Scandinavian Settlement in Britain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Scandinavian Settlement in Britain - Essay Example The Danish settlement of the territory of Five Boroughs was mainly considered simply and solely for their military character and the settlements were considered as results of the settling of the members of the army. Stenton and many others considered the hybrid names arose when the Danish army divided the land when they chose it for settlement. There was little consideration for the immigration angle. The historical significance of the Grimson-Hybrid, a term which has been given to those place names in which the first element is a Scandinavian personal name and the second element is Old English tus, is interpreted by Sir Frank Stenton and Dr. F. T. Wainright. Stenton pointed out their distribution in Nottignhamshire, their geographical positions, their historical background and suggested that it is unlikely that the villages with such names denoted new settlements of the Danes, but it is possible that they denoted acquirement of English villages by the Danish owner when the Danish Army divided out the land which it has chosen for settlement. But he argued that it does not mean that the English peasantry had been desettled by the Danish lords. He further argued that name of those villages were influenced by the local circumstances like the relative number of Englishmen and Danes lived thereby. Dr. Wainright, while accepting this theory pointed out that they are representative of an early phase of Scandinavian settlement. ... Wainright agreed to an argument put forward by Ekwall that there may have been many Danes where the hybrids occur, but there was also a powerful English element in the local population. Wainright felt that the Crimson-hybrids represented the movement of Danes from their initial settlements into English populated areas and where they met and mingled with them. Wainright argued that linguistically the Danes were strong enough to influence but not strong enough to dominate the English. He cites example of the linguistic balance illustrated by names, which appear with -bi in Domesday Book, but later changed to -ton to substantiate his argument. However Professor Hugh smith suggested that the names of the new Danish owners of those villages replaced those of the disposed English owners. Mr. Kenneth Cameron added one more dimension while agreeing to Stenton's argument that is of choice of site. He gave examples of Dove and Trent, which were on excellent agricultural land. Mr. P. H. Sawyer, challenging the theory of importance of the Grimston-hybrids as evidence for Scandinavian settlement, argued that Men of English descent also borne Scandinavian personal names in England and it can not be construed from the hybrid names that they are evidence of Scandinavian settlement. He was true in this context. In the history of English it is seen that Scandinavian personal names were adopted into general use and their use does not necessarily prove the racial origin of the men and women who bore them. To negate Sawyer's argument, it can be demonstrated that Grimston-hybrids fall into well defined topographical patterns and that they do show correlations to other names in the same areas. It also can be demonstrated that they are not