east-lothian-1924/05-017

Transcription

INTRODUCTION
TO
INVENTORY OF ANCIENT AND HISTORICAL MONUMENTS
AND CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE COUNTY OF EAST LOTHIAN

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

I.
EARLY HISTORY.

The counties of East, Mid, and West Lothian, otherwise known as
Haddington, Edinburgh and Linlithgow, occupy the southern shore of the
Firth of Forth as far as the river Avon, which separates the last named from
Stirlingshire. The original province of Lothian, however, took in a greater
area. Symeon of Durham, writing of an episode of 1125 and therefore con-
temporary with himself, refers to the Tweed as separating Northumbria and
Lothian (Loidam). A confirmation of Coldingham charters by David I. in
1126 specified a number of Berwickshire lands which are said to be in Lothian
(in Lodoneio). "Berwic in Lodoneis" appears in an English document in-
ferentially dated as of 1165-6. ¹ The name is thus established for the twelfth
century as far as the Tweed. When the district was acquired by the kingdom
of Scotia early in the previous century, it is recorded that the adversaries of
the Scots were from the region between the Tweed and the Tees (see p. xvii)
while Malcolm II. did not push his conquest beyond the former river, all
which again suggests that Lothian proper did not at that time reach farther
south than the Tweed.
This occasion (1018) gives the first occurrence of the name, which has not
yet been satisfactorily explained. ² An English historian early in the thirteenth
century, writing of events under 975 specifies "the whole land which in the
tongue of the country (patria lingua) is called Lothian (Laudian cf. p. xviii). ³
The patria in question is Lothian itself (cf. p. xxvii), and the specification of
that name in these terms suggests that it was local and that the people there
in general had a language other than that prevalent in Northumbria, and
therefore Celtic. ⁴

1 Eng. Hist. Rev. April 1913, p. 244.
2 See Note p. xviii.
3 Roger de Wendover (d. 1237) Chronica, Eng. Hist. Soc. vol. i., p. 416 ; cf. Matthew Paris
Chron. Maj. i., p. 468.
4 To the Gaelic writers the district was known as Saxonia, which probably included however
the parts south of the Tweed, cf. p. xvii. Hwætberht, English abbot of Wearmouth, in writing
to Pope Gregory II. speaks of himself as doing so de Saxonia. Bede's Hist. Abb. cap. 19.

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