Définition; Ville d'Angleterre; comté de Somerset; 

Extrait de la carte Ornance Survey; Map of Roman Britain.

Histoire; 

Étymologie

A) Iscalis; (cf Rivet & Smith)

- Ptolémée, II,3,13; Iscalis ( = Ischalis), a polis of the Belgae; variante; Iskalis ( = Iscalis), Iskallis ( = ISCALLIS).

DERIVATION. Despite the fact that most MSS (including U) record the name with c (ch), this is probably another *Isca 'water' name with a suffix indicating a fort or a settlement. Ptolemy does not use c in any other British name, and it does not represent a sound of British or of Latin; only in the spelling perhaps first used by Paeanius for the Orkneys does c appear, and this was imitated by the -ch- of some Latin writers (see p. 40). One may assume that original K was accidentally copied as c in some early MS of Ptolemy; compare, perhaps, the variations in the Greek and Latin spellings of the Cauci people of Germania Magna (Kaucoi of Ptolemy II, 11, 7 — Kaukoi of Strabo VII, 13).

*Isca appears with suffîx *-ala in two early medieval Continental names (see ISCA-1). The suffix -alis is found in British Vernalis, if this is taken literally; a sense 'aldery (place) ' is suggested in our entry. Holder I. 94 lists two such suffixes, *-alis and *-alis (as they appear in Latin records), and both of them have left Celtic descendants; the rare analogues quoted by Holder hardly enable us to determine to what kinds of bases the suffixes might be attached, nor what was the force of the latter; and we do not know how the British name might have been pronounced. One cannot go further than a vague guess that the name means 'place on the *Isca river'.

IDENTIFICATION. Possibly the Roman fort and lead-mining settlement at Charterhouse-on-Mendip, Somerset (ST 3490) (see p. 145). This is some three miles from the old course of the Somerset Axe (when it used to flow through Axbridge), but the waters from here (dammed for use by the Roman miners) would have reached it through the Cheddar Gorge (which they flooded as recently as 1968). The alternative would seem to be an undiscovered early Roman fort actually on the river.

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B) Charterhouse-on-Mendip; (cf. Eilert Ekwall)

- (Piory of) Chartuse 1243 Ass; Charterhouse is an alteration by popular etymology of Fr. chartreuse 'Carthusian house'.

C) Mendip; report à l'analyse concernant les Mendip Hills, comté de Somerset; 

- "Menedepe 1185 TpR, Mendep, Menedup 1225 Ass, Minedepe 1236 FF, Munedep 1235 Cl. The first element is Welsh mynydd 'hill'. The second el. may be OE HOP 'valley'. If so, Mendip at first denoted a valley, probably that whitch cuts Mendip Hills into two part, and was later transferred to the hills".

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Sources; 

* ALF RIVET & Colin SMITH; The Place-Names of Roman Britain. B.T Batsford Ltd. London. 1982.

- Eilert EKWALL; The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names.

- envoi de;

Liens électroniques des sites Internet traitant de Charterhouse-on-Mendid / Iscalis;

* lien communal; 

Autres liens;

* forum du site Marikavel; Academia Celtica

hast buan, ma mignonig vas vite, mon petit ami

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