Brief note on the inscriptions, given in “Forty Years in a Moorland Parish” — the author is a pastor of the area, and very fond of both walking about the country and thinking about it. I’d note, especially, Appendix E, “Attempt to Clear Up the Difficulties in the Domesday Entries Touching Danby” — which concerns Orm — -as a sort of exemplar of how Atkinson approaches a problem, which in this case is to make an apparently small issue into a REALLY BIG one.
Yes. And throughout, there’s a lot of “it could be” and “perhaps” and “most certainly,” which causes me to wonder about the argument.
As to the inscription — he says the inscription “is said” to have run, as he gives us, “being translated.” Said by whom. Translated by whom. We have no idea, and it may or may not matter, but I would not want to use the passage as a foundation for any argument. Or as a wrench to throw into an argument, if the argument is working otherwise.
This is really a delightful book. The author is a large-minded human who is totally interested in the place he is working; he was from the south of England, and the moors were exotic to him. He loved immediately the landscape, the flora and fauna, the dialect. I think he was probably a very good pastor; by the time he wrote the book he had been there 46 years, so apparently he and his flock were satisfied with each other. And he is a very thoughtful person. And he knows scholarly methods. I just would weigh his work differently than I would weigh the more recent works.
Do NOT miss the very long section, at the beginning of the book, on Folklore. There were fairies all around, and witches galore, apparently, according to his parishioners, and he is actually respectful of these things he cannot believe in — he thinks a lot about where these beliefs come from, and how they fit into beliefs around the world, and he listens.
I just love him.
anyway — also, Simon of Durham, who put together the chronicle mentioned about, is working, in the part that’s relevant here, with Bede, a chronicle from Worcester, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (one of the lost manuscripts, I see). So he’s compiling rather than writing this section, though he does write the last section of the manuscript.
He’s a good source for history, though of course we always keep in mind the possibility of transcription error. There having been som many versions of the text.
Ok. this wasn’t brief. I lied.
Problem with this page?
