The English Element

The earliest place-names created by the Anglo-Saxons were not originally place-names in the strict sense of the word; they were folk-names; later, the district came to be called by the name of the tribe or people living there. Essex, Middlesex and Sussex really mean ‘the East, Middle and South Saxons’ respectively. These names were then used of the kingdoms they established and now survive as the names of counties. East Anglia is an artificial name. It was originally Eastengle ‘the East Angles’, comprising two distinct peoples, ‘the North Folk’ and ‘the South Folk’, who occupied the counties now known as Norfolk and Suffolk. Such names are well known on the Continent. The German Franken, Preussen and Sachsen, originally ‘the Franks, Prussians and Saxons’, came to mean Franconia, Prussia and Saxony. In France, Amiens, Arras, Rheims and Soissons derive directly from the Gaulish tribal-names Ambiani, Atrebates , Remi and Suessiones. The name of the Jutes, who settled not only in Kent but also in the Isle of Wight and southern Hampshire, was, according to Florence of Worcester, still preserved after the Norman Conquest in the New Forest, ‘which in the tongue of the English is called Ytene ’. It is found also in the tenth-century name of Bishopstoke (Ha) as Æt Yting Stoce and in Eadens in East Meon (Ha), Ytedene 1263, Iteden 1453, where both institutions and archaeology have Jutish affinities.