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I am a resident of Framfield and also a student at
university studying English Place Names. I am currently doing a project
covering 60 or so names in Sussex, of which Buxted is one. The
suggestion made by the local resident Jan Luthman about the etymology
of Buxted is interesting but not entirely correct.
She suggests that Buxted derives from the
"Anglo-Saxon words ‘baec’ and ‘stede’, meaning ‘stream’ and ‘place’. The
language of Anglo-Saxon Sussex and Kent was essentially Germanic, with
an overlay of Danish, and the word ‘baec’ survives today as the English
‘beck’, German ‘bach’ and Danish ‘baek’."
The 'stede' element is correct, meaning 'place'. However, the word 'baec'
in fact means something different in Old English, which was the language
of the Anglo-Saxons, it is spelled 'bæc' and means 'back, ridge'. The
words 'bæce' and 'bece' mean 'stream in a valley' and perhaps this is
what Jan is referring to, because our modern word 'beck' actually
derives from the Old Scandinavian word 'bekkr', meaning stream. It is
very very unlikely that an Old Scandinavian word would be found in
Sussex, as the Scandinavians invaded England from the North and moved
South, and the Anglo-Saxons invaded from the South East and moved
North. The Anglo-Saxon king at the time established a boundary between
the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons, called the Danelaw, and this boundary
was roughly the area to the North of a line drawn between London and
Chester.
The other problem with suggesting an etymology of 'bæce' or 'bece' is
that early spellings of Buxted do not support this etymology. The
following is taken from A Mawer and F M Stenton, English Place-Names
Society Volume VII, The Place Names of Sussex, Part II: The Rapes of
Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings, 1930 (London: Cambridge University Press)
p. 389:
Boxted’ 1199 Cur, Boxstude 1210-12 RBE, -stede 1278
Pat, 1390 IpmR, Bocsted(e), Bok- 1230 FF et passim to 1405 ImpR,
Boghsted 1308 Cl
Buksted(e), Bucs-, Bux- 1305 FF et passim, Baksted
1407 FF
Buxstyd t. Eliz Ct, Busted 1564 Deed, Bucksteed
1588 Holinshed
‘Place of beech-trees’, v. boc, stede.
This shows earlier spellings of Buxted dating from 1199, none of
which refer to the words 'bæce' or 'bece', but rather the Old English
word 'boc', meaning 'beech tree'. Therefore the EPNS have suggested the
meaning of beech trees.
However, this is only a suggested meaning, because the name could
have been coined any time after 449AD, so there is the possibility
that it could be derived from 'bæce' or 'bece' and just not been
preserved in the later spellings. However, it is very unlikely to have
come from 'baec' as Jan suggests.
Frankie Hammerton
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Gosh! How exciting! I’ve started a debate.
Many thanks to Frankie for taking the time and
trouble to put forward some very interesting points.
My hobby is Old English, not place names, so I was
coming at the issue from a different direction - coming forwards from
the past rather than reaching backwards from the present.
In looking for Old English words from which the
name ‘Buxted’ might reasonably have been derived, the ‘sted’ portion was
straightforward; the challenge was to identify a word that sounded like
‘Boc’, ‘Bak’, or ‘Buk’, and which might sensibly have been used to
identify a hamlet in a forest.
First, of course, one has to say that, since those
who first coined the name of our village have been dead for well over a
thousand years, we are inevitably engaged in a debate where a definitive
outcome is unlikely. However, I would make a few points:
1. Frankie is correct in stating that the Old
English word 'bæc' could mean 'back’ (as in ‘behind’). However, bæc
(and becc) also meant ‘beck’ or ‘brook’ - ‘bæce’ and ‘becce’ are simply
the dative (or ablative, if, like me, you learnt Latin in the 1950’s)
forms of bæc and becc, and mean ‘at a stream’ or ‘by a stream’ or,
indeed, ‘in a stream’ (which might explain Frankie's interpretation,
since being either at, by or in a stream would tend to imply also being
in a valley, although there were various words for ‘valley‘ in Old
English, such as ‘denu’, or ‘deneland’ (ie land in a valley), from which
is descended ‘dean’, a suffix of many modern English place names).
2. Frankie, interestingly, refers to 449AD.
Attached is a scan of the (Parker) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for that year.
(Copyright - (Fol.4b) from "The
Parker Chronicle and Laws", Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS.173, a
facsimile edited by Robin Flower and Hugh Smith, published in 1937 for
The Early English Text Society by Oxord University Press)
In the translation below, the section in (my) italics is identical in
both the Parker Chronicle of Winchester and the Laud Chronicle of
Peterborough, which latter was itself copied from the lost Chronicle of
Kent, borrowed from St Augustine’s in Canterbury. Sod’s law decrees that
this entry should have been written with uncharacteristically
unscholarly penmanship, which makes it difficult to read (well, it did
for me), but it translates loosely as follows:
“In this year Marcian (Mauricius) and Valentinian
succeeded to the kingdom, and reigned seven winters and in those days
Hengest and Horsa, invited by Wurtgern king of Britons, landed in
Britain at the place that is called Ypwinesfleot (Ebbsfleet, Kent).
At first to support the Britons, but later they fought against them. The
king commanded (them) to fight against the Picts, and they did so and
had victory wherever they came. They then sent to Angel, and ordered
them to send more assistance, and to be told of the worthlessness (‘weakness’
is perhaps a better word) of the Britons and the richness of the
land. Then they sent them more support. They came from three nations of
Germany; from Old Saxons, from Angles, from Jutes. From the Jutes
came the people of Kent and the people of the Isle of Wight, that is the
race which dwells in the Isle of Wight and the race amongst the west
saxons which is still called the race of the Jutes. From the Old Saxons
came the east saxons (Essex -JL), the south saxons
(Sussex - JL), and west saxons (Wessex - JL). From Angel,
which has since stood waste between the Jutes and the Saxons, came the
East Angles, Middle Angles, Mercians and all those north of the Humber
(Northumbria - JL).”
Real life was almost certainly not quite so neat
and tidy – there would already have been other influences on the
language of East Sussex and Kent, prior to 449AD, such as German troops
amongst the occupying Roman forces, along with trans-channel traders and
settlers. However, both versions of the Chronicle tell us that, broadly
speaking, Kent was settled by Jutes (ie Danes), and Sussex was settled
by Old Saxons (from north Germany next to Denmark) – in other words, the
language of East Sussex/Kent would have been subjected to a strong
German/Danish influence. Indeed, Celtic influence was effectively
extinguished (lots of debate as to why).
The Angles, who came from the area between Jutland
and Old Saxony (Schleswig-Holstein today), settled elsewhere, to the
north - in East Anglia, Mercia (approximately the Midlands of today),
and Northumbria.
3. The notion of an ‘Anglo Saxon’ people did not
appear until over four hundred years later, when King Ælfred (849-899)
chose to call himself ‘Rex Anglorum Saxonum’. And even here, events of
the time suggest King Ælfred’s title may have meant ‘King of the Saxon
Angles’, rather than ‘King of the Anglo Saxons’. Mercia, settled by
Angles, had been partitioned after its king, Burgred, had been driven
overseas by the Danes. East Mercia became part of the Danelaw, and was
ruled by Ceolwulf ll. West Mercia - ruled by Æthelred, who married King
Ælfred’s daughter, Æthelflæd - became part of Ælfred’s kingdom.
Ælfred’s title might thus have been intended to convey that he was ‘King
of the Saxon Angles’, as opposed to Ceolwulf ll, who was ‘King of the
Danish Angles’.
4. Given a strong German/Danish influence on
language within the East Sussex/Kent region, and the obvious linkage
between ‘bæc’ (Old English), ‘bach’ (modern German) ‘baek’ (modern
Danish) and ‘beck’ (modern English), the suggestion of ‘bæc’ as a word
sounding like ‘bok’, ‘bak’ or ‘buk’ does at least appear to make
linguistic and phonetic sense.
5. Which brings us to the etymology of Buxted
proposed by the EPNS. The Old English word spelt ‘boc’ did indeed mean
‘a beech tree’ (it also meant ‘book’, but we’ll leave that out).
However, choosing ‘beech’ or ‘beeches’ as the original meaning of Bak,
Buk or Bok involves illogicalities which the choice of ‘beck’ does not:
Ø
‘Boc’, singular, was pronounced with a long ‘o’.
Ø
The plural of ‘Boc’ - ‘Bec’ - was pronounced with a long
‘e’.
Ø
All the various historical spellings mentioned by Frankie
– Baksted, Bocsted(e), Boghsted, Bokstede, Boxstede, Boxstude, Boxted,
Bucksteed, Bucstede, Buksted(e), Busted, Buxstede, Buxstyd – have a
short first syllable vowel sound that is rather closer to ‘bæc’, ‘bach’,
‘baek’ and ‘beck’, than to the long vowel sounds of ‘boc’, ‘bec’, ‘buche’,
‘bøg’ and ‘beech’.
Ø
The name ‘the place of the beech trees’ would, in my
unscholarly view, have been of limited value as a means of identifying a
hamlet in the middle of a forest. It would be rather like calling a
modern day home ‘the house with cars outside’ – true, but hardly a
singular identity.
Apologies for what has turned out to be a rather
long-winded response. At least, if nothing else, it might give Frankie
an alternative proposal from an amateur dabbler to quote in his thesis.
Best wishes to all,
Jan
Jan Luthman
The Old Farmhouse
Buxted
East Sussex TN22 4JW
0207 553 9672
PS I'm not an English 'Janet', I'm a
Scandinavian 'Jan'.
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