Title: Spellings of Brunanburh Revisited

URL Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437

Markdown Content:
## Abstract

The article considers the question whether the spellings of the name _Brunanburh_ and _Brunnanburh_ in texts relating to King Athelstan’s battle of 937 indicate the existence of two different places with very similar names, as proposed by Michael Wood. It argues that the claims made for two places are based on mistaken assumptions about the manuscripts and their sources, and that the difference is best explained as orthographic variation. An alternative is offered that the first element of _Brunnanburh_ may be a hypocorism. Theories that might have prompted the ‘two places’ hypothesis are examined and it is demonstrated that Alistair Campbell, editor of the Old English poem _The Battle of Brunanburh_, conflated grammatically different name types and omitted crucial lexical and manuscript evidence from his consideration of the question. The manuscript and name evidence is presented and clarified. Uncritical adoption of Campbell’s linguistic arguments to support Burghwallis as the site of the battle is analysed and shown to be mistaken. The assumption that the Scandinavian element _brunnr_ is present in the name _Brunnaburh_ and referred to Burghwallis and its spring is undermined. The overall conclusion is that the spellings of _Brun(n)anburh_ are best regarded as variants.

## Introduction

Debate about the name and site of the battle of Brunanburh in 937 has continued for decades and shows no signs of ceasing.[Footnote 1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The battle itself was important, and it was celebrated in the Old English poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, _The Battle of Brunanburh_,[Footnote 2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) as a crushing victory for the English over the Irish-Norse men of Anlaf Guthfrithsson, the men of Alba under Constantine, and (in later sources) the lesser contingents of men from Strathclyde and probably Northumbria. It is generally understood that the battle took place somewhere in the north of England, but it has been difficult to reach any consensus as to precisely where Brunanburh might have been. The main division of opinion depends upon one’s view of the reliability of John of Worcester’s report in the early twelfth century that the fleet of Anlaf Guthfrithsson from Ireland _ostium Humbre fluminis … ingreditur_ (entered the mouth of the River Humber),[Footnote 3](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and thus that the battle was likely to have taken place in the east of England, against the view that the west is logistically and strategically more likely. Much of the debate focuses on place-names: those who want the battle to have been fought in the east have to cast around for possible similarities between existing names and _Brunanburh_; those who argue for the west have a name which securely derives from _Brunanburh_, namely Bromborough on the Wirral.[Footnote 4](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

Those who argue against Bromborough tend to be dismissive of place-names. Michael Wood writes, ‘[a]ny attempt to defend [Bromborough] will rest entirely on uncertain and overstated onomastic evidence’;[Footnote 5](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and Kevin Halloran asserts, ‘[an onomastic approach] relies too much on an analysis of forms that derive variously from copied, altered, difficult to read, and conflicting sources of uncertain provenance’.[Footnote 6](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Despite these dismissive comments, these writers nevertheless base their arguments largely on onomastic material, or at least on name identification. Wood identified Brinsworth, Nottinghamshire, and Burghwallis, Yorkshire, as _Brunanburh_;[Footnote 7](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Halloran identified Burnswark, Dumfries and Galloway, as the site of the battle, based on its supposed similarity with a form _Æt Brunnanwerc_ recorded in the twelfth century by Symeon of Durham.[Footnote 8](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) While the two last of these identifications have been suggested in the twenty-first century, Ray Page’s acidic comment on the first might still be regarded as applicable, ‘[i]t is hardly enough to look round for the nearest modern name beginning _Br-_ [or _Bu-_] and identify that as _Brunanburh_’.[Footnote 9](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

A new attempt has been made by Wood to make his Burghwallis identification more plausible. In one of his recent works, Wood has made an argument that the spelling of the name in the B and C texts of the Brunanburh poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, _Brunnanburh_, and the names _Æt Brunnanwerc uel Brunnanbyrig_ in Symeon of Durham’s _Libellus de Exordio_,[Footnote 10](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) is an indication that this might be a different place, with a different meaning, from _Brunanburh_. The original idea was Campbell’s, though Wood assimilates and adapts it:[Footnote 11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

[T]hree of the four Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mss of the poem have the < nn > spelling, including the best tenth-century text, B. This is not, however, simply a matter of a different spelling of the same name. The spellings represent different names.[Footnote 12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

In recent years _Brunanburh_ s have been ‘discovered’ in numerous places where the name is never actually recorded: Burnswark, Lanchester, Burnley, Bromswald, Bourne, and many another.[Footnote 13](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) But for one writer to produce three _Brun(n)anburh_ s seems a little over-enthusiastic. Some culling is necessary, and the analysis below is designed to assess how reliable the ideas are and how accurately the evidence is used in the argument that there might be different places called _Brunanburh_ and _Brunnanburh_. If the ideas are demonstrated to be implausible, and use of evidence is shown to be mistaken, some localisations of the battle may be ruled out.

## Spelling Variation and Sources

There are more sensible explanations for the different spellings, and more linguistically accurate explanations of the sense of the elements. Wood’s argument begins by setting up a straw man:

[A]n alternative spelling of Brunnanburh was current in the tenth century, within living memory of the battle; and the witnesses for that spelling are early enough, and numerous enough, to make it at least questionable that they can be explained purely by copyists’ mistakes. Are these differences in spelling all errors, or do they have a significance that we have missed?[Footnote 14](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

Having dismissed the idea that spellings might be the result of scribal error or copyists’ mistakes by implication, Wood then goes on to base his argument on the idea that the spelling _Brunanburh_ was an error, a scribe’s mistake. He suggests that there was an ‘original form’ of the name, _Brunnanburh_, and that a ‘confusion in spelling arose in the tenth century’. That is to say, that the scribe of the A manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and other early authorities, misspelt the name _Brunanburh_, ‘possibly influenced by oral transmission’, but nevertheless the scribes made an error in not spelling the name in the ‘original’, ‘northern < nn > form’.[Footnote 15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

In a footnote Wood writes that ‘Cavill (331) does not attempt to explain the nn forms, suggesting that they might be due to scribal error’.[Footnote 16](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) No suggestion of the kind was made. The argument made by Cavill that the variant spellings are ‘without significance’[Footnote 17](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) depends on the obvious and almost infinitely demonstrable fact that place-names are peculiarly susceptible to variations of spelling and pronunciation across time, place and document type. If we were to take Nottingham as an example of Wood’s proposition that ‘[t]he spellings represent different names’,[Footnote 18](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) the absurdity of the argument becomes evident. In the Chronicle, A has _Snotengaham_, while E has _Snotingeham_ and _Snotingham_ (all under the year 868); then later documents have (among others) _Notingeham_ 1130, _Nottingham_ 1172–4.[Footnote 19](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The variant spellings represent material differences of pronunciation but they undoubtedly refer to the same place, rather than two or more places. Wood does not apply this argument to _dingesmere_ (line 54 b), but there again we have material differences of spelling: D’s _dynigesmere_ is hardly a different place. And then what about Dublin (line 55 b), _difelin/dyflen/dyflin/dyflig_ in the different manuscripts?

Something more needs to be said about the evidence for the spelling _Brunnanburh._ The A manuscript, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 173, fol. 26r, has a superscript \_n_/ added. That this ‘may even be by the main scribe’ is fanciful:[Footnote 20](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) the manuscript is viewable on the Parker Library on the Web site[Footnote 21](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and the reader will note that the ink of the interlinear letter is lighter, and the form of the -_n-_ without serifs on the descenders, is clearly different from the -_n_- in the main text. Bately notes succinctly ‘`_n_ ʹ added in another hand’.[Footnote 22](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The reader will also note that an annotator added an interlinear \_n_/ to _dænede_ at the bottom of the same page, another orthographical variant.[Footnote 23](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

Manuscript B, London, British Library, Cotton MSS, Tiberius A vi, fol. 31v, is uncertain because the manuscript is badly damaged at the point where the name occurs. In the digital facsimile three or four minims are visible at the crucial point.[Footnote 24](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) It cannot be asserted with certainty that the spelling is _brunnanburh_ from the manuscript, but in the magnification possible with the photograph it looks probable. Simon Taylor read ‘Brunanb[ur]h’.[Footnote 25](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The B Chronicle derives ultimately from the same exemplar as does C, BL Cotton MSS, Tiberius B i, fol. 141r, where the reading _brunnanburh_ is undisputed. The other Chronicle manuscript of the poem, D, British Library Cotton MSS, Tiberius B iv, fol. 49r, has the single < n>. In sum, one late manuscript, C, has the _Brunnanburh_ spelling; another from the same exemplar, late tenth-century, B, probably has it; another, A, has an annotation in a later hand adding the superscript \_n_/. Symeon of Durham has the forms _Aet Brunnanwerc uel Brunnanbyrig_,[Footnote 26](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and one spelling in Langtoft manuscripts has _Bronneburgh_.[Footnote 27](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Dozens of manuscripts and other known writers that have the name have the single < n> spelling, including John of Worcester, whose work was widely known and copied in the north.[Footnote 28](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

Wood argues that B is ‘a less corrupt text’ than A, and thus that _Brunnanburh_ ‘may have been the original form of the name’, and _Brunanburh_ ‘a West Saxon rendering of a northern place-name, which the southerners may have only heard spoken’.[Footnote 29](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) This argument is hard to reconcile with the accepted transmission of the Chronicle. Very few people doubt that _Brun(n)anburh_ is a northern place-name; but the idea that there was a ‘northern’ version of the name with a ‘correct’ spelling _Brunnanburh_ which was garbled in the rest of the tradition makes no sense. The poem itself is resolutely focused on the victory and prowess of the West Saxons, and not likely to appeal to northern sensibilities,[Footnote 30](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) much less be composed by a northerner.[Footnote 31](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) That there was a ‘correct’ northern spelling preserved in Chronicles B and C seems moreover to presuppose that Anglo-Saxon England, particularly in the north, had fixed written forms of names that southerners only heard and so misspelled.[Footnote 32](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

With regard to transmission of the poem and annals of this section of the Chronicle, it is generally accepted that material for the years 934 to 975 constituted the ‘Continuation 2’ which was added to the common stock of the Chronicle in the various centres where it was kept.[Footnote 33](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The continuation was promulgated by the West Saxon royal house and there is no doubt that it was written in a southern dialect and originated most probably in a Winchester scriptorium. Though there is some discussion about the precise place in which the B text was kept and the precise relations between B and C, it is nevertheless clear that the agreements between B and C show that they are very closely related and derive from the second continuation. This means that the ultimate source of the poem and the < nn > spelling _Brunnanburh_ in B and C was linguistically West Saxon, the language of the second continuation.[Footnote 34](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

Wood offers no linguistic or manuscript transmission evidence that there was a pre-existing northern version of the poem or the name that was copied into B and C, or that the name copied into B and C was garbled in the (other) West Saxon tradition of A and others. In this context it is noteworthy that, as Whitelock observes, Chronicle D, BL Cotton MSS, Tiberius B iv[Footnote 35](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and E together ‘form what is known as the northern recension of the Chronicle, and I have little doubt that the archetype from which they were copied was written at York’.[Footnote 36](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) D has the < n> spelling in its version of the poem as has already been noted. The E manuscript of the Chronicle, Oxford, Bodleian Library Laud MSS, Misc. 636, copied at Peterborough in the Danelaw, and which omits the Old English poem and abbreviates the annal, also has the < n> spelling of the name, ‘Her Æðelstan cyning lædde fyrde to Brunanbyrig’ (In this year King Athelstan led an army to Brunanburh). F, BL Cotton MSS, Domitian A viii, copied from an ancestor of E, similarly has the < n> spelling. None of these northern-derived texts has the < nn > spelling.

Wood goes on to discuss Symeon of Durham’s phrase _Æt Brunnanwerc uel Brunnanbyrig_, and attributes it to:

an earlier northern source or sources. Moreover, it was very likely one in Old English, as Symeon preserves the locative preposition (_a_)_et_ and the dative _byrig_. The form of citation with _aet_ also suggests a written source. As for its meaning, whether _werc/weorc_ or _burh_, the place to which Symeon referred was evidently called not ‘Bruna’s fort’, but ‘the fort at the spring’.[Footnote 37](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

In the most obvious sense the source was earlier than Symeon. But how much earlier is unclear, since the phrase lacks the dative -_e_ on -_werc_ in both the earliest manuscripts of the _Libellus de Exordio_, Durham, University Library Cosin MSS, V II 6, and BL, Cotton MSS, Faustina A v.[Footnote 38](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The other twelfth-century manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff i 27, has _etbrunnanuuerch ł brunnanbyrg_.[Footnote 39](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The -_werc_, -_uuerch_ spellings most probably reflect the loss of inflections in late Old English and early Middle English, together with the replacement of Old English <_ƿ_>_wynn_, a letter similar to _ƿ_, the usual letter-form for _w_, and _et-_ for Old English _æt_: thus the names once more reflect spelling variation. There is no indication where Symeon got the forms from. The conclusion Wood draws is in fact a _non sequitur_ as is shown below.

Wood’s arguments, then, constitute a very flimsy basis on which to theorise that the _Brunnanburh_ spelling of the name refers to a different place and means something different from _Brunanburh_ with one < n>. The idea seems to be that there was an early tradition of the battle originating in the north and familiar with a place called _Brunnanburh_, and that this tradition was transmitted to the south and misheard by the southerners and the site of the battle was identified mistakenly with a different place called _Brunanburh_. Contrary to Wood’s assertion, the evidence strongly suggests that the variation of the forms may indeed be ‘simply a matter of a different spelling of the same name’.

## A Hypocoristic Name?

Another possibility to explain the spelling variation may be considered. Wood, and Campbell before him, believe the variant spelling to be a common noun rather than a personal name. They admit that the _Bruna-_ spelling points to a masculine personal name.[Footnote 40](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) But they do not take into account the possibility that _Bruna_ might be a hypocorism, that is, a shortened form of a dithematic name.[Footnote 41](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) There are many such dithematic names, where _Brun-_ is compounded with another element or theme. The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England database records, among others, the following masculine names with _Brun-_ and a second theme, listed together with the number of bearers or attestations: _Brungar_ (15), _Brunheard_ (2), _Brunman_(_n_) (19), _Brunstan_ (15), _Brunwine_ (13), _Brunhyse_ (2), _Brunræd_, and _Brunsige_ (1 each).[Footnote 42](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) These names could all be shortened to _Bruna_, which shows the distinctive weak declension typical of such names.[Footnote 43](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

A peculiar feature of hypocoristics is the modification of consonant patterns. In Old English and Germanic names, and throughout the Indo-European languages more generally, these short forms are notably subject to consonantal gemination, that is to say, doubling of consonants.[Footnote 44](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Cecily Clark explains, ‘[i]n the Germanic languages generally, a consonant-cluster formed at the element-junction of a compound name was often simplified in the hypocoristic form to a geminate, Old English examples including the masc. _Totta < Torhthelm_’.[Footnote 45](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Redin notes that names with the single consonant and the geminate might exist side-by-side in the record, and there are many examples in his work, including among others _Bot(t)a_, _Ceol(l)a_, _Ead(d)a_, _God(d)a_, and _Tun(n)a_.[Footnote 46](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) These names are recorded over the whole date-range of Anglo-Saxon England from Bede and early charters through to Domesday Book.

These well-documented facts lead to an alternative interpretation of the < n> and < nn > spellings of _Brun(n)anburh_. It is possible that the scribe of the exemplar of Chronicles B and C recognised that the first element of the place-name was a hypocoristic personal name. The element is clearly a weak substantive typical of hypocoristic names, with the genitive inflection -_an_. Reading the name in this fashion, the scribe might have rendered the hypocoristic with its characteristic geminate consonant, thus arriving at _Brunnanburh_. This explanation, not in my view as compelling as the simpler one which sees the < n> and < nn > spellings as orthographic variants, nevertheless takes into consideration the particular forms of the name and known linguistic and onomastic processes.

## Campbell’s Edition and the Spellings

Campbell was very keen to explain the different spellings as meaningful; but common sense and Occam’s Razor, along with a welter of onomastic evidence, indicate that they are orthographic variants. Campbell’s analysis is fairly modest, and problems mostly arise due to his need to justify the idea that there were multiple places called _Brun(n)anburh_. He discusses two strands of evidence: the personal name forms and the common noun. This analysis needs further discussion, since it is flawed, and later writers like Wood rely very heavily on Campbell. The main issues with Campbell’s edition at this point are that he confuses grammatically-distinct name forms and elements and he relies on inadequate editions for the evidence relating to the names of Brunanburh.

In a footnote treating the idea that Brunanburh might be Bromborough, Campbell writes, ‘of course, the coincidence of _Brunan_-, a common, and -_burh_, a very common, place-name element, proves nothing relative to the site of the battle’.[Footnote 47](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) This clearly contradicts Campbell’s evidence that _Bruna_ is in fact a rather rare name: he points out in a footnote that the personal name _Brun_ is common,[Footnote 48](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) but that he knows of only one _Bruna_, a moneyer.[Footnote 49](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Though Searle records a moneyer with this name, PASE does not list the _Bruna_ name at all.[Footnote 50](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) In an earlier article it was suggested that Campbell was mistaken that first-element grammatically weak name forms (implied by the capital _B-_ and the oblique case _-an_ in Campbell’s statement) were at all common;[Footnote 51](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) this has now been confirmed by Keith Briggs’s collation of the personal names in English place-names, extracted from the hundreds of thousands of names in the ninety volumes of the English Place-Name Survey so far.[Footnote 52](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Briggs lists four names securely to be identified as deriving from the personal name _Bruna_: three associated with one landholder on the Wirral, Cheshire, namely Bromborough, Brimstage and Brimston; the other name is Bromham, Bedfordshire.[Footnote 53](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Hill-names derived from an adjectival element _brune_ ‘brown’ might increase the number of names with a weak oblique form *_brunan_ marginally: the Brendon Hills and the associated name Brown in Somerset are likely examples.[Footnote 54](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

Campbell later suggests that _Brun-_ and _Bruna-_ names are really the same, and this is possibly what motivates the idea that _Brunan-_ is a ‘common’ place-name element. Variant name forms in William of Malmesbury, Æthelweard and Gaimar, he writes, ‘have as first element _Brunan-_, _Brune_, _Brunes-_, which are equivalent forms; … there must have been many places with names like _Brunan_- (_Brunes-_) [-]_feld_, -_ford_, -_dun_, -_weorc_’.[Footnote 55](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) It is hard to know in what sense Campbell thought the forms of the name were ‘equivalent’ or ‘alternative’, since as he says, ‘[t]he first element of the form with one _n_, _Brunanburh_, can only be regarded as gen. s. of _Bruna_ or _Brune_’.[Footnote 56](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) It is likely that Campbell was troubled by the existence in his list of names relating to the battle of such forms as Henry of Huntingdon’s _Brunesburh_ and Gaimar’s _Bruneswerce_, which do not appear to be weak _Bruna-_ names, but must in some sense be equivalent.[Footnote 57](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) This issue has been resolved, however. It has been noted that one manuscript, BL, Arundel MSS, 48, used by Thomas Arnold for his then-standard edition of the _Historia Anglorum_,[Footnote 58](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) has the name in the three different places it appears in the _Historia_ (Book v. 18, Book v. 19 and Book v. 32) spelt _brunesburi(t)h_.[Footnote 59](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) However, early manuscripts from the six different recensions of Henry of Huntingdon’s text show this to be an aberration: no other manuscript consulted has the _Brunes-_ spelling, and the overwhelmingly dominant form is _brunebiri(h)_.[Footnote 60](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The Gaimar spelling given by Campbell follows the same pattern: one manuscript has the form _Bruneswerce_, two others have _Burneweste_, and another _Brunewerche_.[Footnote 61](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Once again, the dominant spelling of the name in the extant manuscripts is _burne_-, _brune-_, the late, weakened form of _brunan-_. As has been suggested, the -_s_- in the one spelling quoted by Campbell most likely represents a late secondary genitive.[Footnote 62](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Thus while _Bruna_ and _Brun_ look a bit similar, the name of the battle derives clearly and definitively from the first and not the second.

The grammar and inflections of the weak noun _Bruna_ are different from those of the strong noun _Brun_ in Old English, as Campbell admits. They are neither ‘equivalent’ nor ‘alternative’, and investigation into the manuscripts of the sources reinforces this conclusion. Briggs lists thirty-nine places with a probable personal name first element deriving from _Brun_.[Footnote 63](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) This name element is demonstrably common, but _Bruna_ place-names are not. This is unwarranted confusion of the name-types, and runs counter to the evidence.

Campbell then goes on to discuss the < nn > spelling in some charter names. He considers a form in a probably-inauthentic grant of King Æthelwulf to the church of St Peter and St Paul, Winchester, in 854, numbered 476 by Birch, now S311.[Footnote 64](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The grant is preserved in a twelfth-century Winchester document, and relates to a considerable area of land in Taunton and Brown, Somerset, the latter of which places is referred to in the Old English bounds as _in Brunan_. Campbell surmised this might be ‘a mistake for _Brunnan_’.[Footnote 65](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Brown is in Treborough, Somerset, as identified by Ekwall and accepted by Finberg[Footnote 66](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and Sawyer. It is recorded in Domesday Book as _Brune_, and Campbell’s speculation that _Brunan_ in the charter ‘may be a mistake for _Brunnan_’ is proved to be misplaced. Quite why a name preserved in a Winchester charter for an estate deep in Wessex should reflect what Campbell suggests to be _brunnan_ with ‘the medial _n_ doubled by the influence of O.N. _brunnr_’[Footnote 67](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) is not discussed or justified.

The other charter is a grant of land in Stoke by Ipswich, Suffolk, by King Edgar to Ely in 970, in copies of the twelfth century, Birch 1269, S781. There are several witnesses to this charter, including two with the full Old English bounds: the bounds are included in the earliest manuscript, BL, Cotton MSS, Tiberius A vi, fol. 99r, used by Birch;[Footnote 68](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.2.41, p. 90. The second of these witnesses refers to a boundary running ‘swa forð on midde weardne stream [þæt] hyt cymð on brunnan’ (so onwards in the middle of the river until it comes to the stream).[Footnote 69](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) This is the unambiguous reading of the _Inquisitio Eliensis_, in the Trinity College manuscript, and is adopted by Blake, Hart, and others.[Footnote 70](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The other, Tiberius, has a damaged text, where _brun-_ ends one line and the beginning of the next has a small hole. Nevertheless, the space would only accommodate two letters, and it is likely the reading was _brunan_.[Footnote 71](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Campbell was not aware of the Trinity College manuscript as he refers to Cotton Tiberius as ‘the only MS. which contains the boundaries of the charter’.[Footnote 72](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) But that it was known is revealed by the fact that Sweet ‘gives _brunna_ as a form alternative to _burn_, _burna_, _burne_’ in his _Dictionary_,[Footnote 73](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) for which Campbell complained Sweet ‘offered no evidence’.[Footnote 74](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The spelling _brunnan_ in Trinity O.2.41 is that evidence.

Hart identified the bounds of the charter, which follow at this point the course of the river Orwell (_on middeweardne stream_) from the dock in Ipswich south until the Belstead Brook debouches into it at grid reference TM162420 (_þæt hyt cymð on brunnan_).[Footnote 75](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Hart notes that the stream was ‘earlier called the Bourne Brook’[Footnote 76](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) and points out the proximity of ‘Bourne Park, Bridge and Hill’. Bourne Bridge is recorded as ‘_burnebregge_ c. 1450 BL Add MS 30158, _Burnbrige_ c.1539 Cavendish Map, _Bourn bridge_ 1554 (1654) Annalls’.[Footnote 77](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) While _bo(u)rne_ occasionally occurs as a modern reflex of _brunnr_,[Footnote 78](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) it is the most common and plentiful reflex of Old English _burna_.[Footnote 79](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Though Hart posits derivation from ON _brunnr_ on the basis of the charter spelling, the alternative he mentions, Old English _burna_, *_brun(n)a_ ‘stream’, confirmed by the local _burn(e)-_ and _Bourn(e)_ names, is more plausible. Thus the single example of a *_brun(n)a_ common noun is ambiguous in its spelling, but not in its meaning. There is some possibility that in this Danelaw district the < nn > spelling could have been influenced by Scandinavian _brunnr_, including the metathesis of the first two letters, but the existence of a probable < n> spelling, and the local names showing reflexes of _burna_ suggest it is a spelling variant.

Campbell’s arguments are flawed. In support of his view that _Brunnanburh_ might be a different place from _Brunanburh_, he proposes a < nn > form for Brown, Somerset, that proves not to exist; he contradicts himself about the frequency and distinctiveness of the name _Bruna_, which is rare; and a fuller examination of the common noun suggests that there was spelling variation, _brunnan_ and _brun[an]_ in the dative, in the extant texts of the only example in Old English, and that these variants derive ultimately from Old English _burna_, *_brun(n)a_ ‘stream’. There is no evidence that any of the known _Brunna_- names might derive from _brunnr_.

## Wood’s Use of Campbell

Wood takes up Campbell’s restrained and (as indicated above) imperfect argument and expands it to support his argument that _Brunnanburh_ really means ‘the burh at the spring’. Campbell’s argument that < nn > spellings might reflect ‘the medial _n_ doubled by the influence of O.N. _brunnr_’ has been demonstrated to be possible; but Campbell did not suggest that the first element of the name was Scandinavian _brunnr_, partly because he saw that element as essentially synonymous with OE _burna_ (and variants) meaning ‘stream’, and partly because the grammar of the two elements is incompatible. Despite this, Wood attributes his argument to the authority of Campbell: ‘the < nn > spelling, Campbell thought, appears to derive from an Old English _brunne_ (related to Old Norse _brunni/brunnr_) a word for stream, well, or spring… In this case it could mean, as he suggested “the fort by the stream”, but equally—and perhaps more likely—Brunnanburh would be ‘the fort at the spring’. [Footnote 80](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Wood goes on to conclude, ‘[f]ollowing Campbell, Brunnanburh then could be the genitive singular of Old English *_brunne_ a form of _burne_ “stream or spring”, but more likely influenced by Old Norse _brunnr_ (dat _brunni_)’.[Footnote 81](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#)

While OE *_brunne_ and ON _brunnr_ are cognate, the Old English word has not been demonstrated to mean ‘spring’, and Campbell did not suggest such a meaning. The _Dictionary of Old English_ gives ‘stream, brook, river’, but not ‘spring’ for _burna, burne, burn_.[Footnote 82](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) Nor does the etymological relationship between _burna_ and _brunnr_ mean that grammar, inflection and semantics can be ignored. The _Brun(n)an-_ forms represent a standard oblique case of an Old English weak noun; but there is no case in the standard declension of singular Old Norse _brunnr_ that would plausibly give a form _brunnan_.[Footnote 83](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) There is no particular sense to invoking influence of the singular ON dative _brunni_, except that it has a spelling < nn > and, eliding the grammatical ending, gives an approximation to the desired name _burh_ ‘by or at a spring’.

Wood’s preference for Old Norse _brunnr_ as the first element of _Brunnanburh_ seems to arise from the fact that it is the only element mentioned which can demonstrably mean ‘spring’. Burghwallis has a spring, though the place has no place-name record resembling _Brunnanburh_.[Footnote 84](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) The process by which Wood arrives at the likelihood of the element _brunnr_ occurring in _Brunnanburh_ appears to start with his identification of Burghwallis as the battle site. It develops by his supposing the existence of multiple similar names;[Footnote 85](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) then by identifying the < nn > form as ‘original’ and specifically ‘northern’; then by identifying the first element as Scandinavian _brunnr_; then by importing an extended meaning into the Old English word _burna_ and variants ‘influenced by’ _brunnr_; and finally by confusing the grammatically-distinct name elements. None of these processes is underpinned by linguistic evidence and analysis.

## Conclusion

The present article questions what the spellings of _Brun(n)anburh_ might indicate. It shows that, rather than suggesting the existence of multiple names and thus places that are otherwise not recorded, the spellings most likely represent spelling variation. This is an obvious and demonstrable process in records of place-names. Equally obviously, a minimally different spelling of a name in four versions of the same poem is overwhelmingly likely to refer to the same place: once again this is demonstrable from the Chronicle poem in relation to the name Dublin. Scrutiny of the source of the < nn > spellings in some manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reveals that they are southern in origin, and the supposition that southern scribes misspelled a specifically more ‘original’ and ‘northern’ form referring to a different place is shown to be implausible. It is demonstrated that the _Brun(n)a-_ forms of the first element of the place-name could derive from hypocoristic forms of the personal name, producing spelling variants, a process frequent in pre-Conquest English personal names.

These main arguments, both of which attribute the spelling differences to simple variation, would clearly, if accepted, render the speculations of Campbell and Wood void. But there are many other reasons why Wood’s proposal that the < nn>_Brunnanburh_ spellings indicate the name meant ‘burh by a spring’, as against ‘Bruna’s fort’, is flawed. Campbell does not confuse _Brun-_ and _Bruna-_ names,[Footnote 86](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) but he nevertheless conflates them with a view to showing their frequency and supporting his notion that more than one place is referred to. Closer examination of Campbell’s evidence concerning the < nn > spellings in some names, and the noun *_brunne_, shows that he expected them where they do not exist, and that the one that exists as a common noun is very likely to be a spelling variant.

Campbell’s argument that the < nn > spelling might be influenced by Norse _brunnr_ is taken by Wood as a mandate to state that the first element of _Brunnanburh_ was likely to be _brunnr_ and thus to mean (exclusively) ‘spring’. To arrive at this, there is a process of conflation of the grammar and spelling of Old English names with entirely distinct and incompatible Norse grammatical elements, and importation of the Norse meaning ‘spring’ into Old English _burna_, *_brun(n)a_, *_brun(n)e_ where it does not demonstrably belong.

In short, it is overwhelmingly likely that the _Brunanburh_ and _Brunnanburh_ spellings of the place-name near where the battle took place are orthographical variants. There is no evidence that _Brunnanburh_ with < nn > was a peculiarly ‘northern’ form. There is no evidence that _Brunnan-_ or the common noun occurring as _brun[an]_ and _brunnan_ represent Scandinavian _brunnr_. And the Old English common noun *_brun(n)a_, _*brun(n)e_ clearly means ‘stream’ not ‘spring’. So the answer to Wood’s question, ‘Was the Burghwallis fort in the Anglo-Saxon period [Brunnanburh] “the fort at the spring”?’[Footnote 87](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2022.2088437#) must be negative: it is vanishingly unlikely. Certainly in this controversy one should be circumspect and keep an open mind, as Wood recommends, and his and Campbell’s arguments invite re-examination of the evidence. But the best explanation of the spellings of _Brun(n)anburh_ is orthographical variation; Campbell’s and Wood’s arguments do not carry conviction and lack corroborating evidence.

### Acknowledgement

I thank Dr Eleni Ponirakis for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful remarks.

1 Recent works (listed alphabetically by author) include Andrew Breeze, _British Battles 494–937: Mount Badon to Brunanburh_ (New York: Anthem Press, 2020), ‘_Brunanburh_ Located: The Battle and the Poem’, in _Aspects of Medieval English Language and Literature_, ed. Michiko Ogura and Hans Sauer (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2018), pp. 61–80; Paul Cavill, ‘Ships and _Brunanburh_’, _English Studies_, 98 (2017), 549–61, ‘Scandinavian _Vína_ and English Battles’, _Notes and Queries_, 63 (2016), 1–5, and ‘The Battle of _Brunanburh_ in 937: Battlefield Despatches’, in _In Search of Vikings: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Scandinavian Heritage of North-West England_, ed. S. E. Harding, D. Griffiths, E. Royles (London: CRC Press, 2015), pp. 95–108, hereafter ‘Battlefield Despatches’; Clare Downham, ‘Note: How big was the Battle of Brunanburh?’, <[https://www.academia.edu/43891453/Note_How_big_was_the_Battle_of_Brunanburh?](https://www.academia.edu/43891453/Note_How_big_was_the_Battle_of_Brunanburh?)>, accessed March 2021, and ‘A Wirral Location for the Battle of Brunanburh’, _Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire_, 170 (2021), 15–32, hereafter ‘Wirral Location’; Sarah Foot, _Æthelstan: The First King of England_ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011); _The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook_, ed. Michael Livingston, Exeter Medieval Tests and Studies (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011), hereafter _Casebook_; Michael Livingston, _Never Greater Slaughter: Brunanburh and the Birth of England_ (London: Osprey, 2021); Michael Wood, ‘Searching for Brunanburh: The Yorkshire Context of the “Great War” of 937’, _Yorkshire Archaeological Journal_, 85 (2013), 138–59, hereafter ‘Searching’, and ‘The Spelling of Brunanburh’, _Notes and Queries_, 64 (2017), 365–96, hereafter ‘Spelling’. The list is by no means exhaustive: several of the authors have produced online lectures and newspaper reports.

2 The poem has been edited many times, but _The Battle of Brunanburh_, ed. Alistair Campbell (London: Heinemann, 1938), hereafter Campbell, is the principal edition used here and is cited by line number.

3 John of Worcester, _The Chronicle of John of Worcester_, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk, trans. J. Bray and P. McGurk, 3 vols., Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995–), II 392–3.

4 The linguistic processes involved in the development of _Brunanburh_ to Bromborough were outlined by John D. Niles, ‘Skaldic Technique in _Brunanburh_’, _Scandinavian Studies_, 59 (1987), 356–66 at 364 n. 2; the processes were illustrated from existing records of Bromborough by Cavill in _Casebook_, p. 344. The identification is admitted as ‘convincing as a place-name’ by Wood, ‘Searching’, p. 154, but according to Neil McGuigan, review of _Casebook_, _Scottish Historical Review_, 93 (2014), 286–88, ‘the argument at its best comes down to the claim that one of the Wirral’s place-names, represented by modern Bromborough, _might_ be derived from Old English _Brunanburh_’ (McGuigan’s italics); this view is supported by several of the mistaken arguments which are discussed in the present article. Doubts expressed more recently that Bromborough might be Brunanburh, in Michael Deakin, ‘Bromborough, Brunanburh and Dingesmere’, forthcoming in _Notes and Queries_ (2022), will be addressed elsewhere.

5 ‘Searching’, p. 154.

6 See Kevin Halloran, ‘The Identity of _Etbrunnanwerc_’, _SHR_, 89 (2010), 248–53, hereafter ‘_Etbrunnanwerc_’, at pp. 252–53.

7 Respectively in ‘Brunanburh Revisited’, _Saga-Book of the Viking Society_, 20 (1980), 200–217, ‘Searching’ _passim_ and ‘Spelling’, p. 369 n. 26.

8 ‘The Brunanburh Campaign: A Reappraisal’, _SHR_, 84 (2005), 133–48 and ‘_Etbrunnanwerc_’, pp. 248–53. The ideas were rebutted in Paul Cavill, ‘The Site of the Battle of _Brunanburh_: Manuscripts and Maps, Grammar and Geography’, in _A Commodity of Good Names: Essays in Honour of Margaret Gelling_, ed. O. J. Padel and D. N. Parsons (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2008), pp. 303–19, hereafter ‘Manuscripts and Maps’. See also ‘Battlefield Despatches’, pp. 99–104.

9 R. I. Page, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, _Peritia_, 1 (1982), 335–51, at p. 344.

10 For further detailed discussion of the manuscripts see below.

11 Campbell, p. 62.

12 ‘Spelling’, p. 367.

13 For older identifications, see John Henry Cockburn, _The Battle of Brunanburh and its Period Elucidated by Place-Names_ (London: Sir W. C. Leng & Co., 1931); for more recent ones see the publications listed in note 1 above and the places discussed by Paul Hill, _The Age of Athelstan: Britain’s Forgotten History_ (Stroud: Tempus, 2004), pp. 135–60, especially pp. 141–42.

14 ‘Spelling’, p. 365.

15 Ibid., p. 368.

16 ‘Spelling’, p. 365 n. 3; the reference is to Cavill’s chapter, ‘The Place-Name Debate’, in _Casebook_, pp. 327, pp. 327–49, hereafter ‘Place-Name Debate’. See also ‘Manuscripts and Maps’, p. 305.

17 ‘Place-Name Debate’, p. 331, also ‘Manuscripts and Maps’, p. 304.

18 ‘Spelling’, p. 367.

19 J. E. B. Gover, Allen Mawer and F. M. Stenton, _The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire_, English Place-Name Society xvii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), p. 13. Hereafter _PN Nottinghamshire_.

20 ‘Spelling’, p. 366.

22 _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition, 3: MS A_, ed. Janet Bately (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986), p. 70 text note.

23 It is uncertain what this word means, see the lengthy discussion in Campbell, pp. 98–102. It is _dennade_ in B and C, _dennode_ in D, indicating a consensus < nn > spelling. The _Dictionary of Old English: A to I_ online, ed. Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey _et al_. (Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project,2018), s.n. _dennian_, notes that this is ‘a crux, probably to be taken as an instance of _dynnan_“to resound”, though it lists several other possibilities.

24 Martin Foys, _et al_., ed. _Old English Poetry in Facsimile 2.0_ (Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2019): <[https://uw.digitalmappa.org/58](https://uw.digitalmappa.org/58)>, accessed January 2022.

25 _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A Collaborative Edition, 4: MS B_, ed. Simon Taylor (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983), p. 51. Hereafter, Taylor, _MS B_.

26 Symeon of Durham, _Libellus de Exordio atque Procursu istius hoc est Dunhelmensis Ecclesie_, ed. and trans. David Rollason, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), p. 138. Hereafter Rollason, _LDE_.

27 _The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft_, ed. and trans. Thomas Wright, 2 vols, Rolls Series (London: Longman, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1866–68), I 330. Wright’s edited text, from BL, Cotton MSS, Julius A v, reads _Bruneburge_; BL, Royal MSS, 20 A xi reads _Brunesburgh_, and BL, Royal MSS, 20 A ii, reads _Bronneburgh_, the spelling referred to above.

28 Downham, ‘Wirral Location’, pp. 21–22, has given good reasons for discounting Wood’s argument; ‘Searching’, pp. 147–50, that John of Worcester, Symeon of Durham, the Melrose Chronicle, Roger of Howden, Ailred of Beverley, Higden, Langtoft, Roger of Wendover and Robert of Gloucester, all drew independently on ‘a set of tenth-century northern annals from York’ now no longer extant.

29 Respectively, ‘Spelling’, pp. 366, 367 and 369.

30 See Paul Cavill, ‘Kings, People, and Lands: The Rhetoric of _The Battle of Brunanburh_’, forthcoming in _Ideas of the World in Early Medieval England_, Studies in Old English Literature, 1, ed. Mark Atherton, Kazutomo Karasawa and Francis Leneghan (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022).

31 In the bilingual MS F, BL Cotton MSS, Domitian A viii, a remarkably cramped manuscript, thirteen lines, or two-thirds of a page, were left blank on fol. 57v, as Baker notes, _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition, 8: MS F_, ed. Peter S. Baker (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), p. 79. This is immediately before the 937 Brunanburh entry beginning at the top of fol. 58r. A possible explanation is that the scribe intended to copy the Old English poem or parts of it, but did not, perhaps because he could not translate it, but equally possibly because it was not to his taste.

32 The idea that the ‘more original’ text of the poem would preserve ‘correct’ spellings such as the < nn > is not sustainable. Campbell himself writes, ‘[t]o make B or C the basis of the text, owing to their superior readings in a few places, is not to be recommended’, p. 13. The B text is ‘less corrupt’ in that it makes better sense of the idiom of the poem, not that the scribe’s spelling overall is somehow superior. B has the meaningful _secga swate_ (with the blood of warriors, 13) and _cumbolgehnastes_ (in the clash of standards, 49) by contrast with A’s contextually meaningless _secgas hwate_ (brave warriors) and garbled _culbodgehnades_. B’s scribe still has spelling variants, including double consonants in _ecggum_ (with edges, 4) and _secggeaþ_ ([books] say, 68), and fairly consistent late spellings such as _cing_ for _cyning_ (king, 1 and 35). B also has the odd mistake, as in _heaðolina_ for _heaþolinde_ (battle-shield, 6). The spelling of Scribe 3, who wrote the portion of the C Chronicle containing the poem, has been noted to include frequent doubling of consonants, but not those just mentioned from B other than _wigges_ (of battle, 20, 59): see Campbell, pp. 9–10, and _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A Collaborative Edition, 5: MS C_, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001), p. xcv, (x) [b]. Hereafter O’Brien O’Keeffe, _MS C_. See also ‘Manuscripts and Maps’, pp. 303–09 for further discussion.

33 Campbell’s chapter ‘The Text’, pp. 1–15, is useful, and details, among other things, the correspondences and spelling variations between B and C. See also Taylor, _MS B_, pp. xxxiv–xliv; and O’Brien O’Keeffe, _MS C_, pp. lvii–lxii, which takes into consideration the important work by Janet Bately, _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Texts and Textual Relationships_ (Reading: University of Reading, 1991).

34 O’Brien O’Keeffe, _MS C_, writes ‘The material in annals 933–46, common to A, B, C and D, written by the 950s, would have been written in language half way between that of Alfred and that of Ælfric’, i.e. between early West Saxon and late West Saxon, p. lx.

35 _The AngloSaxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Volume 6: MS D_, ed. G. P. Cubbin (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996). Cubbin remarks, uncontroversially, ‘D is basically a copy of the Northern edition of the Chronicle’, p. xxvii.

36 Dorothy Whitelock, _English Historical Documents_ I (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955), p. 111.

37 ‘Spelling’, p. 367.

40 ‘Spelling’, p. 366, Campbell, p. 61.

41 The idea was earlier proposed in ‘Place-Name Debate’, p. 332.

42 Available at <[http://pase.ac.uk](http://pase.ac.uk/)>, hereafter PASE. The list is not exhaustive. It should be noted that the name of an individual could be attested more than once: for example, moneyers could have worked at more than one mint, or an individual named in Domesday Book could have held lands in more than one area. The name of a man who held land in Derbyshire and Yorkshire in Domesday Book 1086, _Brune_ (PASE), may represent a hypocorism, or a version of Continental _Bruno_.

43 As Mats Redin, _Studies on Uncompounded Personal Names in Old English_ (Uppsala: A.-B. Akademiska Bokhandeln, 1919), p. xxx notes, ‘[a]s regards Germanic languages, the masc. suffixes most employed are -an- (OE -_a_) and -_ja-_ (OE -_i_)’. Hereafter Redin. F. M. Stenton, in his 1924 essay, ‘Personal Names in Place-Names’, in _Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England_, ed. Doris Mary Stenton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), pp. 84–105, at p. 88, notes, ‘[i]n Old English a long series of short names is formed by the addition of the suffix -_a_ to the first element of the compound’, and in n. 3, he adds regarding the -_a_ form, ‘[t]he common termination of weak nouns in Old English’.

44 Redin, pp. xxx-xxxvii.

45 Cecily Clark, ‘Onomastics’, in _The Cambridge History of the English Language_, I, ed. Richard M. Hogg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 452–89, at pp. 459–60.

46 Redin, pp. xxxv, 45, 46, 47, 49, 56.

47 Campbell, p. 59 n. 4. The comment is picked up by Wood (see below) and Halloran, ‘_Etbrunnanwerc_’, p. 249 n. 6, also quotes Campbell on the name elements: see further ‘Battlefield Despatches’, p. 100.

48 This is demonstrated by PASE, which lists thirty-five _Brun_ names.

49 Campbell, p. 61 n. 2.

50 William George Searle, _Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1897), p. 117.

51 ‘Battlefield Despatches’, p. 100.

52 Keith Briggs, _An Index to the Personal Names in English Place-Names_ (Nottingham: EPNS, 2021). Briggs helpfully notes the names listed in PASE. His _Index_ covers names in other EPNS works in addition to the Place-Name Survey; but since the Survey is not yet complete, the _Index_ is only indicative.

53 Respectively, J. McN. Dodgson, _The Place-Names of Cheshire_, Part 4, EPNS xlvii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 234–40, and A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, _The Place-Names of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire_, EPNS iii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), p. 29. There is a possibility that Burton in Tarvin, Dodgson, _PN Cheshire_, Part 3, EPNS xlvi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 270, may be a _Bruna_ name, but the interpretation depends on a single form, _Brunburton_ 1282; it is more likely to be a manorial affix, as suggested by Dodgson, p. 271. _Burnelee_, late thirteenth-century, a minor name in Newton by Daresbury, Dodgson, _PN Cheshire_, Part 2, EPNS xlv (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 155, might be close enough to the _Bruna_ estates further into the Wirral to be a detached property of the same man or his family.

54 The name Brown in Somerset in the charter S311 is discussed below. See David N. Parsons and Tania Styles, _The Vocabulary of English Place-Names_, 2, _Brace–Caester_ (Nottingham: Centre for English Name-Studies, 2000), p. 200, under **brūn**1. Hereafter VEPN. Also E. Ekwall, _Studies on English Place- and Personal-Names_ (Lund: Gleerup, 1931), pp. 62–63, hereafter Ekwall.

55 Campbell, p. 63.

56 Ibid., p. 61.

57 Ibid, p. 60.

58 _Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum_, ed. Thomas Arnold, Rolls Series (London: Longman and Co., 1879).

59 Not, it is to be noted, ‘_Brunesburh_’ in Arnold’s edition and Campbell’s list, p. 60.

60 For the details see ‘Place-Name Debate’, p. 349. _Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum_, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), now the standard edition, uses BL, Egerton MSS, 3668, which has the forms _Brunebirih_ and _Bruneberi_, pp. 310, 332.

61 _L’Estoire des Engleis by Geffrei Gaimar_, ed. Alexander Bell, Anglo-Norman Texts (Oxford: Blackwell, 1960), p. 112, line 3518 and notes. See also ‘Manuscripts and Maps’, pp. 305–06.

62 ‘Manuscripts and Maps’, p. 306.

63 These figures relate to personal names, but there are many more based on the adjective _brun_ ‘brown’. The number does not include dithematic names in place-names, such as Brungar in the name Broomfleet, and many another.

64 Walter de Gray Birch, ed., _Cartularium Saxonicum: A Collection of Charters Relating to Anglo-Saxon History_, 3 vols (London: Whiting and Company, 1885–1893), ii 75–77. Hereafter Birch. S refers to _The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters_, <[https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/](https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/)>, accessed February 2022, hereafter Sawyer. Sawyer 311 is <[https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/charter/311.html](https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/charter/311.html)>. Most commentators label the grant ‘spurious’.

65 Campbell, p. 61 n. 3.

66 H. P. R. Finberg, ed., _The Early Charters of Wessex_ (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1964), pp. 122–23.

67 Campbell, p. 61.

68 Birch, iii 563–65. The edition is a composite of several sources, but BL, Cotton MSS, Titus A vi lacks the Old English bounds, so the material is transcribed from Tiberius and early editions.

70 E. O. Blake, ed., _Liber Eliensis_, Camden 3rd series xcii (London: Royal Historical Society, 1962), pp. 111–13, where the Old English bounds are given at p. 113 n. l; Cyril Hart, _The Danelaw_ (London: Hambledon Press, 1992), pp. 60–62. Hereafter Hart. The form is marked <**brunnan**> in the _Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus_, compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey with John Price Wilkin and Xin Xiang (Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project, 2009), alerting the reader to the existence of a variant or lacuna.

72 Campbell, p. 62 n. 3 (continued from p. 61).

73 Henry Sweet, _The Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), under _burne_, p. 30.

74 Campbell, p. 61 n. 3.

75 Hart, p. 61.

76 I have been unable to verify this; the 1880 Ordnance Survey 1:5000 map has Bourn Villa, Bourn Hill and Bourn Hall either side of the brook, which it names Bourn Bridge Creek. But the existence of Bourne Brooks in Essex and Staffordshire indicates that the name type is not uncommon, see VEPN, p. 91.

77 I am grateful to Keith Briggs for permission to use material from his unpublished _Suffolk Place-Names_, draft of 2 February 2022.

78 Bourn in Cambridgeshire and Bourne in Lincolnshire are the ones listed in VEPN, pp. 50–51.

79 The list is too long to repeat, see VEPN, pp. 90–93.

80 ‘Spelling’, p. 367.

81 Ibid., p. 369.

82 _Dictionary of Old English: A to I_ online, s.n. _burna_, _burne_, _burn_. My thanks to the anonymous reviewer who noted that the _DOE_ has one example where _burne_ glosses Latin _fons_ ‘spring, fountain (of wisdom)’, Proverbs 18:4,_aqua profunda verba ex ore viri et torrens redundans fons sapientiae_ ‘words from the mouth of a man are as deep water; and the fountain of wisdom as an overflowing stream’. In this case the identification of the _fons_ with the _torrens redundans_ might hint at a more substantial stream than is usually signified by ‘spring’, and thus motivate the gloss _burne_.

83 The nominative singular is _brunnr_; accusative singular _brunn_; genitive singular _brunns_; dative singular _brunni_.

84 See A. H. Smith, _The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire_, Part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 35–36. See further Paul Cavill, forthcoming, ‘The Battle of Brunanburh: The Yorkshire Hypothesis’.

85 See above, and also his repetition of Campbell’s notion that ‘the elements of this name [Brunanburh] are common ones’, ‘Spelling’, p. 366.

86 While Wood mentions the distinction between _Bruna_ with a weak genitive _Brunan_ (the form in _Brunanburh_) and _Brun_ with the strong genitive _Brunes_, ‘Searching’, p. 150, he can still assert on the same page, for example, that Brinsley, Nottinghamshire, is ‘a _Bruna_ name’, ‘Searching’, p. 150 n. 62, citing _PN Nottinghamshire_, which clearly identifies the personal name as _Brūn_, p. 117, as does the medial -_s_- in the name.

87 ‘Spelling’, p. 369 n. 26.