Viking Migration and Settlement in East Anglia: The Place-Name Evidence

By David Boulton

This book shows how analysis of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in their landscape contexts can provide crucial new evidence of differing processes of Viking migration and settlement in East Anglia between the late ninth and eleventh centuries.

The place-names of East Anglia have until now received little attention in the academic study of Viking settlement. Similarly, the question of a possible migration of settlers from Scandinavia during the Viking period was for many years dismissed by historians and archaeologists – until the recent discovery by metal-detectorists of abundant Scandinavian metalwork and jewellery in many parts of East Anglia. David Boulton has synthesised these two previously neglected elements to offer new insights into the processes of Viking settlement.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in East Anglia. It examines their different categories linguistically and explores the landscape and archaeological contexts of the settlements associated with them, with the aid of GIS-generated maps. Dr Boulton shows how the process of Viking settlement was influenced by changes in rural society and agriculture which were then already occurring in East Anglia, such as the late Anglo-Saxon expansion of arable farming and the associated recolonisation of the inland clay plateau. These developments resulted in patterns of place-name formation which differ significantly from some of the previously accepted, orthodox interpretations of how Scandinavian-influenced place-names (especially those containing the bý and thorp elements, and the ‘Grimston-hybrids’) came into being in the Danelaw.

In view of these discrepancies, David Boulton proposes an innovative, hypothetical model for the formation of the Scandinavian-influenced place-names in East Anglia, which explores differing patterns and phases of Viking settlement in the region and the possible pathways of migration that preceded them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Sep 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781914427268

David Boulton

David Boulton was born and brought up in Suffolk, and has lived in Ipswich for most of his adult life. After a successful career managing a family business involved in the production and distribution of educational programmes, he returned to the academic study of medieval history, which has been a lifelong interest. He was awarded an MA with Distinction in Medieval Studies at the University of Nottingham, and then completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia in 2020 on the Scandinavian place-names of East Anglia. He is currently undertaking further research in this field.

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Viking Migration and Settlement in East Anglia

The Place-Name Evidence

David Boulton

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Contents

Corpus of place-names available online

List of figures and tables

Abbreviations

Conventions and terminology

Acknowledgements

1.Introduction

The evolving scholarship of Scandinavian place-names and Viking settlement

Aims and methodologies

Structure of the book

2.The historical and archaeological context

Outline historical narrative from documentary sources

The archaeological evidence

Conclusion

3.The linguistic and geographical context

The linguistic context

The geographical context

Developments in rural society

Conclusion

4.Place-names in -bý

The bý-names of Flegg

Remaining bý-names in East Anglia outside Flegg

Discussion

Conclusion

5.Place-names in -thorp

Linguistic analysis

Geographical and archaeological context

Discussion

Conclusion

6.Place-names containing other Scandinavian-influenced generics

Place-names in -toft

Other ON habitative generics

Place-names containing ON topographical generics

Conclusion

7.Hybrid place-names

Use of the tūn generic

Place-names containing the OE tūn generic compounded with non-anthroponymic ON specifics

Place-names containing the OE tūn generic compounded with ON personal names (the ‘Grimston-hybrids’)

Place-names containing ON specifics compounded with OE generics other than tūn

Conclusion

8.A migrationary perspective

Correlations between place-name types and the chronology of settlement-formation

Local connections between Scandinavian-influenced place-names

A broader pattern of Viking settlement

A possible geographical and historical context for Viking settlement

A possible migrationary model of Viking settlement

9.Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Corpus of place-names available online

A comprehensive corpus or database of all the Scandinavian-influenced place-names discussed in this book is available online, on the website hosted by the Archaeology Data Service:

David Boulton (2023) Corpus of Scandinavian-Influenced Place-Names in East Anglia (York, Archaeological Data Service [distributor])

https://doi.org/10.5284/1106988

The corpus provides detailed information for each Scandinavian-influenced place-name identified in the three counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. This includes its early name-forms and probable etymology, the geographical and soil-type context of its associated settlement, together with any further known historical and archaeological information regarding its formation and development in the late Anglo-Saxon period. The methodological function and use of the corpus in this book, and the PhD on which it is based, is discussed on page 10.

List of figures and tables

List of figures

1.1Principal Scandinavian-influenced place-names in England

1.2Scandinavian-influenced place-names in East Anglia

2.1Indicators of the extent of Scandinavian influence in East Anglia

2.2Scandinavian-influenced place-names and Viking jewellery finds around Norwich

3.1Distribution of current place-names in -ham throughout England

3.2Distribution of current place-names in -ton throughout England

3.3Superficial and bedrock geology of East Anglia, plus distribution of Scandinavian-influenced place-names

3.4Distribution of soil-types in East Anglia, plus Scandinavian-influenced place-names

3.5Scandinavian-influenced place-names and principal rivers of East Anglia

4.1Bý-names in East Anglia

4.2Distribution of bý-names and parishes (pre-1851) in East and West Flegg

4.3Distribution of bý-names in East and West Flegg, plus soil-types

4.4Local landscape settings of bý-names in East and West Flegg

4.5Fiscal value in Domesday Book of bý-named vills in East and West Flegg

4.6Local landscape settings of bý-names in East Anglia

4.7Scandinavian-influenced place-names and parishes (pre-1851) in North and South Erpingham

5.1Distribution of thorp and throp place-names of all periods throughout England

5.2Thorp place-name types in East Anglia

5.3Local landscape settings of thorp place-name types in East Anglia

5.4Distribution of thorp place-names in East Anglia, plus soil-types

5.5Thorp place-names and parishes (pre-1851) in north-east Norfolk

5.6Thorp place-names and parishes (pre-1851) in East Anglia

6.1Toft place-name types in East Anglia

6.2Local landscape settings of toft place-names in East Anglia

6.3Distribution of toft place-names in East Anglia, plus soil-types

6.4Toft-named parishes (pre-1851) in East Anglia

6.5Place-names in East Anglia containing ON topographical generics

6.6Local landscape settings of place-names in East Anglia containing ON topographical generics

6.7Distribution of place-names in East Anglia containing ON topographical generics, plus soil-types

6.8Parishes in East Anglia (pre-1851) containing ON arboreal generics

6.9Thwaite-named parishes (pre-1851) in East Anglia

6.10Parishes in East Anglia (pre-1851) with place-names containing ON non-arboreal generics

7.1Place-names in East Anglia containing the OE tūn generic compounded with different types of specific (ON as well as OE)

7.2Place-names in East Anglia containing the OE generics tūn and hām

7.3Hybrid place-names in East Anglia containing the OE tūn generic compounded with ON specifics

7.4Place-names in East Anglia containing the OE tūn generic compounded with non-anthroponymic ON specifics (i.e. excluding ‘Grimston-hybrids’)

7.5Distribution of ‘Carl(e)ton’ and ‘Charl(e)ton’ place-names throughout England

7.6Local landscape settings of place-names in East Anglia containing the OE tūn generic compounded with non-anthroponymic ON specifics

7.7Distribution of place-names in East Anglia containing the OE tūn generic compounded with non-anthroponymic ON specifics, plus soil types

7.8Parishes in East Anglia (pre-1851) with place-names containing the OE tūn generic compounded with non-anthroponymic ON specifics

7.9Parishes in East Anglia (pre-1851) with ‘Carl(e)ton’ place-names and associated manors in Domesday Book

7.10‘Grimston-hybrid’ place-names in East Anglia146

7.11East Anglian place-names in -tūn and -hām, plus other significant locations

7.12Local landscape settings of ‘Grimston-hybrid’ place-names in East Anglia

7.13Distribution of ‘Grimston-hybrid’ place-names in East Anglia, plus soil-types

7.14Soil and settlement patterns in the valley of the river Wensum

7.15Distribution of current place-names in East Anglia containing the OE tūn generic compounded with OE specifics, plus soil types

7.16Local landscape settings of current place-names in East Anglia containing the OE tūn generic compounded with OE personal names

7.17Parishes in Norfolk (pre-1851) with ‘Grimston-hybrid’ names

7.18Parishes in Suffolk (pre-1851) with ‘Grimston-hybrid’ names

7.19Place-names in -tūn combined with ON and OE personal names, plus place-names in -hām, in south-east Norfolk and north-east Suffolk

7.20Place-names in -tūn combined with ON and OE personal names, plus place-names in -hām, in central Norfolk

7.21Place-names in -tūn combined with ON and OE personal names, plus place-names in -hām, in south Suffolk

7.22Hybrid place-names in East Anglia containing OE generics (except tūn) compounded with ON specifics

7.23Local landscape settings of hybrid place-names in East Anglia containing OE generics (except tūn) compounded with ON specifics

7.24Distribution of hybrid place-names in East Anglia containing OE generics (except tūn) compounded with ON specifics, plus soil-types

7.25Parishes in East Anglia (pre-1851) with hybrid place-names containing OE generics (except tūn) compounded with ON specifics

8.1Distribution of Scandinavian-influenced place-names, and OE place-names in -tūn and -hām, in south-east Suffolk and north-east Essex, plus soil-types

List of tables

4.1Linguistic analysis of the specific elements in the bý-names of East Anglia

5.1Types of specific found in the thorp place-names of East Anglia

5.2Analysis of the landscape settings of thorp place-name types in East Anglia

5.3Analysis of thorp place-names and parish boundaries (pre-1851) in East Anglia

5.4Summary of thorp place-name/parish boundary analysis presented in Table 5.

6.1Linguistic analysis of toft place-name types in East Anglia

6.2Analysis of ON topographical generics compounded in East Anglian place-names

6.3Linguistic analysis of thwaite place-names in East Anglia

7.1Analysis of specific elements (ON as well as OE) in East Anglian place-names compounded with the OE tūn generic

7.2Analysis of hybrid place-names in East Anglia containing ON specific elements compounded with the OE tūn generic

7.3Analysis of hybrid place-names containing OE generics (except tūn) compounded with ON specifics

Abbreviations

ASCAnglo-Saxon Chronicle (editions as cited in text)

CDEPNWatts, V. (2004) The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

DEPNEkwall, E. (1960) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press)

DMVdeserted medieval village

DSPNBriggs, K. and Kilpatrick, K. (2016) A Dictionary of Suffolk Place-Names (Nottingham, English Place-Name Society)

EPNESmith, A.H. (1956) English Place-Name Elements, 2 vols (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

GISGeographical Information Systems

LPNGelling, M. and Cole, A. (2003) The Landscape of Place-Names, repr. edn with corrections (Donington, Shaun Tyas)

NHERNorfolk Historic Environment Record

MEMiddle English

ODanOld Danish – only used when specified in a reference work as opposed to ON

OEOld English

ONOld Norse – used as a general term to indicate Scandinavian language as used during the Viking period

OEDOxford English Dictionary Online

SHERSuffolk Historic Environment Record

SIEEHodge, C.A.H., Burton, R.G.O., Corbett, W.M., Evans, R. and Seale, R.S. (1984) Soils and Their Uses in Eastern England (Harpenden, Soil Survey of England and Wales)

SPNNInsley, J. (1994) Scandinavian Personal Names in Norfolk: A Survey Based on Medieval Records and Place-Names (Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell)

SPNLYFellows Jensen, G. (1968) Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (Copenhagen, Akademisk Forlag)

SSNEMFellows Jensen, G. (1978) Scandinavian Settlement Names in the East Midlands (Copenhagen, Akademisk Forlag)

SSNNWFellows-Jensen, G. (1985) Scandinavian Settlement Names in the North-West (Copenhagen, Institut for Navneforskning)

SSNYFellows Jensen, G. (1972) Scandinavian Settlement Names in Yorkshire (Copenhagen, Akademisk Forlag)

TIACLCullen, P., Jones, R. and Parsons, D.N. (2011) Thorps in a Changing Landscape (Hatfield, University of Hertfordshire Press)

Conventions and terminology

Use of italic and bold type

In the sections of this book dealing with the etymologies of place-names, italic type is used to indicate personal names (e.g. Ulfcytel), and bold type to denote appellative or non-anthroponymic elements (e.g. bý and tūn), following the practice of Watts 2004, xviii. When the pronunciation of Old Norse and Old English words is discussed, the letter ċ (‘c’ with a dot above it) is used to represent the palatal assibilated sound [t∫], like the ch in Modern English chin. Similarly, ġ is used to represent [j], as in Modern English yes (Watts 2004, xviii).

Place-names given in italic type are those judged to be now lost.

An asterisk* denotes an unrecorded or hypothetical name or word-element.

Dates and periods

All dates are cited without an AD prefix.

In the sections dealing with the archaeological contexts of the settlements associated with individual place-names, the chronological terms ‘Early Saxon’ (c. 411–650), ‘Middle Saxon’ (c. 651–850) and ‘Late Saxon’ (c. 851–1100) are used, following the terminology used in the documentation of the Norfolk and Suffolk Historic Environment Records. No cultural connotations are implied by their use.

Use of the terms ‘Viking’ and ‘Scandinavian’

The terms ‘Vikings’ and ‘Viking’ are used broadly to refer to people, artefacts and culture of largely Scandinavian origin, but including also those emanating from other Scandinavian-controlled territories in western Europe, who participated in activities and settlement outside the Scandinavian homelands during the period from c. 800 to c. 1100 (following Williams 2014, 17–20 and Jesch 2015a, 4–8).

The term ‘Scandinavian’ is used to refer more specifically to the people, artefacts and culture of the territory that now forms the three countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

‘Anglo-Scandinavian’ is used to refer to the hybrid artefacts, culture and language (embodying both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian elements) that developed in England from the ninth century onwards as Scandinavian settlers began to assimilate into English society.

Acknowledgements

This book is a shortened but updated adaptation of my PhD thesis, which was undertaken at the University of East Anglia and completed in 2020. I am indebted to my primary supervisor, Tom Williamson, who guided my ponderous progress towards the completion of my thesis with enduring patience and unwavering enthusiasm, and steered me deftly around potential pitfalls. Many thanks also to my secondary supervisor, Rob Liddiard, who saved me early on from a cherished but fruitless line of interpretation, and to Jon Gregory, who initiated me into the arcane arts of GIS mapping at the start of my project and undertook the role of internal examiner at the end of my studies. I am very grateful both to him and to my external examiner, Richard Jones, for turning a daunting, Covid-compliant online viva into a civilised and rewarding experience, for responding so positively to my thesis, and for providing invaluable feedback and advice. For significant help in furthering my academic studies that preceded my PhD, I would like to thank Judith Jesch, Jayne Carroll and Julia Barrow at the University of Nottingham, and Sam Newton and Nick Groves.

Many thanks are due also to several individuals who have freely offered me help and advice, comments and suggestions. Jane Kershaw and Tim Pestell kindly allowed me to use their pioneering archaeological data in my maps, and David Addy generously let me use his excellent GIS layers of eleventh-century hundred boundaries. Keith Briggs provided valuable pre-publication access to his forthcoming detailed survey of Suffolk place-names. Gillian Fellows-Jensen offered much-appreciated help and encouragement at the start of my studies. Edward Martin and Kenneth Penn both gave me access to unpublished papers, and Heather Hamilton kindly located and supplied additional data from the Norfolk Historic Environmental Record.

I am very grateful also to Julie Gardiner, Jess Hawxwell, Eduard Cojocaru and Declan Ingram at Oxbow Books for patiently guiding me through the processes of publishing this book and the intricacies of modern colour printing and design.

Sadly, my parents did not live to see the result of my labours but I would like to thank my sister and brother-in-law, Anne and Nigel, and my niece Clare and her husband Simon, for their encouragement and forbearance when my academic work sometimes diverted my attention from family matters. Finally, especial thanks to my partner Elisabeth, who provided much emotional support when my mind returned to the twenty-first century after long excursions into the ninth, tenth and eleventh.

The Ann Ashard Webb Bequest

This volume has been published with the support of the Centre of East Anglian Studies at the University of East Anglia and with the aid of a grant from the Ann Ashard Webb Bequest. Ann Ashard Webb (1902–1996) made her bequest to the School of History at UEA with the express purpose of funding an accessible series of works on the history of Suffolk which would appeal to a wide readership.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

The place-names in England that bear some degree of Scandinavian linguistic influence resulting from the early medieval period of Viking settlement are located in three main geographical areas of concentration (Figure 1.1). The largest and densest of these covers much of the pre-1974 coastal counties of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, together with areas of the East Midlands. Another less dense grouping is found in north-west England, and the third is located in East Anglia. The largest cluster and its smaller East Anglian counterpart together occupy the regions of eastern England that collectively became known as the Danelaw. This term defined the territory where Danish law, as opposed to Mercian or West Saxon law, was thought to prevail in the twelfth century (Hadley 2000, 2–3), and came to be used by historians to denote the areas of eastern England that experienced some degree of Viking settlement and Scandinavian-influenced place-name formation from the late ninth until the mid-eleventh centuries.

FIGURE 1.1. Principal Scandinavian-influenced place-names in England. The distribution of the three principal types of Scandinavian-influenced place-names is shown, but less common types such as tofts and thwaites are not included (locations of place-names outside East Anglia after Hill 1981, 45; Fellows-Jensen 2012, 354, 359; TIACL, 21–31).

The two concentrated areas of Scandinavian-influenced place-names that thus characterise the Danelaw are separated from each other by the fenlands and marshlands of Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire – a clear division which has helped delineate the Scandinavian-influenced place-names of East Anglia as a discrete and self-contained grouping that is the focus of this book (Figure 1.2). Most of the 330 identified in the East Anglian cluster are located within the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, whose present-day boundaries broadly correspond with what are believed to have been the borders of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia (Pestell 2004, 11–12; Hoggett 2010, 1–3). But there are also a few Scandinavian-influenced place-names in north-east Essex, part of a territory that lay beyond the borders of the East Anglian kingdom but regarded traditionally as being under Viking control during the period of Viking rule over East Anglia. The county of Essex has therefore also been included in this work.

FIGURE 1.2. Scandinavian-influenced place-names in East Anglia. Question marks (?) in the map’s key denote uncertain etymologies for the place-names indicated.

Extensive linguistic and geographical analyses of the Scandinavian-influenced place-names in Yorkshire and the East Midlands, and in north-west England, were undertaken several decades ago by Kenneth Cameron (1965; 1970; 1971) and Gillian Fellows-Jensen (SSNY; SSNEM; SSNNW). These surveys have played an important role in the academic study and interpretation of Viking settlement in those regions. But nothing similar has been conducted so far in East Anglia, which has been regarded as an area of less significant and intensive Viking settlement – reflected in the lower numbers of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in the region compared with Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, especially those containing the archetypal bý and thorp elements. This comparative pattern of distribution has helped inform the traditional view of Viking settlement in eastern England, with the large main cluster of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire being regarded as the principal area of concentration.

However, this interpretation is contradicted by a third category of Scandinavian-influenced place-names, the so-called ‘Grimston-hybrids’, which contain an Old Norse (hereafter ON) personal name compounded with the Old English (hereafter OE) tūn element. They are found in relatively higher numbers in East Anglia than elsewhere in the Danelaw (Figure 1.1), with forty-eight possible examples identified by this study in Norfolk and forty in Suffolk, compared with just ten recorded in Lincolnshire and around thirty-eight in Yorkshire (Insley 1999). The ‘Grimston-hybrids’ have been regarded traditionally as a significant indicator of Viking settlement (Cameron 1971), but the reason for their comparative abundance throughout Norfolk and Suffolk has hitherto remained an unexplored conundrum.

Scholars of the Viking period in East Anglia have focused primarily upon the apparently more intensive area of Viking settlement in central and eastern Norfolk, but less attention has been paid to possible Viking settlement elsewhere in the region. For example, historical evidence indicates some degree of Viking activity, control and settlement in southern Suffolk, centred around Hadleigh where the Viking leader Guthrum was traditionally reported to have been buried (Dumville and Lapidge 1984, 95) – in an area containing a considerable concentration of ‘Grimston-hybrid’ place-names. This suggests that two or more separate processes of Viking settlement may have occurred in different areas of East Anglia, reflecting a possible dichotomy between the extensive non-written evidence for Viking activity in Norfolk, but few direct historical references, and to some extent the opposite situation in Suffolk and Essex.

The recent historiography of Viking settlement in East Anglia has been somewhat limited or fragmented, with only partial surveys and analyses – some as summarised accounts (Pestell 2019) or part of broader studies of Viking activity in England as a whole (Hart 1992; Hadley 2006), and others as part of examinations of more specific historical topics within East Anglia (Pestell 2004; Martin and Satchell 2008). The focus of interest has been on Norfolk, with scholars debating the nature and scale of Viking settlement there (Williamson 1993; Margeson 1996; 1997), postulating possible origins for the bý-names of Flegg (Campbell 2001; Abrams and Parsons 2004; Abrams 2005), and interpreting the significance of recent Scandinavian metalwork finds (Kershaw 2009; 2013; Pestell 2013). The current academic literature regarding the history and archaeology of East Anglia during the middle and late Anglo-Saxon period has been reviewed in Hoggett with Davies 2021.

Recent onomastic scholarship has considered the East Anglian context of individual Scandinavian place-name types as part of broader studies of their occurrence throughout the Danelaw (TIACL; Fellows-Jensen 1998; 2008; 2009; 2012), examined particular issues in East Anglia arising out of the linguistic interpretation of Scandinavian-influenced place-names (Sandred 1987; 1990; Fellows-Jensen 1999; 2007; 2014a; Insley 1999) or their distribution in individual counties (Boulton and Briggs 2017; Briggs 2021), and the distribution of Scandinavian-influenced field-names (Sandred 1979; Parsons 2006) and personal names (Insley 1994; Parsons 2002). However, no overall synthesis has so far been attempted.

This book, therefore, seeks to fulfil the need for a systematic analysis of place-name evidence for Viking settlement throughout East Anglia, corresponding to those already undertaken for other regions of England. But since the previous regional surveys were conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, the academic debate has moved on – especially with regard to the significance of Scandinavian-influenced place-names as evidence for Viking settlement, the nature and scale of that process, and the role of geographical factors in determining the patterns of medieval settlement.

The evolving scholarship of Scandinavian place-names and Viking settlement

For much of the twentieth century, the abundant Scandinavian-influenced place-names scattered throughout the territory of the Danelaw were regarded as the most significant single source of evidence for its history (Stenton 1971, 520–21). They were plotted on distribution maps, such as A.H. Smith’s (1956) much-copied classic map of ‘The Scandinavian Settlement’, to indicate their geographical locations and relative densities, often presupposing a simple and direct correlation between place-names and settlement. The large numbers of these place-names were frequently cited in support of the traditional interpretation of a large-scale colonisation by Danish soldiers, numbering in their thousands (Loyn 1962, 49–62; Stenton 1971, 243, 519–25). This approach, however, was criticised by revisionist scholars who argued for a smaller-scale settlement of just a few hundred veteran warriors (Sawyer 1971, 123–28, 209). Although subsequently rejected (Brooks 1979), this minimalist view led to a re-appraisal of the place-name evidence and the formulation by Kenneth Cameron in the 1970s of the hypothesis of a secondary migration of Scandinavian settlers to explain how so many Scandinavian-influenced place-names could have been created by apparently so few Viking warriors (Cameron 1965; 1970; 1971). Cameron’s work was based upon an innovative analysis of the geographical and geological contexts of different types of Scandinavian-influenced place-names. It hypothesised a three-stage process: the so-called ‘Grimston hybrids’ marking the initial takeover and renaming by Viking military veterans of existing English villages in the most favourable locations; the bý-names suggesting a secondary phase of Scandinavian colonizers settling on less attractive sites; and the thorp-names a third stage of settlement activity in even more marginal land.

Gillian Fellows-Jensen (SSNY; SSNEM; SSNNW) utilised a similar methodology in the preparation of three comprehensive regional surveys of Scandinavian settlement names in Yorkshire, the East Midlands and the North-West. These systematically applied linguistic techniques for gauging the likely dates and possible national or ethnic origins of the Scandinavian-influenced place-names, and examined their geographical locations in terms of surrounding topography and geology, resulting in analyses which broadly endorsed Cameron’s approach and conclusions.

However, by the late 1990s and early 2000s the formulation of such specific chronologies and patterns of Viking settlement from place-name evidence became increasingly criticised by a new generation of revisionist scholars who focused more upon the outcomes or results of Viking activity in Britain rather than its origins, examining ‘the processes of accommodation, assimilation and integration’ (Hadley and Richards 2000b, 4). The dangers of using place-name evidence on its own for exploring Viking settlement, and trying to ‘read too much between the dots’ of place-name distribution maps, were emphasised (Hadley 2002, 57; 2000, 17–22, 323–35; 2006, 99–104). By the early 2000s, a number of traditional assumptions about the use of place-names as evidence for substantial Viking immigration had been queried and somewhat undermined, triggering ‘a bit of a wobble’ in onomastic scholarship (Abrams 2019) that resulted in a reassessment of their historical value.

It is now accepted that place-name evidence is essentially linguistic, so that distribution maps of Scandinavian-influenced place-names do not directly indicate individual centres of Viking settlement but rather provide a broader index of the influence of Scandinavian language upon the wider region in which the place-names are situated (Abrams and Parsons 2004, 392–93). Furthermore, a distinction has been drawn between the direct Scandinavian linguistic influence represented by fully Scandinavian place-names (containing only ON word-elements) that may have been formed by Norse-speaking communities, and a more indirect linguistic influence in which some ON place-name elements were borrowed into the vocabulary of local OE and Middle English (hereafter ME) dialects (Carroll 2020, 97–98). These elements were then subsequently used by indigenous populations in the formation of a large number of Scandinavian-influenced minor names and field names (Parsons 2006, 166; Rye 2020) – often in combination with other word-elements of OE origin to create ‘hybrid’ formations. These hybrid place-names may therefore represent a more indirect form of Scandinavian linguistic influence that needs to be differentiated from the earlier formation of fully ON place-names by Norse-speaking communities which are more directly indicative of Viking settlement.

However, some Scandinavian place-name elements, such as thorp and toft, were used initially in combination with other ON elements to form fully Scandinavian place-names displaying direct Scandinavian linguistic influence, but then subsequently borrowed into OE and ME dialects and used in conjunction with OE elements to form hybrid place-names indicative of more indirect Scandinavian influence. Furthermore, some of these elements (including both thorp and toft) were used to form place-names in simplex form (without a qualifying element or specific), and so it becomes impossible to determine the linguistic context of their formation by onomastic analysis alone. It is only through analysis of the archaeological and geographical contexts of the settlements associated with place-names such as these that a broader understanding of their likely formation can be achieved. It is clear, therefore, that in order to fully understand the historical significance of Scandinavian-influenced place-names, it is necessary indeed to ‘examine the documentary, archaeological and landscape