The Septemvhmi, with its remarkable concentration of roads, is alone sufficient to
indicate
its local military impor- tance.
O'Hanlon - Lives of the Irish Saints - v3
" This seems to indicate a more distant situa- tion from Ireland, when St.
Patrick wrote, than Great Britain presented.
"3 It may be observed, that Dr. Lanigan does not attempt to identify, the two locali- ties, called Enon and Nempthur. I'he former he has regarded as being too insig- nificant, while the latter, he did not believe, had any existence, as a town, but rather as a pro"vince.
To prevent such a misconception, in the lessons for St. Patrick's Office, the cor- rector of the Rouen Breviary inserts : "In Britannia Gallicana ortum. " Seethe Bollan- dists* Commentarius Prtevius, sect, v. , at S. Patrick's Acts, tomus ii. , Martii xvii. , p. 522.
"^3 By Rev. Dr. Lanigan.
326 While Dr. Lanigan accounts for a
change, in the verbal structure, by consider- ing the usual transmutation of b into v, he overlooks the letter ;-, and its force. This
Tamanna was that which formerly applied toTherouenne,asnowcalled. See"Comi- tum Ten'anensium Annales Historici," Col- lectore Th. Turpin Paulinate. Ord. Predicat.
"8 After telling us, that St. Patrick was born at Nemthor, the author of his Second Life piofesses to give us the reason, wliy it
"
campus autem Taber- naculorum, ob hoc dictus est, eo quod in eo Romani exercitus quodam tempore tabern—a-
cula sua ibi statuernnt hyemali frigore. "
bore such a name,
"
The Third Life has almost the same words.
See cap. i. , p. 21 ; and, in substance, the
Fourth Life quite accords. See cap. i. , p. 35. The Sixth Life agrees. See cap. i. , p. 65.
^'"^ So understand all the ancient writers of St. Patrick's Acts, and the old Commen- tators on them.
^•'° See more on this subject, in Hadrian
Secunda Vita S. Patricii," cap. i. , p. 11.
"
Notitia Galliarum," at Gessoria'
"
Valesius,
cum and Tai-Dcnna Morinoiian.
="3' It may be objected, that "Tabernia
March 17. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 453
of Tours has called the inhabitants, by the denomination, Tarabannenses. ^^i Under the name, Civitas Morinorum, it has been frequently alluded to, as
having been a principal city, belonging to the Morini. ^sz Boulogne was also situated in this region,233 and it was so connected with Tarvanna,234 that both
places anciently formed only one episcopal See. Thus Jonas,23s -writing nearly twelve hundred years ago, calls Audomarus,^36 Bishop of Boulogne,^^? andofTarvana. ^38 Wemustadopt,notwithstanding,themeaningoftheold
this special investigation.
In St. Patrick's Confession, his father Calphurnius, or Calpornius, the Dea-
con, is said again to have been a priest of the town of Bonaven Taberniae. ^39
Near the town, it is thought, he had a small villa, called Enon,^*" where St.
Patrickbecameacaptive. ^^t Here,however,wefindneitheratown,norapro-
vince,calledNemthor,norAlcluit. Ithasbeensupposed,byDr. Lanigan,that
St. Patrick's probable reason for distinguishing Bonaven,^42 by the adjunct Tabernise, was, lest it might be confounded with the Italian Bononia, now
Bologna,orwithaBononia,inAquitain; as,inthesamemanner,toavoid
"
plainoftents;" and,itseemsthemostnaturalconclusion,tobedrawnfrom
biographical writers,
Campus Tabernise,"
*'
is a different name from Tarvenna. " Owing
to the usual commutation of b for v, how-
ever, and, vice versa, we might read " Ta- vernia. " Thus, Tarvenna was called by
"
some Tarabanna,"
°32 Malbrancq says, this capital of the Mo- rini got the name of Tarvanna, from a
prsetor Tarvannus, in the time of Augustus.
Hadrian Valesius, in the passage already cited.
^3** The old diocese of Terouanne con- tained 800 parishes, in the countries of Flanders, Artois, and the Boulannais.
^39 Piobus agrees with the Confession, ex-
cept that, according to Colgan's edition, for Bonavem Tabernia;, he has "devico Ban-
nave Tiburnia; regionis ;" and, he adds, that it was not far from the Western Sea, or Atlantic Ocean ' ' haud a mari
"
quod etiam ad circumjacens territorium sese
He writes, extendit. " He
^33 Bucherius maintains, that Boulogne was an ancient See, and that it had a bishop,
in the time of
at Belgium
Calpornium
his sons flourished. See "
num," lib. viii. , cap. 15.
Potiti Diaconem, quondam Presby-
Tarvannje nomen accepit,
quotes, cathedral,
from the frontis-
:
procul
of its old
Morinis Tarvana vocor praetore volente. " See " De Morinis," lib. ii. , cap. 4.
piece
this verse
:
occidental! ,
i. , cap.
i.
when Roma-
name, the transposition of a syllable, or of a letter, may have occurred. This has frequently
been admitted, in old words ; and, particu-
larly, in writing the names of places. The two first syllables, as often happens in old
-**' He
" :
Patrem habui
Constantine, or,
least,
says
"^3+ To account for a difference of
filium
teri ; qui fuit e vico Benaven Tabernia;
"
found, likewise, in other versions.
" Ex
" lib.
^•° The Armagh and Cotton MSS. have
simply eniin ; but, this is said to bear no correct meaning. Ware has it, Enon, and this is guessed to be the true reading.
^•^ We may easily suppose, that some errors of transcription might have crept into sius, at Gessoriacum. So we find, Linerensi Probus' text ; yet, as to Bannave, there is
records, are transposed. See Hadrian Vale-
for Lirhiensi, in an old tract on the Liturgy,
quoted by Ussher, p. 343. Nogesia, the name of a town, became Genosia ; Dun-
britton has been modified, into Uunbertane, Dunbarton, Dumbarton.
no material difference between it and Bona- vem. Ban might be used for Bon, (Baxter,
Glossar, &c. , at Bonium), and the final 7n, which has a sort of nasal termination, as it is still with the Portuguese, could be omitted, so as to write lor it Bonavem, or Bo-
^35 In his
"
Vita S. Eustacii. "
=3^ " —
He writes Bononi;^ et Tarvanensis nauen v and u being one and the same
letter Bonaue. Probus'
gionis," is thought worthy of notice, since it corresponds with what Dr. Lanigan has ad-
"
Travanensis regio. " See "Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. i. , chap, iii. , sect, vii. , and nn. 70, 71, 72, pp. 94 to 96. — -•*3 According to Mr. John Cashel Hoey—
who adopts this opinion of Dr. Lanigan the See of Boulogne was restored. See Dr. Rock entirely mistakes St. Patrick s
oppidi prcesulem. "
-37 Some writers have said, that the See of
Boulogne was first established, a. d, 1566. This is a mistake, founded upon a practice, introduced in the middle ages, of denomina- ting the See from Tarvanna or Terouanne alone, on account of its greater local dignity. But, after the destruction of Terou-
vanced, concerning
anne, by the Emperor Charles V. , in 1553,
or " " the Taburnise," meaning
villam enim — ubi (Enon) prope habuit, ego
in Confessio S. Patricii," cap. i. , sect. i. Villanueva's Edition, p. 184. Some verbal differences are to be
capturam decidi. "
addition of "re-
454
in his "Notitia word Gessoriacum.
Galliarum,"
"
at the
" of Palgrave's History
sius,
2t5 By Bullet, in his
tique. " See
"
Dictionnaire Cel- Memoires sur la Langue Cel-
tome ii.
'*^Seea. tAfn. Aven,Avon, On. Hid. ,
from " a Ail,
rock,"
and " a cliff. " Cluaide,
tique,"
LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS.
-
[March 17.
a similar confusion, the French call it, at present, Bolougne-sur-Mer,^43 jn
Picardy. The Romans knew it under the denomination of Gessoriacum.
However, about the reign of Constantine the Great, its Celtic name Bonaven,
or Bonaun, or otherwise Bonon, Latinized into Bononia, is said to have
become more general. ^44 Again, it has been authoritatively stated,^45 that
Am, or Aven,^46 signifies a river, in the Celtic language, and, therefore, the
town was so called, from its having been situated, at the mouth of a river. ^47
Bo7i " while or means a " river it has signifies, mouth," 07i, avon, ;" wherefore,
been observed,^^^ that Bononia can be no other than Bonavon,^^? or Bonaun ;
for, ave7i, ave/n, avo}i,^'^° and aim, are pronounced in a similar manner. As for the addition of Taberniae, it designates the district of Tarvanna, or Tar- venna, otherwise Tarabanna, which was a celebrated and an ancient city, not far removed from Boulogne. ^^i if Dr. Lanigan had been enabled to perfect the proof, and to follow it up, by local research and by the light lately cast on the geography of Roman Gaul, this matter should have come in a far more complete form, from his erudite pen, as Mr. John Cashel Hoey modestly observes ; but, failing the conditions, it became a fair subject for hisowndiscussion. Hesuggests,whatmustbethoughtveryremarkable,inthe neighbourhood of Boulogne, towards the close of the seventeenth century, an old tower was to be seen ; and, D'Anville, with other writers, has asserted, this was identical with a tower, erected by Caligula for a lighthouse, on the
northern coast of France. ^52 Eginhard speaks of Charlemagne repairing the Boulougne tower, which, even then, must have been of ancient construction.
It seems quite possible, the Pharos, or, turris arduns^ may not only be identical with the monument described ;^S3 but, that it may even have 'corre- sponded, with the Nemthor^54 of St. Patrick's Acts. Another consideration must be taken into account, that our Apostle is generally regarded, as having been Roman by descent, as likewise by his education, received in a province, where Roman civilization and government had long prevailed, where the Latin language was spoken, and where the privileges of the Roman Empire extended. Inlikemanner,hewasRomanbythepossessionofnobility, which he himself declares. Of this circumstance, his name affords a curious illustration. ^55 In addition, he was of Christian parentage, and yet a Celt of
Confession, in objecting, that a wilderness
must be sought for at this place. See his
work, "Did the Early Church of Ireland
acknowledge the Pope's Supremacy ?
answered in a Letter to Lord John
Manners," p. ix. The wilderness alluded
to lay between St. Patrick's landing-place,
after his exile, and where his friends dwelt.
«'
according to Mr. Hoey.
=5o Even in England, Avon has retained its
*44
maximiprincipatummut—atonomineBono- locality.
Gessoriacum Galli circa Constantini niam vocare coeperunt. " Hadrianus Vale-
-s^
"
-pp.
says,
period,
the
39, 104, 105, and tome iii. , p. 218.
'*'! Ibid. , tome i. , p. 55, at the word sumed the illustrious name of Patricius,
Boulogne. which by the conversion of Ireland has—been ''"
=*** Gallonim Bononia eodem pene est etymo, quasi dicas i9t7«-«f^« sive j^i'w-rtMW. " See Baxter, Glossar. AA. Britan. ad^^«/«/;/.
"49 Originally it may have been written Bononen, to signify Bononenscs Tabemice,
communicated to a whole nation. See "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," v. , vi.
=5* The great military importance of Bou- logne may be assumed, even before the
Celtic signification, and it means '"a river. " ^^^ UnderthemodernnameofTerouannc, the ruins of this place are even yet trace- able; while its name had been extended to a considerable district surrounding it, and ** Tarva- nensis regio," had been applied to this
thence, "pagus Tarbannensis," or,
See Suetonius, "^53 SeeSirFrancis
Normandy and of England," vol. ii. =5*Takingtheauthority of O'Brien's" Irish Dictionary," might not Ailcluide be formed
Vita Caligulse. "'
"At this
^^s Gibbon
meanest subjects of the Roman Empire as-
March 17. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS, 455
Britain, by blood. The flict, that the district between Boulogne and Amiens, about his time, had been inhabited by a clan, called Britanni, may have mis- led those writers, who supposed he must have been born in the island of Britain, as likewise those who held that, if born in France, he must have derivedhisoriginfromapartofit, subsequentlycalledbythenameofBrit- tany. Now, supposing, that Dr. Lanigan had rightly succeeded in his con- jecture, regarding Boulogne, we must endeavour to discover, whether other places, named in the Confession, in St. Fiach's Hymn, and in the old Acts, can be identified with localities, still existing, within a proper circumscription of the Roman military occupation, around that city. These must likewise bear a certain and an unquestionable antiquity, at least nearly approaching St, Patrick's time. ^56
The effort of Dr. Lanigan, to identify the Tabernise of Bonaven, or of the
supposed Boulogne, with Therouanne, is not a successful one, according to Mr. John Cashel Hoey. But, this latter writer holds, that it seems no very
difficult matter, to identify its site with Desvres,^57 which, to the eye and on
oldMaps,hasthevestigesofagreatRomanmilitaryposition. Itwasavast place of arms, and it has tracings of fortified walls, a fosse, with lines of circumvallation. Hard by, on the forest edge, are the Sept Voies, or Septon- vium. Herehasbeentracedthemeetingofsevengreatmilitaryroads,lead- ing from and to various other principal strongholds, which maintained the Roman power, throughout Northern and Western Europe. Any person, who carefully examines the Chart of Roman Roads in the Department, Pas de
as the Commission of —
Calais, published by Departmental Antiquities,^^^
cannot fail to
how this
obscur—
which had certainly
perceive,
present
e
village
nevertheless became at one
never been raised to the rank of a Roman city
time a great nucleus of Imperial power. The fragment of an ancient bridge
is still known, as the Potit de Ccesar.
The Septemvhmi, with its remarkable concentration of roads, is alone sufficient to indicate its local military impor- tance. There is one road, leading straight to Amiens ; another, that reaches the sea, by the mouth of the Canche stream ; another, that runs into the harbour of Boulogne ; one road joins the highways from Saint Omer, and from Tournehem, while it carries them on to Wissant,^59 and Sangate, the
period of which we treat. It was the point,
from which England had formerly been in-
vaded, in the time of Julius Ccesar. It was
the principal military Roman settlement, in
Northern Gaul. Julian the Apostate held
his head-quarters there, shortly before the
birth of St. Patrick. All around its situa-
tion, the surface is marked by roads and
mounds, which exhibit the peculiarities of
Roman construction. In a recent Essay, by
M. Quenson, an accomplished scholar of
Saint Omer, it has been stated, that eighty- Dyonnet. Carte No. 24. Paris, 1859, eight different works have been written, in
4to.
order to settle the site of the Portus
whence Cresar embarked to invade Britain.
No less than nineteen different localities
have been assigned, for this debarcation. ales. Arras : chez Topino, Libraire, 1840. M. de Laulcy wrote a work, since Mr.
Quenson published his Essay, and the latest
researches seem to have finally determined
the controversy, on this point. The absorb-
ing interest and great ability, with which
this difficult problem has been investigated,
in a country where such zealous and learned
scholars are to be found, leaves an inquirer
Itius,
somewhat still to glean, in places which are farther inland from the famous Port, they have so long laboured to identify, and espe- daily as referring to our subject, that most engages the Irish ecclesiastical historian's attention.
=^57 Its position, relative to Boulogne, will be found, on the " Atlas de lllistoire du Consulat et de I'Empirc," dresse et dessine sous la direction de M. Thiers, par M. M. A. Dufour et Duvotenay, grave sur acier par
^ss gee " Monumentaledu De- Statistique
partementduPasdeCalais. " Publieepar la Commission des Antiquites Departement-
^=9 Portus Itius, or Witsand, has not yet supplanted the ancient Gessoriacum. In the early part of the Roman era, and until the end of the reign of Claudius, it was the accustomed point of transit, between Gaul and England, for the embarkation of the Romans. See a critique, in the Gentleman's Magazine, for June, 1857, on Sir Francis
456 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [March 17.
supposed Portus Itius'^^" and Portus Inferior ; a fifth road extended to Ter-
vanna and Arras the sixth ran to Taruanna while the seventh reached ;;
Saint Omer. ^^' Not unconscious of its difficulties, Mr. John Cashel Hoey approaches the etymology of Desvres, which in the Latin of the middle ages,^^^ is spoken of as Vivernia Bononiensis. -^'^ The name, Desvres, has evidently undergone some strange, yet traceable, variations and modifica- tions. ^^* Its first appearance, as a French word, is Desurennes. *^s This
Palgrave's England. "
''
History of Normandy and of
that conflict of consonants, which has re- sulted in the present high polish of Acade- mic French. I may mention one or two instances, to show how little violence I do to French philology in identifying the Diver- nia Bononiensis of the middle ages with the Tabernse of Boulogne. Saverne, in Lorraine, is well known to be the Taberme Triboroco- 7tini. It was known, in a semi-Germanic form, as Rlsas Tabern. Gradually the sibi- lant ss of the first word invaded the second ; and it has long settled down into one word, intheformofSaverne. TheTaberna:Rhc- nana;, on the other hand, retained the hard b instead of converting it into v, as inevitably happened in the south, and instead changed the T into Z, Rhein-Zabren. In ages which had no hesitation in changing the pure dental T into the sibilant dentals S or Z, it
willnotbeconsidered — thatitwas suiprising,
*°° The Reviewer already quoted shows, that Sir Francis Palgiave has identified Portus Itius with Wissan, now standing in- land, at a distance of about four miles from the Sael water. Froissart speaks of Wissant, as a large town, in 1346. The Reviewer refers, also, to an able article on this sub- ject, by Mr. George Long, in Dr. Smith's " Dictionary of Ancient Geography. " See vol. ii. , pp. 99, 100.
26t " Would so many roads," enquires Mr. John Cashel Hoey, "communicating with places of such military importance, have been concentrated by a race of such a centralizing talent as the Romans, any- where except at the site of a great city, or a
great camp ?
the
On the ancient maps, indeed, which lies between Desvres
countiy,
and Boulogne, along the Liane, is simply marked Castritm"
sometimes changed into D jHiredentalsound. Indeedofallthetrans- mutations of letters, those of d and t, and those of V and b, are notoriously the most common. The Irish d, says O'Donovan,
'^' See *' Notice historique sur la villa de
Desurene, Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres. " ParM. d'Ordre. Boulogne,1811.
^3 There is the epitaph of a churchman, bom in the place, and which says on his be- half :—
Me Molinet pcperit Divernia Bono- niensis. "
A local historian, Baron d'Ordre, speaks of the place, as " Desurene, Divei-nia, au- jourd' hui Desvres. "
264 <(j)- jg j^ very curious fact," remarks
' never has such a hard sound as the English *
Mr. John Cashel Hoey, who reasons very "
' quently substituted for rt'. ' Again, it
should be remarked that in ancient Irish MSS. consonants of the same organ are very frequently substituted for each other, and that where the ancients usually wrote /, c, t, the moderns write b, q, d. ' Decline the Irishwordlad,father. ItbecomesEidiid, his father ; £i thdd, her father ; by nhdd, my father. We carry the tendency into English. The mistake is one from which certain parts of Ireland, as well as certain parts of France, are not exempt even to the present day ; and, in Munster, one may still
LillibuUero was written, the letter d occasionally used where the tongue intended t or th. Nor is this vagary of speech con- fined to the Irish. Why do the Welsli say Tafyd for David ? It is the most frequently
recurring of that systematic permutation of consonants, which is one of the chief difii- culties of the Cymric tongue. The Welsh d and t turn about and wheel about in their mysterious alphabet without the slightest scruple. In German, the convertibility of the same letters is also very marked. The (jerman says das, for that, danl; for thanks, durst, for thirst ; and again Teujel, lor devil, ianz, for dance, theil, for dial. "
^^"5 "II la nom de n'y pas 50 ans, que
ingeniously on etymological afhnities, that in England the Roman camps seem to have
"
Gaul the Taberna; is the name which gene-
nerally adhered to them. Lanigan says, and correctly, so far as I have been able to dis- cover, that there is no trace of a Roman station called Tabcrncc in England, while the afhx Chester is the most common in its topography. In England, it may be said the Romans encamped : in France, the Taberna; meant a more settled and familiar residence, as familiar as the Caserne of the Empire. It would be interesting to inquire whether as many cities in France do not de- rive their origin from these military stations, as England has of Chesters. But the student who attempts this task will l)e sure to find the Latin word almost def;\ced be-
yond power of recognition, by the etymolo-
maltreatment which it has sustained in
been always known as
Castra," while in
gical
dJ Again, in ancient writings, t is fre-
liear, as in the times when the ballad of ''
tlie other only
March 17. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 457
seems to have been derived, from Desvres sur Enna, or Desvres, upon the ancientFhiviusEnna^^^oftheRomans,andnowcalledtheLiane. This particular stream flows past Boulogne, giving its name to a little village, Enna,^^7 built near the forest. By derivation, however, only the first two
letters of the original word, Desvres, are left. How do they disappear, it may be asked, or why do they re-appear, in the modern form of the word ? What may have been its original name, also, is a matter for historic investiga- tion. About eight miles distant from Desvres, and towards the north, within the military circumscription, of which it is the centre, a river, called the Em, or Hem, flows by a village, Tournehem,^^^ having a great antiquity. This, Mr. Hoey thinks, may be identical with the Nemptor, or Emtor, of St. Patrick's Lives. In the ordinary geographical dictionaries, we find it recorded, that Julius Csesar slept at Tournehem, while on his way to embark for that well- known event, in his military career, the invasion of Britain. ^^s This town now contains a Roman arch, with the ruins of a Roman tower. From the latter circumstance, this village, likewise, derives its name, Tournehem, or, as it was written in Malbrancq's time, Tur-n-hem. The tower, in conjunction with the river, is thought to show tlie derivation of the word, at a glance. But, the exigencies of Irish verse, in St. Fiach's Hymn, itis said, simplycaused their trans- position. Now,regardingthecommutationsoflettersinFrench,theDictionary —of the Academy -7° and that of Bescherelle^? ' lay down this principle very plainly
that / is a letter, which requires a lingual and dental effort, to pronounce like
Desvres a prevalu sur celui de Desurenne
anne ct de Tournehem," Saint Omer, 1830. Both M. Collet and Pere Malbrancq, how- ever, overlook the obvious derivation of the word—though both note the name of the river, which flows through the town, and which M. Collet calls "la riviere de Hem ou de Saint Louis. "
-*9 M. H. Piers, in the "Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de la Morinie,"
"
Cesar apres s'etre empare des forteresses de la contree s"y rcndit de Therouanne, Sithieu et Tourne- hem, I'an 55 ou 56 avant I'ere vulgaire, pour subjuguer la Grande Bretagne. " In the same volume, there is an interesting paper, by M. Pigault de Beaupre, on the Castle of Tournehem, which, he says, was partially rebuiltbyBaldwinII. , CountofGuines,in 1 1 74, and it continued to be a principal residence of the Dukes of Burgundy, at so late a date as 1435. I^^t, the vastness an—d
solidity of the works, which he describes some of them subterranean roads, evidently usedfo—rcommunicationwithotherfortified
indicate their Roman cha- works clearly —
racter. Baldwin a prince far in advance of his age—seemstohaveattemptedtorevive Roman ideas, and to rebuild Roman works, wherever he found them within his domi- nions. The castle of Hames, near Calais, which he rebuilt, and which he ceded to the English, as part of the ransom for King John of France, was, also, as M. Pigault de Beau- pre shows, of Roman construction.
que cette ville avait toujours porte aupara-
—"
vant. " M. L. . Cousin, Memoires de
la
Societe des Antiquaires de la Morinie," vol. iv. , p. 239. JNI. Cousin's papers, on Mon- thulin and Tingry, in the Transactions of this Society, are in general accord, with what has been said about the ancient military im- portance of the whole district around Des- vres.
266 gy Malbranque, its Latin name has been so written.
^^7 That we may presume to identify St. Patrick's Enon, with this undoubtedly
Roman Enna, is thought warrantable, when such a similarity and coincidence of place and circumstance survive so many centuries.
Thus, the locality, Enon, has been inter- ""
Saint Omer, 1834, says,
preted River House," or River Lodge," Irom En7i "a habitation," and On, "a river. " See Bullet, at Eiin.
-^^ '*
Ce lieu existait lorsque les legions
romaines penetrerent dans la Morinie, I'an de Rome 697, ou 57 ans avant I'ere vulgaire, et consistait aiors en un chateau fort garni de tours, d'ou est venu, selon Malbrancq, la de- nomination de Tournehem, du latin a Ttirn- bus. Cesar s'empara de ce chateau et y fit quelque sejour pour I'avantage de sa cava- lerie. Environ deux siecles et demi apres, c'est ^ dire en 218, Septime-Severe, autre empereur remain, fit camper dans le voisi- nage de Tournehem (sur la montagne de Saint Louis) une partie de son armee destinee pour une expedition contre la Grande Bi'e-
=70 See
"
Dictionnaire de 1' Academic
Dictionnaire Na.
tagne, q—u'il effectua glorieusement la nieme Frangaise. " ""
"^^
annee. " P. Collet's Notice Historique See Bescherelle,
de Saint Omer, suivi de celles de Therou- tional," Piiris, 1857.
4S8 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [March 17.
d, its correlative, weaker and softer. With such a letter, it is frequently con- founded, not alone in the German dialects, but in the greater number of languages. In Latin, this letter t is frequently substituted for d : thus, attidit for adtitlit. Formerly, Latin writers had set^ apiit, qiiot, haiit, instead of sed, aptid, qitod, haud. ^T^ Some of our Irish writers had interpreted the word
Neimtur,
to mean "
Holy Tower," thus,
Neim "
holy,"
and
Tur,
" tower
;"
until the late Professor Eugene O'Curry concluded, when compiling his valu-
able Catalogue of those Irish Manuscripts, existing in the British Museum, and
after a minute examination of a Manuscript, which is supposed to be the
oldest copy of St. Fiech's Hymn in existence, that the word has been mis-
spelled,^73 and should really be written, Emtur. ^? '* Other Manuscript Lives
of St. Patrick have Emtor, Eptor,^75 Emptor and Empter. ''^ However, as
Mr. John Cashel Hoey observes, the n, was not merely inserted, as Mr.
O'Curry imagined, to fill up a hiatus in the line ; but, it was obviously a part of it, and a copulative, quite as common in Celtic words, as de is found in
modern French. Besides, it has precisely the same meaning. ^77 In addition, a modern writer of St. Patrick's Life has explained Nemthur, by Holy Tours,
i. e. , the city of Tours, in France. Thence, he concludes, also, that our Irish Apostlehadbeenanativeofthatc\\. y. ^^^ However,thisinferencecanhardly be reconciled with the supposition, that St. Patrick's family lived very near the sea, nor can it accord with some other important circumstances, which will be shown, in a subsequent part of this Life. ^^g The existence of such a town or village as Nemthor^^° is not believed, by Dr. Lanigan ; still, he thinks, it may be resolved, by a series of changes, into Nevthur, Nephthur, or Nepthur,^^' from Irish vocables. He supposes it to have been a province or territory, well known, at the time when St. Fiach's Hymn had been com- posed ; and, he proceeds to show, that it comprised an extensive tract, be-
"
Life of St. Patrick,'' chap, v. , vi. This is thought the more pro- bable, as his assumed relative, St. Martin, was Bishop of Tours. However, it cannot be made to agree, with the text of St. Patrick's Confession. That city, in our saint's time, was so respectable and cele- brated, that had the Irish Apostle been a native of it, nothing could have been more
^'^ The conversion of v into b is even
more common. We find a familiar illustra-
tion of this cliange, in the old Latin name
for Ireland. As almost every student knows,
our island was variously written, Ibemia,
Ivemia, Hibernia, Juvernia, and lernia.
However, the English word Tavern, which
is exactly derived from the Latin Tabcntce,
is a still more apposite illusU-ation, as re-
gards the present enquiry. The intermediate
vowel swayed in sound, with those conso-
nants, which enclosed it. As the primary
Latin t changed into the softer and feebler d,
and the b into v, the intermediate a lost its
full force. Mediaeval Latin melts it into an
7, in the word Divernia. Again, the modern easily expressed. Nor would there have
French form, Desvres, brings it back, to- wards its place, at the head of the alphabet. Nor does it run the whole vowel gamut, as from Ibernia to Juvernia.
been any necessity for adding the name of the district, such as Tabicrnia. Neither could such a city as Tours have been deno- minated viats. Besides, Tours was never
^" It is stated, that N is but a prefix comprised, in any part of Armorica ; nor
introduced, to fill a hiatus in the text, while Emtur is the proper verbal form. This word, then, means, not Holy Tower, but a
tower, belonging to some place or person, indicated by the word Em.
could it be referred to that province, for it lay at too great a distance from the sea.
^t^ " His- See Dr. Lanigan's Ecclesiastical
tory of Ireland," vol. i. , chap, iii. , sect, vi. ,
and nn. 55, 56, pp. 91, 92.
-^ is deemed to be for Colgan responsible,
a mistranslation of its meaning.
^^' When Jocelyn spells Nempthor or Emptlior, with /, in the " Sexta Vita S.
Patricii," cap. i. , xi. . Dr. Lanigan says he should have omitted the letter in.
'^^ It is said to be even so of our Breviaries.
spelled,
in some
-T= In one Manuscript, this is said to have been in Provence, France.
-76 See nn. 226, 227, 233, 234, in the First Chapter of this Life.
^^ " Ballynamuck, for example," says Mr.
"3 It may be observed, that Dr. Lanigan does not attempt to identify, the two locali- ties, called Enon and Nempthur. I'he former he has regarded as being too insig- nificant, while the latter, he did not believe, had any existence, as a town, but rather as a pro"vince.
To prevent such a misconception, in the lessons for St. Patrick's Office, the cor- rector of the Rouen Breviary inserts : "In Britannia Gallicana ortum. " Seethe Bollan- dists* Commentarius Prtevius, sect, v. , at S. Patrick's Acts, tomus ii. , Martii xvii. , p. 522.
"^3 By Rev. Dr. Lanigan.
326 While Dr. Lanigan accounts for a
change, in the verbal structure, by consider- ing the usual transmutation of b into v, he overlooks the letter ;-, and its force. This
Tamanna was that which formerly applied toTherouenne,asnowcalled. See"Comi- tum Ten'anensium Annales Historici," Col- lectore Th. Turpin Paulinate. Ord. Predicat.
"8 After telling us, that St. Patrick was born at Nemthor, the author of his Second Life piofesses to give us the reason, wliy it
"
campus autem Taber- naculorum, ob hoc dictus est, eo quod in eo Romani exercitus quodam tempore tabern—a-
cula sua ibi statuernnt hyemali frigore. "
bore such a name,
"
The Third Life has almost the same words.
See cap. i. , p. 21 ; and, in substance, the
Fourth Life quite accords. See cap. i. , p. 35. The Sixth Life agrees. See cap. i. , p. 65.
^'"^ So understand all the ancient writers of St. Patrick's Acts, and the old Commen- tators on them.
^•'° See more on this subject, in Hadrian
Secunda Vita S. Patricii," cap. i. , p. 11.
"
Notitia Galliarum," at Gessoria'
"
Valesius,
cum and Tai-Dcnna Morinoiian.
="3' It may be objected, that "Tabernia
March 17. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 453
of Tours has called the inhabitants, by the denomination, Tarabannenses. ^^i Under the name, Civitas Morinorum, it has been frequently alluded to, as
having been a principal city, belonging to the Morini. ^sz Boulogne was also situated in this region,233 and it was so connected with Tarvanna,234 that both
places anciently formed only one episcopal See. Thus Jonas,23s -writing nearly twelve hundred years ago, calls Audomarus,^36 Bishop of Boulogne,^^? andofTarvana. ^38 Wemustadopt,notwithstanding,themeaningoftheold
this special investigation.
In St. Patrick's Confession, his father Calphurnius, or Calpornius, the Dea-
con, is said again to have been a priest of the town of Bonaven Taberniae. ^39
Near the town, it is thought, he had a small villa, called Enon,^*" where St.
Patrickbecameacaptive. ^^t Here,however,wefindneitheratown,norapro-
vince,calledNemthor,norAlcluit. Ithasbeensupposed,byDr. Lanigan,that
St. Patrick's probable reason for distinguishing Bonaven,^42 by the adjunct Tabernise, was, lest it might be confounded with the Italian Bononia, now
Bologna,orwithaBononia,inAquitain; as,inthesamemanner,toavoid
"
plainoftents;" and,itseemsthemostnaturalconclusion,tobedrawnfrom
biographical writers,
Campus Tabernise,"
*'
is a different name from Tarvenna. " Owing
to the usual commutation of b for v, how-
ever, and, vice versa, we might read " Ta- vernia. " Thus, Tarvenna was called by
"
some Tarabanna,"
°32 Malbrancq says, this capital of the Mo- rini got the name of Tarvanna, from a
prsetor Tarvannus, in the time of Augustus.
Hadrian Valesius, in the passage already cited.
^3** The old diocese of Terouanne con- tained 800 parishes, in the countries of Flanders, Artois, and the Boulannais.
^39 Piobus agrees with the Confession, ex-
cept that, according to Colgan's edition, for Bonavem Tabernia;, he has "devico Ban-
nave Tiburnia; regionis ;" and, he adds, that it was not far from the Western Sea, or Atlantic Ocean ' ' haud a mari
"
quod etiam ad circumjacens territorium sese
He writes, extendit. " He
^33 Bucherius maintains, that Boulogne was an ancient See, and that it had a bishop,
in the time of
at Belgium
Calpornium
his sons flourished. See "
num," lib. viii. , cap. 15.
Potiti Diaconem, quondam Presby-
Tarvannje nomen accepit,
quotes, cathedral,
from the frontis-
:
procul
of its old
Morinis Tarvana vocor praetore volente. " See " De Morinis," lib. ii. , cap. 4.
piece
this verse
:
occidental! ,
i. , cap.
i.
when Roma-
name, the transposition of a syllable, or of a letter, may have occurred. This has frequently
been admitted, in old words ; and, particu-
larly, in writing the names of places. The two first syllables, as often happens in old
-**' He
" :
Patrem habui
Constantine, or,
least,
says
"^3+ To account for a difference of
filium
teri ; qui fuit e vico Benaven Tabernia;
"
found, likewise, in other versions.
" Ex
" lib.
^•° The Armagh and Cotton MSS. have
simply eniin ; but, this is said to bear no correct meaning. Ware has it, Enon, and this is guessed to be the true reading.
^•^ We may easily suppose, that some errors of transcription might have crept into sius, at Gessoriacum. So we find, Linerensi Probus' text ; yet, as to Bannave, there is
records, are transposed. See Hadrian Vale-
for Lirhiensi, in an old tract on the Liturgy,
quoted by Ussher, p. 343. Nogesia, the name of a town, became Genosia ; Dun-
britton has been modified, into Uunbertane, Dunbarton, Dumbarton.
no material difference between it and Bona- vem. Ban might be used for Bon, (Baxter,
Glossar, &c. , at Bonium), and the final 7n, which has a sort of nasal termination, as it is still with the Portuguese, could be omitted, so as to write lor it Bonavem, or Bo-
^35 In his
"
Vita S. Eustacii. "
=3^ " —
He writes Bononi;^ et Tarvanensis nauen v and u being one and the same
letter Bonaue. Probus'
gionis," is thought worthy of notice, since it corresponds with what Dr. Lanigan has ad-
"
Travanensis regio. " See "Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. i. , chap, iii. , sect, vii. , and nn. 70, 71, 72, pp. 94 to 96. — -•*3 According to Mr. John Cashel Hoey—
who adopts this opinion of Dr. Lanigan the See of Boulogne was restored. See Dr. Rock entirely mistakes St. Patrick s
oppidi prcesulem. "
-37 Some writers have said, that the See of
Boulogne was first established, a. d, 1566. This is a mistake, founded upon a practice, introduced in the middle ages, of denomina- ting the See from Tarvanna or Terouanne alone, on account of its greater local dignity. But, after the destruction of Terou-
vanced, concerning
anne, by the Emperor Charles V. , in 1553,
or " " the Taburnise," meaning
villam enim — ubi (Enon) prope habuit, ego
in Confessio S. Patricii," cap. i. , sect. i. Villanueva's Edition, p. 184. Some verbal differences are to be
capturam decidi. "
addition of "re-
454
in his "Notitia word Gessoriacum.
Galliarum,"
"
at the
" of Palgrave's History
sius,
2t5 By Bullet, in his
tique. " See
"
Dictionnaire Cel- Memoires sur la Langue Cel-
tome ii.
'*^Seea. tAfn. Aven,Avon, On. Hid. ,
from " a Ail,
rock,"
and " a cliff. " Cluaide,
tique,"
LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS.
-
[March 17.
a similar confusion, the French call it, at present, Bolougne-sur-Mer,^43 jn
Picardy. The Romans knew it under the denomination of Gessoriacum.
However, about the reign of Constantine the Great, its Celtic name Bonaven,
or Bonaun, or otherwise Bonon, Latinized into Bononia, is said to have
become more general. ^44 Again, it has been authoritatively stated,^45 that
Am, or Aven,^46 signifies a river, in the Celtic language, and, therefore, the
town was so called, from its having been situated, at the mouth of a river. ^47
Bo7i " while or means a " river it has signifies, mouth," 07i, avon, ;" wherefore,
been observed,^^^ that Bononia can be no other than Bonavon,^^? or Bonaun ;
for, ave7i, ave/n, avo}i,^'^° and aim, are pronounced in a similar manner. As for the addition of Taberniae, it designates the district of Tarvanna, or Tar- venna, otherwise Tarabanna, which was a celebrated and an ancient city, not far removed from Boulogne. ^^i if Dr. Lanigan had been enabled to perfect the proof, and to follow it up, by local research and by the light lately cast on the geography of Roman Gaul, this matter should have come in a far more complete form, from his erudite pen, as Mr. John Cashel Hoey modestly observes ; but, failing the conditions, it became a fair subject for hisowndiscussion. Hesuggests,whatmustbethoughtveryremarkable,inthe neighbourhood of Boulogne, towards the close of the seventeenth century, an old tower was to be seen ; and, D'Anville, with other writers, has asserted, this was identical with a tower, erected by Caligula for a lighthouse, on the
northern coast of France. ^52 Eginhard speaks of Charlemagne repairing the Boulougne tower, which, even then, must have been of ancient construction.
It seems quite possible, the Pharos, or, turris arduns^ may not only be identical with the monument described ;^S3 but, that it may even have 'corre- sponded, with the Nemthor^54 of St. Patrick's Acts. Another consideration must be taken into account, that our Apostle is generally regarded, as having been Roman by descent, as likewise by his education, received in a province, where Roman civilization and government had long prevailed, where the Latin language was spoken, and where the privileges of the Roman Empire extended. Inlikemanner,hewasRomanbythepossessionofnobility, which he himself declares. Of this circumstance, his name affords a curious illustration. ^55 In addition, he was of Christian parentage, and yet a Celt of
Confession, in objecting, that a wilderness
must be sought for at this place. See his
work, "Did the Early Church of Ireland
acknowledge the Pope's Supremacy ?
answered in a Letter to Lord John
Manners," p. ix. The wilderness alluded
to lay between St. Patrick's landing-place,
after his exile, and where his friends dwelt.
«'
according to Mr. Hoey.
=5o Even in England, Avon has retained its
*44
maximiprincipatummut—atonomineBono- locality.
Gessoriacum Galli circa Constantini niam vocare coeperunt. " Hadrianus Vale-
-s^
"
-pp.
says,
period,
the
39, 104, 105, and tome iii. , p. 218.
'*'! Ibid. , tome i. , p. 55, at the word sumed the illustrious name of Patricius,
Boulogne. which by the conversion of Ireland has—been ''"
=*** Gallonim Bononia eodem pene est etymo, quasi dicas i9t7«-«f^« sive j^i'w-rtMW. " See Baxter, Glossar. AA. Britan. ad^^«/«/;/.
"49 Originally it may have been written Bononen, to signify Bononenscs Tabemice,
communicated to a whole nation. See "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," v. , vi.
=5* The great military importance of Bou- logne may be assumed, even before the
Celtic signification, and it means '"a river. " ^^^ UnderthemodernnameofTerouannc, the ruins of this place are even yet trace- able; while its name had been extended to a considerable district surrounding it, and ** Tarva- nensis regio," had been applied to this
thence, "pagus Tarbannensis," or,
See Suetonius, "^53 SeeSirFrancis
Normandy and of England," vol. ii. =5*Takingtheauthority of O'Brien's" Irish Dictionary," might not Ailcluide be formed
Vita Caligulse. "'
"At this
^^s Gibbon
meanest subjects of the Roman Empire as-
March 17. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS, 455
Britain, by blood. The flict, that the district between Boulogne and Amiens, about his time, had been inhabited by a clan, called Britanni, may have mis- led those writers, who supposed he must have been born in the island of Britain, as likewise those who held that, if born in France, he must have derivedhisoriginfromapartofit, subsequentlycalledbythenameofBrit- tany. Now, supposing, that Dr. Lanigan had rightly succeeded in his con- jecture, regarding Boulogne, we must endeavour to discover, whether other places, named in the Confession, in St. Fiach's Hymn, and in the old Acts, can be identified with localities, still existing, within a proper circumscription of the Roman military occupation, around that city. These must likewise bear a certain and an unquestionable antiquity, at least nearly approaching St, Patrick's time. ^56
The effort of Dr. Lanigan, to identify the Tabernise of Bonaven, or of the
supposed Boulogne, with Therouanne, is not a successful one, according to Mr. John Cashel Hoey. But, this latter writer holds, that it seems no very
difficult matter, to identify its site with Desvres,^57 which, to the eye and on
oldMaps,hasthevestigesofagreatRomanmilitaryposition. Itwasavast place of arms, and it has tracings of fortified walls, a fosse, with lines of circumvallation. Hard by, on the forest edge, are the Sept Voies, or Septon- vium. Herehasbeentracedthemeetingofsevengreatmilitaryroads,lead- ing from and to various other principal strongholds, which maintained the Roman power, throughout Northern and Western Europe. Any person, who carefully examines the Chart of Roman Roads in the Department, Pas de
as the Commission of —
Calais, published by Departmental Antiquities,^^^
cannot fail to
how this
obscur—
which had certainly
perceive,
present
e
village
nevertheless became at one
never been raised to the rank of a Roman city
time a great nucleus of Imperial power. The fragment of an ancient bridge
is still known, as the Potit de Ccesar.
The Septemvhmi, with its remarkable concentration of roads, is alone sufficient to indicate its local military impor- tance. There is one road, leading straight to Amiens ; another, that reaches the sea, by the mouth of the Canche stream ; another, that runs into the harbour of Boulogne ; one road joins the highways from Saint Omer, and from Tournehem, while it carries them on to Wissant,^59 and Sangate, the
period of which we treat. It was the point,
from which England had formerly been in-
vaded, in the time of Julius Ccesar. It was
the principal military Roman settlement, in
Northern Gaul. Julian the Apostate held
his head-quarters there, shortly before the
birth of St. Patrick. All around its situa-
tion, the surface is marked by roads and
mounds, which exhibit the peculiarities of
Roman construction. In a recent Essay, by
M. Quenson, an accomplished scholar of
Saint Omer, it has been stated, that eighty- Dyonnet. Carte No. 24. Paris, 1859, eight different works have been written, in
4to.
order to settle the site of the Portus
whence Cresar embarked to invade Britain.
No less than nineteen different localities
have been assigned, for this debarcation. ales. Arras : chez Topino, Libraire, 1840. M. de Laulcy wrote a work, since Mr.
Quenson published his Essay, and the latest
researches seem to have finally determined
the controversy, on this point. The absorb-
ing interest and great ability, with which
this difficult problem has been investigated,
in a country where such zealous and learned
scholars are to be found, leaves an inquirer
Itius,
somewhat still to glean, in places which are farther inland from the famous Port, they have so long laboured to identify, and espe- daily as referring to our subject, that most engages the Irish ecclesiastical historian's attention.
=^57 Its position, relative to Boulogne, will be found, on the " Atlas de lllistoire du Consulat et de I'Empirc," dresse et dessine sous la direction de M. Thiers, par M. M. A. Dufour et Duvotenay, grave sur acier par
^ss gee " Monumentaledu De- Statistique
partementduPasdeCalais. " Publieepar la Commission des Antiquites Departement-
^=9 Portus Itius, or Witsand, has not yet supplanted the ancient Gessoriacum. In the early part of the Roman era, and until the end of the reign of Claudius, it was the accustomed point of transit, between Gaul and England, for the embarkation of the Romans. See a critique, in the Gentleman's Magazine, for June, 1857, on Sir Francis
456 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [March 17.
supposed Portus Itius'^^" and Portus Inferior ; a fifth road extended to Ter-
vanna and Arras the sixth ran to Taruanna while the seventh reached ;;
Saint Omer. ^^' Not unconscious of its difficulties, Mr. John Cashel Hoey approaches the etymology of Desvres, which in the Latin of the middle ages,^^^ is spoken of as Vivernia Bononiensis. -^'^ The name, Desvres, has evidently undergone some strange, yet traceable, variations and modifica- tions. ^^* Its first appearance, as a French word, is Desurennes. *^s This
Palgrave's England. "
''
History of Normandy and of
that conflict of consonants, which has re- sulted in the present high polish of Acade- mic French. I may mention one or two instances, to show how little violence I do to French philology in identifying the Diver- nia Bononiensis of the middle ages with the Tabernse of Boulogne. Saverne, in Lorraine, is well known to be the Taberme Triboroco- 7tini. It was known, in a semi-Germanic form, as Rlsas Tabern. Gradually the sibi- lant ss of the first word invaded the second ; and it has long settled down into one word, intheformofSaverne. TheTaberna:Rhc- nana;, on the other hand, retained the hard b instead of converting it into v, as inevitably happened in the south, and instead changed the T into Z, Rhein-Zabren. In ages which had no hesitation in changing the pure dental T into the sibilant dentals S or Z, it
willnotbeconsidered — thatitwas suiprising,
*°° The Reviewer already quoted shows, that Sir Francis Palgiave has identified Portus Itius with Wissan, now standing in- land, at a distance of about four miles from the Sael water. Froissart speaks of Wissant, as a large town, in 1346. The Reviewer refers, also, to an able article on this sub- ject, by Mr. George Long, in Dr. Smith's " Dictionary of Ancient Geography. " See vol. ii. , pp. 99, 100.
26t " Would so many roads," enquires Mr. John Cashel Hoey, "communicating with places of such military importance, have been concentrated by a race of such a centralizing talent as the Romans, any- where except at the site of a great city, or a
great camp ?
the
On the ancient maps, indeed, which lies between Desvres
countiy,
and Boulogne, along the Liane, is simply marked Castritm"
sometimes changed into D jHiredentalsound. Indeedofallthetrans- mutations of letters, those of d and t, and those of V and b, are notoriously the most common. The Irish d, says O'Donovan,
'^' See *' Notice historique sur la villa de
Desurene, Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres. " ParM. d'Ordre. Boulogne,1811.
^3 There is the epitaph of a churchman, bom in the place, and which says on his be- half :—
Me Molinet pcperit Divernia Bono- niensis. "
A local historian, Baron d'Ordre, speaks of the place, as " Desurene, Divei-nia, au- jourd' hui Desvres. "
264 <(j)- jg j^ very curious fact," remarks
' never has such a hard sound as the English *
Mr. John Cashel Hoey, who reasons very "
' quently substituted for rt'. ' Again, it
should be remarked that in ancient Irish MSS. consonants of the same organ are very frequently substituted for each other, and that where the ancients usually wrote /, c, t, the moderns write b, q, d. ' Decline the Irishwordlad,father. ItbecomesEidiid, his father ; £i thdd, her father ; by nhdd, my father. We carry the tendency into English. The mistake is one from which certain parts of Ireland, as well as certain parts of France, are not exempt even to the present day ; and, in Munster, one may still
LillibuUero was written, the letter d occasionally used where the tongue intended t or th. Nor is this vagary of speech con- fined to the Irish. Why do the Welsli say Tafyd for David ? It is the most frequently
recurring of that systematic permutation of consonants, which is one of the chief difii- culties of the Cymric tongue. The Welsh d and t turn about and wheel about in their mysterious alphabet without the slightest scruple. In German, the convertibility of the same letters is also very marked. The (jerman says das, for that, danl; for thanks, durst, for thirst ; and again Teujel, lor devil, ianz, for dance, theil, for dial. "
^^"5 "II la nom de n'y pas 50 ans, que
ingeniously on etymological afhnities, that in England the Roman camps seem to have
"
Gaul the Taberna; is the name which gene-
nerally adhered to them. Lanigan says, and correctly, so far as I have been able to dis- cover, that there is no trace of a Roman station called Tabcrncc in England, while the afhx Chester is the most common in its topography. In England, it may be said the Romans encamped : in France, the Taberna; meant a more settled and familiar residence, as familiar as the Caserne of the Empire. It would be interesting to inquire whether as many cities in France do not de- rive their origin from these military stations, as England has of Chesters. But the student who attempts this task will l)e sure to find the Latin word almost def;\ced be-
yond power of recognition, by the etymolo-
maltreatment which it has sustained in
been always known as
Castra," while in
gical
dJ Again, in ancient writings, t is fre-
liear, as in the times when the ballad of ''
tlie other only
March 17. ] LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. 457
seems to have been derived, from Desvres sur Enna, or Desvres, upon the ancientFhiviusEnna^^^oftheRomans,andnowcalledtheLiane. This particular stream flows past Boulogne, giving its name to a little village, Enna,^^7 built near the forest. By derivation, however, only the first two
letters of the original word, Desvres, are left. How do they disappear, it may be asked, or why do they re-appear, in the modern form of the word ? What may have been its original name, also, is a matter for historic investiga- tion. About eight miles distant from Desvres, and towards the north, within the military circumscription, of which it is the centre, a river, called the Em, or Hem, flows by a village, Tournehem,^^^ having a great antiquity. This, Mr. Hoey thinks, may be identical with the Nemptor, or Emtor, of St. Patrick's Lives. In the ordinary geographical dictionaries, we find it recorded, that Julius Csesar slept at Tournehem, while on his way to embark for that well- known event, in his military career, the invasion of Britain. ^^s This town now contains a Roman arch, with the ruins of a Roman tower. From the latter circumstance, this village, likewise, derives its name, Tournehem, or, as it was written in Malbrancq's time, Tur-n-hem. The tower, in conjunction with the river, is thought to show tlie derivation of the word, at a glance. But, the exigencies of Irish verse, in St. Fiach's Hymn, itis said, simplycaused their trans- position. Now,regardingthecommutationsoflettersinFrench,theDictionary —of the Academy -7° and that of Bescherelle^? ' lay down this principle very plainly
that / is a letter, which requires a lingual and dental effort, to pronounce like
Desvres a prevalu sur celui de Desurenne
anne ct de Tournehem," Saint Omer, 1830. Both M. Collet and Pere Malbrancq, how- ever, overlook the obvious derivation of the word—though both note the name of the river, which flows through the town, and which M. Collet calls "la riviere de Hem ou de Saint Louis. "
-*9 M. H. Piers, in the "Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de la Morinie,"
"
Cesar apres s'etre empare des forteresses de la contree s"y rcndit de Therouanne, Sithieu et Tourne- hem, I'an 55 ou 56 avant I'ere vulgaire, pour subjuguer la Grande Bretagne. " In the same volume, there is an interesting paper, by M. Pigault de Beaupre, on the Castle of Tournehem, which, he says, was partially rebuiltbyBaldwinII. , CountofGuines,in 1 1 74, and it continued to be a principal residence of the Dukes of Burgundy, at so late a date as 1435. I^^t, the vastness an—d
solidity of the works, which he describes some of them subterranean roads, evidently usedfo—rcommunicationwithotherfortified
indicate their Roman cha- works clearly —
racter. Baldwin a prince far in advance of his age—seemstohaveattemptedtorevive Roman ideas, and to rebuild Roman works, wherever he found them within his domi- nions. The castle of Hames, near Calais, which he rebuilt, and which he ceded to the English, as part of the ransom for King John of France, was, also, as M. Pigault de Beau- pre shows, of Roman construction.
que cette ville avait toujours porte aupara-
—"
vant. " M. L. . Cousin, Memoires de
la
Societe des Antiquaires de la Morinie," vol. iv. , p. 239. JNI. Cousin's papers, on Mon- thulin and Tingry, in the Transactions of this Society, are in general accord, with what has been said about the ancient military im- portance of the whole district around Des- vres.
266 gy Malbranque, its Latin name has been so written.
^^7 That we may presume to identify St. Patrick's Enon, with this undoubtedly
Roman Enna, is thought warrantable, when such a similarity and coincidence of place and circumstance survive so many centuries.
Thus, the locality, Enon, has been inter- ""
Saint Omer, 1834, says,
preted River House," or River Lodge," Irom En7i "a habitation," and On, "a river. " See Bullet, at Eiin.
-^^ '*
Ce lieu existait lorsque les legions
romaines penetrerent dans la Morinie, I'an de Rome 697, ou 57 ans avant I'ere vulgaire, et consistait aiors en un chateau fort garni de tours, d'ou est venu, selon Malbrancq, la de- nomination de Tournehem, du latin a Ttirn- bus. Cesar s'empara de ce chateau et y fit quelque sejour pour I'avantage de sa cava- lerie. Environ deux siecles et demi apres, c'est ^ dire en 218, Septime-Severe, autre empereur remain, fit camper dans le voisi- nage de Tournehem (sur la montagne de Saint Louis) une partie de son armee destinee pour une expedition contre la Grande Bi'e-
=70 See
"
Dictionnaire de 1' Academic
Dictionnaire Na.
tagne, q—u'il effectua glorieusement la nieme Frangaise. " ""
"^^
annee. " P. Collet's Notice Historique See Bescherelle,
de Saint Omer, suivi de celles de Therou- tional," Piiris, 1857.
4S8 LIVES OF THE IRISH SAINTS. [March 17.
d, its correlative, weaker and softer. With such a letter, it is frequently con- founded, not alone in the German dialects, but in the greater number of languages. In Latin, this letter t is frequently substituted for d : thus, attidit for adtitlit. Formerly, Latin writers had set^ apiit, qiiot, haiit, instead of sed, aptid, qitod, haud. ^T^ Some of our Irish writers had interpreted the word
Neimtur,
to mean "
Holy Tower," thus,
Neim "
holy,"
and
Tur,
" tower
;"
until the late Professor Eugene O'Curry concluded, when compiling his valu-
able Catalogue of those Irish Manuscripts, existing in the British Museum, and
after a minute examination of a Manuscript, which is supposed to be the
oldest copy of St. Fiech's Hymn in existence, that the word has been mis-
spelled,^73 and should really be written, Emtur. ^? '* Other Manuscript Lives
of St. Patrick have Emtor, Eptor,^75 Emptor and Empter. ''^ However, as
Mr. John Cashel Hoey observes, the n, was not merely inserted, as Mr.
O'Curry imagined, to fill up a hiatus in the line ; but, it was obviously a part of it, and a copulative, quite as common in Celtic words, as de is found in
modern French. Besides, it has precisely the same meaning. ^77 In addition, a modern writer of St. Patrick's Life has explained Nemthur, by Holy Tours,
i. e. , the city of Tours, in France. Thence, he concludes, also, that our Irish Apostlehadbeenanativeofthatc\\. y. ^^^ However,thisinferencecanhardly be reconciled with the supposition, that St. Patrick's family lived very near the sea, nor can it accord with some other important circumstances, which will be shown, in a subsequent part of this Life. ^^g The existence of such a town or village as Nemthor^^° is not believed, by Dr. Lanigan ; still, he thinks, it may be resolved, by a series of changes, into Nevthur, Nephthur, or Nepthur,^^' from Irish vocables. He supposes it to have been a province or territory, well known, at the time when St. Fiach's Hymn had been com- posed ; and, he proceeds to show, that it comprised an extensive tract, be-
"
Life of St. Patrick,'' chap, v. , vi. This is thought the more pro- bable, as his assumed relative, St. Martin, was Bishop of Tours. However, it cannot be made to agree, with the text of St. Patrick's Confession. That city, in our saint's time, was so respectable and cele- brated, that had the Irish Apostle been a native of it, nothing could have been more
^'^ The conversion of v into b is even
more common. We find a familiar illustra-
tion of this cliange, in the old Latin name
for Ireland. As almost every student knows,
our island was variously written, Ibemia,
Ivemia, Hibernia, Juvernia, and lernia.
However, the English word Tavern, which
is exactly derived from the Latin Tabcntce,
is a still more apposite illusU-ation, as re-
gards the present enquiry. The intermediate
vowel swayed in sound, with those conso-
nants, which enclosed it. As the primary
Latin t changed into the softer and feebler d,
and the b into v, the intermediate a lost its
full force. Mediaeval Latin melts it into an
7, in the word Divernia. Again, the modern easily expressed. Nor would there have
French form, Desvres, brings it back, to- wards its place, at the head of the alphabet. Nor does it run the whole vowel gamut, as from Ibernia to Juvernia.
been any necessity for adding the name of the district, such as Tabicrnia. Neither could such a city as Tours have been deno- minated viats. Besides, Tours was never
^" It is stated, that N is but a prefix comprised, in any part of Armorica ; nor
introduced, to fill a hiatus in the text, while Emtur is the proper verbal form. This word, then, means, not Holy Tower, but a
tower, belonging to some place or person, indicated by the word Em.
could it be referred to that province, for it lay at too great a distance from the sea.
^t^ " His- See Dr. Lanigan's Ecclesiastical
tory of Ireland," vol. i. , chap, iii. , sect, vi. ,
and nn. 55, 56, pp. 91, 92.
-^ is deemed to be for Colgan responsible,
a mistranslation of its meaning.
^^' When Jocelyn spells Nempthor or Emptlior, with /, in the " Sexta Vita S.
Patricii," cap. i. , xi. . Dr. Lanigan says he should have omitted the letter in.
'^^ It is said to be even so of our Breviaries.
spelled,
in some
-T= In one Manuscript, this is said to have been in Provence, France.
-76 See nn. 226, 227, 233, 234, in the First Chapter of this Life.
^^ " Ballynamuck, for example," says Mr.
