE (Angl), ceald (Kt, WSax), kaldr ON, cald, cold ME, adj., ‘cold’

clæg OE ‘clay, clayey soil’

clif (clifu, cliefu, cleofu nom.pl.) OE, klif ON, ‘a cliff, a bank’

cnoll OE ‘a hill-top, the summit of a large hill’, later ‘a knoll, a hillock’, freq. in f.ns.

cot neut. (cote dat.sg., cotu nom.pl.), cote fem. (cotan dat.sg., nom.pl.) (cotum dat.pl.) OE, ‘a cottage, a hut, a shelter, a den’

cress/cresse OE ‘cress’ v. caerse

croft OE ‘a small enclosed field’, dial. croft ‘a small enclosure of arable or pasture land’ and in the NCy often ‘such an enclosure near a house’

cros OIr, kross ON, cros late OE, ME, ‘a cross, the Cross’

crumb OE ‘crooked, twisted, bent’ (esp. in a river or stream); cramb OE ‘land in the bend of a river’

crymel OE, ‘a small piece (of land or water)’, ‘something crumbled’, possibly also in the later sense of ModE crumble ‘fine debris’.

dēop OE, djupr ON, adj., ‘deep’, especially with words for ‘valley’, ‘water’, and ‘ford’.

dīc OE, ‘a ditch’, was used in OE chiefly of ‘an excavated trench’

docce (doccan obl., doccena gen.pl.) OE, ‘dock, a dock’

dryge OE adj., ‘dry, dried up’

ecg OE, ‘an edge’, most often in p.ns. of ‘the sharp edge at the top of a hill, esp. an escarpment’

ende OE, aende (ESax), endi ON, ‘end, the end of something, the end of an estate, a district or quarter of a village or town’

eng ON, ‘meadow, pasture’

feld OE, ‘open country’ (see full entry EPNE)

flat, flot ON, ‘a piece of flat level ground’

fox OE, ‘a fox’

furlang, forlong OE, ‘the length of a furrow, a furlong, a piece of land the length of a furrow’

geard OE, ‘a fence, an enclosure, a yard, a courtyard’

græfe OE, ‘a grove, copse, thicket’

gráf, gráfa, gráfe OE, ‘a grove, copse’,

grēne (grénan wk. obl.), groenn ON, adj., ‘green, young, growing’

hæc(c) OE (Angl, WSax), hec(c) (Kt, Merc), ‘a hatch, a grating, a half-gate, a gate’

(ge)hæg OE, (ge)heg (Kt, Merc), hay ME, ‘a fence, an enclosure’

halh (hale dat.sg., halas, healas nom.pl., halum, healum dat.pl.) OE (Angl), healh (heale dat.sg.) (Kt, WSax), ‘a nook, a corner of land, a water-meadow’./ ‘a secluded hollow in a hill-side’ or ‘a small steep valley on the side of a larger one’, but most commonly ‘a remote narrow valley’

hālig (halgan wk.obl.) OE adj., ‘holy, sacred, dedicated to sacred use’

hall OE (Angl), heall (Kt, WSax), ‘a hall, a large residence, a manor house, a place for legal and other public business and in later dial. ‘a farm-house’

hangende OE pres.part., ‘hanging’

hēafod OE, ‘a head’, ‘the upper end or top of something, a hill, an eminence, the end of a ridge’, esp. when combined with topographical els. denoting ‘hill’ and the like; ‘a headland, a spit of land round which a river flows’

hēah OE ‘high’; ‘high, in lofty position’, ‘tall, long’, cliffs, banks, posts, etc.; ‘chief, important’ 2. ‘a high place, a height’

hlæfdige OE, levedi, lavedi, ladi ME, ‘lady, a nun, Our Lady’; in f.ns. it is used of land dedicated to the Virgin.

hlāw, hlaew OE, ‘a mound, a hill’; common literary contexts meaning ‘an artificial mound, a burial mound, a mound in which treasure is hidden’, also ‘hill, a conical hill resembling a tumulus’

hol holh, OE, hol ON, ‘a hole, a hollow’

holegn OE, ‘holly’

hors OE, ‘a horse’

hungor OE, ‘hunger, famine, usually as a term of reproach in allusion to ‘barren ground’

hwæ-te OE ‘wheat’

hwit OE adj., ‘white’

hyll OE, ‘a hill, a natural eminence or elevated piece of ground’

hyrst OE (Angl, WSax), herst (Kt), ‘a hillock, a copse’. The attested meanings of hyrst are: ‘ a hillock, a bank’, ‘ a copse, a wood, a wooded eminence’ and in ME ‘a sandbank’

intak ON, ‘a piece of land taken in or enclosed’

kjarr ON, ‘brushwood’

(ge)lād OE, ‘a water-course, a passage over a river or stream’
læ-s OE, ‘pasture, meadow-land’

land, lond OE, land ON, ‘land’. This el. has in p.ns. a variety of meanings of which the principal ones are: ‘a part of the earth’s surface (as distinct from water), earth, soil, dry land’; a tract of land of considerable extent’ as in county or regional names; ‘an estate or smaller tract of land’, which is no doubt the common one in p.ns.; ‘a strip of arable land in a common-field’

(lane, lone) lanu OE, ‘a lane, a narrow road’

lang (langan wk. obl.) OE adj., langr ON adj., ‘long’, in p.ns. usually means ‘extending over a great distance’

lēah OE masc., lēah OE fem. ‘a wood, a clearing in a wood’

leme ME, ‘an artificial water-course’

hlot OE, allotment, ‘a lot, a share, an allotment’; ‘a piece of land assigned by lot’

lȳtel, lytel, litel OE adj., litill ON adj., ‘little, small’

mæ-d (maedwe obl.sg., maedwa nom.pl., maedwum dat.pl.) OE (WSax), mēd (Angl, Kt), ‘a meadow’, orginally ‘a piece of meadowland kept for mowing’

mersc, merisc OE, ‘watery land, a marsh’

micel OE adj., ‘big, great’

middel (midlan wk.obl) OE adj., ‘middle’, midlest OE adj. sup ‘middlemost’

munuc OE, monke ME, ‘a monk’

myln, mylen OE (Angl, WSax), meln (Kt), ‘a mill’

park Ofr, ME, ‘an enclosed tract of land for beasts of the chase’

persone OFr, ME, ‘a parson, a beneficed cleric’

pie-2 OFr, ME, ‘a magpie’

pil-āte OE, ‘pill-oats’ cf. ME pilcorn.

pingel ME, ‘a small enclosure’

pise (pisan), pisu, peosu OE, ‘pease, peas’

ruh OE adj., ‘rough’

rydding OE, ‘a clearing’

sæ OE, *sa (EAngl), sáer ON, ‘a sea a lake’.

scēap OE (WSax), scēp (Angl, Kt, late WSax), ‘a sheep’

sīc OE, ‘a small stream, esp. one in a flat marshland;, sik ON, ‘a ditch, a trench’; cf. dial. sike, sitch. In p.ns. sic was often used of a stream that formed a boundary and so came to denote ‘a field, a piece of meadow along a stream’

smið ON, ‘a smith, a worker in metal’

solum, dat. pl. of sol ‘dirty place’, OE ‘mud, slough, a wallowing place’

spring, spryng OE, ‘a spring, a well, the source of a stream’

stān OE, ‘a stone, stone, rock’, has a variety of applications in p.ns. Its common meanings include: ‘rock, stone’ in allusion to the character of the ground, esp. when used as a first el. (almost with the adj. function ‘stony, rocky’

stede, styde OE, ‘a place, a site, a locality’.

stigel, -ol OE, ‘a stile, a place devised for climbing over a fence’, probably also on topographical grounds ‘a steep ascent’

stubbing*, OE adj., ‘a place where trees have been stubbed, a clearing’

swin OE, svin ON, ‘a swine, a pig’

topp OE, ‘top, the top of a bank or hill’

toft, topt (ON); archaeology of ancient building site

torr OE, ‘a rock, a rocky outcrop, a rocky peak’

tūn OE, ‘an enclosure, a farmstead, an estate, a village’, tún ON, ‘an enclosure, a farmstead’

þorn OE, ON, ‘a thorn-tree, the hawthorn’; cf. also blaec-, lús-.

wælla, waelle OE, (Merc) ‘a well, a spring’, also seen as wall, walle v. wella.

wall OE (Angl), weall (Kt, WSax), ‘a wall’

weg OE, ‘a way, a path, a road’, but not usually an urban road; it denotes a great variety of tracks, from one used by animals to a great Roman road like the Fosse Way or the ancient British track of Icknield Way.

wilig OE (Angl), welig (WSax), ‘a willow’.

wulf (wulfes gen.sg., wulfa gen.pl.) OE, ‘a wolf’

Part 2: Where’s the Library?

The hyperbolical account of my private-school teaching job: Part 2

One afternoon, before my optimism had waned and long after good sense had taken its leave, I asked permission to take my students to the local library where we could gather and conduct research for our history reports, and was met with the response that surely they would only use the opportunity to misbehave. In spite of the many, many similar statements I had overheard or received in my time here, I was dubmfounded. What kind of a response does one give to such a presumption? I was then asked: Haven’t they already been to the library? As though one visit in a child’s educational lifetime was sufficient. Her next query was: What could they need at the library that they couldn’t find online?

No. Library trip permission denied. Better to let them use the Internet. I had no words, but if I had, they would have been of the rational variety and therefore foreign to my principal. How could a trip to the library be a waste of time? And when is preference for the Internet over real, bound books ever really given? I thought I was in the Twilight Zone and I left the principal’s office with a minor migraine brought on by illogical and insupportable educational beliefs.

The students had, however, not long before this denied request, been encouraged to attend the field trip to Microsoft in Redmond. It was a field trip that had been discussed with the Math and Science teachers but that had (strangely enough) not reached the ears or email inboxes of the English/History and Logic teachers–that is, my husband and myself.  It seems we were somehow responsible for this oversight, and instead of an apology for the lack in communication were told we needed to be more flexible. It was, after all, Microsoft. One must show due respect. Even students who had no intention whatever of working there were bundled into the van and taken away. I was left subbing for the science teacher and my husband had wasted an afternoon prepping for a class he did not need to teach.

It was clear that reading, language, literature, or appreciation for any of these subjecs had not really the top priority and were, furthermore, culturally passé. STEM was the big thing now, and Engineering and Math were about to break out and make winners of us all. Art, though a cornerstone of classical learning, was relegated to an elective for the junior high or high school and was given the same credence, or even less credence than the before-school coding class. The sciences, including STEM, were the sexy subjects, and therefore got more air time and attention. Literature, on the other hand, held a certain degree of danger, possessed too much free thought, perhaps, to be given its due and given its head.

My subjects: writing, reading, discussion, were all crammed into one 50-minute period a day which was often borne into by delayed lunches, student council, or a variety of ‘pull-out’ reasons. Math, on the other hand, was never cancelled, even on half-days and was given a full hour to show it our allegiance. Anyone who was late to math had to have a good reason; anyone late to English (or History) was probably helping change a lightbulb and was summarily excused.

Part 1: Perils of Informality

The hyperbolical account of my private-school teaching job: Part 1

For a couple of years I worked for the small private Christian school here on the Island. Its name isn’t important, but its denominational association grew in significance the longer I taught there. The school was run by the Assemblies of God (AG) church and many of its denominational principles could be seen in the administrative decisions and in the overall structure of the school. One such principle was that of informality, of a kind of ‘pal’ or ‘buddy’ relationship that could be seen everywhere: in the emails, in the meetings, and even in the décor and use of space within the building itself. It was this infernal informality that ultimatey drove me to doubt every tenent of education I’d ever held and eventually got me, not exactly ‘fired’, but ‘let go’ from the institution. It is likely that my orthodox beliefs—both in theology and in education—also had something to do with it. But then, what is orthodox if not formal?

This pal-around school was also what is popularly known, with varying degrees of meaning, as a ‘Christian Classical school’ where—at least in theory, and in this instance, only in theory—principles of classical education are put to work. The principles of classicism are somewhat wide-ranging in this day and age, but essentially they operate on what is known as the Trivium, a laddered and multi-layered approach to learning that encompasses the stages of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

From the grammar stage, which is also called the ‘poll parrot’ stage because it involves lots of memorization and ‘parroting-back’ of information, one moves into the logic stage, in which one learns not merely fallacies and how to spot them, but also formal logic and what Aristotle meant by ‘argument’. One then rounds this out with the rhetoric stage wherein language becomes ever-more significant and the art of speaking is raised to an appreciated level. One begins to see the need for formality here, but for now we shall continue on without editorial.

These stages—grammar, logic, rhetoric—are roughly coordinated with the Elementary, Junior High and High School levels, respectively, but grammar, logic and rhetoric are, as one who has any experience with classical learning will attest, also stages within a subject, and form the framework for further growth in that subject. That is: even history has a ‘grammar’, as does art, music, and science. One will not be ready to move to the logic stage in anything without an understanding of its grammar, which includes vocabulary and terminology as well as the rudimentary forms of its outline or foundation. The rhetoric or discussion stage similarly depends upon the logic stage having been completed and more or less grasped, as no one wants to engage in dialogue with someone who cannot follow an argument or present a valid point.

So briefly—very briefly—those are the principles of classicism and they form and have formed the basis of scholarship in the West for centuries. It is the education even Tolkien and Lewis were given before they became Oxford and Cambridge Dons, so there’s something. It is only relatively recently that the ‘classical model’ was abandoned in favor of a more modernized, and one might even say progressive model that includes psychology, genre literature (sci-fi studies, for example), and film studies. Even shop and woodworking are more classical than one might at first imagine. But the classical model, as you will notice, places great emphasis on language—even in the maths and sciences—for each of these stages reflects an aspect of writing, speech, or thought. Grammar, logic, rhetoric: linguistically-based elements, to be sure, and vital if one is going to take this classical learning thing seriously.

And yet, at the classical school at which I worked, I rarely saw examples of this emphasis on language anywhere, even in language arts or English classes. There was no school library, something which to this day sends shock waves through my system, and what books there were at the school were often tucked away, or consciously stacked or carefully monitored within classrooms. As an aside, students were not allowed to read Harry Potter, despite the overwhelming number of classical references in each of its seven massive volumes. This decision was based on the Evangelical belief that Harry was about witches, and not about the battle between good and evil, ultimately won by a Christ-figure. But no matter. This deficiency baffled me, however, and I began to seek ways in which to surround my students with literature in spite of the obvious roadblocks before me.

I brought in my own volumes and collected copies of classics I’d found in the various thrift shops or cupboards around the school. I had a small bookshelf that looked, if not like a library, then at least like a solid collection. The anthology we used was massive, but I liked it, as it portrayed the weight of knowledge and contained an impressive and respectable collection of works from Gilgamesh to Sir Gawain. I would win everyone over with literature and good books. It was silly of me to think this way, I know, and even sillier to think anyone would understand, let alone condone these thoughts and actions, but I am not known for my good sense in regards to placating the illitarate, and so I continued my mission, not realizing I was being slowly beaten down by my own optimism and intelligence.

In presenting my plan for a 4-year high school Humanities curriculum the previous summer I had genuinely struggled to accurately convey the importance of reading, or the correlation of English to History to Art to Science. I had made charts and provided relevant materials. I had shown in my findings and research that the significance of mere exposure to the classics, such as The Odyssey, Beowulf, great poetry, and philosophical and theological writings was the basis of classical education and that it could be done, even at our small school. These ideas were accepted on the surface as good ideas, and ones that other classical schools embraced, but the more I talked, the smaller I felt, and when I was told that most of our students wind up going to Running Start after 10^th grade, I suspected my words were falling on deaf ears, but even I did not have eyes to see. I should have run—not walked!—to the nearest fire exit and barred the door behind me, but I have a miserable tendency to latch on and hang on to things pertaining to literature, even when those things happen to destroy that which I love.

It is now rather clear to me that language, including literature, simply possesses too much formality. It is not something that transfers well to ‘quips’ or looks good in a devotional journal. It is rather difficult to ‘sum up’ classical literature unless one has studied it quite thoroughly and has paid attention. Who understands a good Odysseus joke who does not know Odysseus?

September 19, 2011

Harvard?  Grad School?  What the heck?

It began last spring or early summer when I began to entertain the idea of a graduate degree in education. It was before we started looking for a house and I was rather itching for a new project (which the new house has since scratched. Thanks.). I looked at the HGSE website and grew tremendously excited about the idea, not exactly of Harvard, but of the degrees they offered there and the courses of study the school had to offer.

Then, life went on and I think I tossed out the papers I had printed, though they still could be in some education files somewhere at home in Snohomish (Ha! Projects.). Essentially I discarded the idea in favor of the belief that Harvard was just too far away, in all the major aspects: It was across the country and my life and family are here in the West; it is ghastly expensive and we just bought a house and have two kids in college; I am not the grade-and-GRE girl, never have been, and Harvard leads the way in ranks, which makes my chances of getting in quite incrementally small.

But two things happened, within days of each other, or perhaps within the same day, and it is these two things that have led me to my interest in Harvard (or shall I say, an Ed Degree altogether).

The first was a dream. Yes, literally. I was dreaming. I woke up that Wednesday or Thursday morning with something of a premonition in my mind. It was comforting and I didn’t care to disturb it and so I told no one what had unfolded in my head in the breaking hours of a cold SW Alaskan morning. In my dream I was at a school. In my dream it was clearly and unequivocally a college although it looked more like the Italian town of Spoleto. Somehow I knew it was Boston, I kept referring to it as Boston. Someone in the dream told me it was Boston and I was a bit surprised. Why would I be dreaming of Boston?

But I suppose the attachment makes some sense when I say that not long before I woke up I had a dream-conversation with a person whom I believe to have been my mother. It went like this:
Me: This is… Harvard.
Her: Yes.
That was it. And the way I said “This is Harvard” wasn’t a question; it was a realization. Her reply was exactly the same thing, with more emphasis, as if she were saying: Affirmative. This is Harvard. I had no idea what to make of it all.

Then, the next night, or that night, for nights run together here in Pedro Bay, I was sitting around reading Facebook posts and feeling as though my tether on my intellectual life was growing frail and about to falter. With such a tenuous tie to intellect I posted these two statements:
There seems to be nothing to say tonight. Perhaps that is a sign that I should listen, instead of speak.
And
I want to open my own school.
I expected nothing from either of them, as it is so rare that anyone besides my husband comments on anything I put up on the wretched site. But comments I did receive, and earnest ones at that. So earnest, in fact, that I took them for a good omen and have not looked back since.

Now, twenty-one days later, Harvard has propelled me to join mailing lists, read blog posts, begin research, and begin studying for the GREs. Ugh. Thanks, Harvard. But it has also prompted a certain amount of pragmatism, as I really don’t see myself a) moving to Cambridge and b) getting in.

So optimism + pragmatism = New School.

However, that is fodder for a future entry. Tonight I have analogies and linear geometry to study. Toute suite!