Friday 27th July, 2007
Which language was spoken in Wigan in the 11th century?
The Domesday Book was compiled in 1086 by William the Conqueror. Although it was written in Latin, it used local words to describe social status and land measurement.
It can be used, therefore, as evidence of the languages used in particular areas in the 11th century.
A feature of the entries for the land between the Ribble and the Mersey, is the simultaneous use of words with the same meaning but from different languages.
Here are some of them:
- hundred (Old English) a subdivision of a county. ("The Oxford Local and Family History");
- wapentake, (Old Norse) the Danelaw equivalent of a hundred ("The Oxford Local and Family History");
- hide (OE) land which a team of oxen could plough in a year, ("Shorter Oxford Dictionary");
- carucate (ON) as much land as could be tilled by one plough in a year, ("Shorter Oxford Dictionary");
- thegn (OE) freeman. Held land in return for military service. ("The Oxford Local and Family History");
- dreng (ON) a free tenant, especially in ancient Northumbria ("Shorter Oxford Dictionary").
This shows quite clearly, that in the area we now know as South Lancashire, words from at least two different languages were used. They were Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, and Old Norse, used by Norse settlers who came to the area from Ireland in the 10th century.
We can narrow the area further by looking at the words used in the entry for the Neweton Hundred to which Wigan belonged.
The fact that the Domesday entry for Neweton uses both "hide" and "carucate" suggests that Old English and Old Norse were in use in the hundred.
It does, however, use the Old Norse term "dreng". This suggests a stronger Norse influence than in the neighbouring hundreds of West Derby and Salford where the Old English word "thegn" is used instead.
We can narrow the field still further and look at the entry which most historians think is a reference to Wigan. i.e:
"The church of that manor had 1 carucate of land."
It can be seen that the Old Norse term carucate is used - further evidence that in Wigan, the Norse influence was stronger that the Anglo-Saxon. Furthermore, the place-name, Scholes, a district of Wigan, is derived from the Old Norse word "skali", meaning "hut".
There is a further Norse influence to be found in some of Wigan's street names. Millgate, Standishgate, Wallgate, Hallgate fan out from the old Market Square in the centre of Wigan. All four street names are formed from the Norse element "gata" which means street, thoroughfare or way:
- Standishgate: the way to Standish:
- Wallgate: the way to the well, (Old English wala means well):
- Millgate: the way to the Mill (in medieval times there was a corn mill on the Scholes side of the River Douglas):
- Hallgate: the way to Wigan Hall where the rector, who was also the lord of the manor, lived.
A common misconception must be noted here. The element, gate is often mistakenly thought to mean a gate in the town walls. This is an easy assumption to make - especially when applied to Wallgate. However, the correct term for a fortified entrance to a walled town is barbican or bar - think of Micklegate bar in York.
Yet more evidence of a strong Norse influence is the use of Norse Christian names such as Stainulf, Thurstan and Siward in the area until as late as the 13th century.
Conclusions
It seems that the language spoken in Wigan in the 11th century was based largely on Old Norse, the language of the settlers who came from Ireland in the early 10th century.
It is likely that Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, who arrived in the 6th - 9th centuries, also strongly influenced the way people spoke.
Just a thought: many words originally of Old English or Old Norse derivation must still be used as dialect words in the version of English which is spoken today by many Wiganers.
That seems a good basis for a future web page.