d'ar gêr ! ***** à la maison ! ***** back home !

Noms de lieux

Noms de personnes

England

Bro-Saoz

Kent

Bro-Gent

Rochester

Durobrivae

page ouverte en 2003

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

dernière mise à jour : 02/06/2012 08:30:56

Définition : ville d'Angleterre; comté de Kent, au fond de l'embouchure de la rivière Medway, sur l'embouchure de la Tamise.

Extrait de la carte Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain.

Ajouté par JC Even : rond rouge, Durovernum / Canterbury; rond bleu : Durobrivae  / Rochester

Histoire : 

La position géographie de Rochester, au fond de l'embouchure d'une rivière, tel une ria, a fait de ce leu un endroit de passage depuis la plus haute antiquité. 

L'histoire du Kent ne commence officiellement qu'avec sa première mention historique écrite : le débarquement de Jules césar en 55 avant J-C. Mais il semble que celui-ci, bloqué près des falaises de Douvres, n'est pas allé cette année là jusqu'à l'embouchure de la rivière Medway. 

En 54, par contre, tout le secteur tombe aux mains des armées de Jules César qui, traversant la Medway, puis la Tamise plus au nord, fonce sur Camulodunum / Colchester et s'en empare. 

Le Kent fait ensuite partie du royaume de Cunobellinus, aussi roi des Catuvellauni et des Trinobantes, et d'autres peuples voisins moins importants. Celui-ci était en bons termes avec l'empire romain, avec lequel il faisait commerce. 

Les fils de Cunobelinos, à savoir Togodumnos et Caratacos, vont mettre à mal cette entente cordiale et, par leurs activités subversives y compris sur le nord de la Gaule (Belgique) provoquent la décision romaine de les attaquer en Île de Bretagne même.

L'armée romaine, forte de quatre légions professionnelles, avec armes et bagages, après avoir débarqué sur les plages de Deal, s'empare sans coup férir de l'oppidum des Cantiaci (Bigbury, près de Canterbury), et entre en contact avec la ligne de défense bretonne sur la Medway.

Ce fut la première bataille de la Medway, qui a vu le début de la chute de la Bretagne celtique indépendante face au Romains. Cette conquête durera 40 ans, pour se terminer en 84 dans les Monts Grampians, en Écosse.

*****

Le site de l'estuaire de la Medway sur lequel devait s'élever Durobrivae / Rochester fit successivement partie intégrante de la province romaine Britannia, qui eut d'abord pour capitale Camulodunum / Colchester, puis Londinium / Londres; de la Britannia Prima, qui avait Londinium / Londres pour capitale, puis de la Maxima Caesarensis, toujours avec Londinium Augusta / Londres  pour capitale.

L'estuaire de la Medway a servi de lieu de passage à la route romaine reliant Durovernum / Canterbury à Londinium / Londres. Il s'agissait là d'une route de toute première importance, tant du point de vue économique que du point de vue stratégique.

A cet endroit aboutissait aussi la grande route provenant de Lemanis / Lympne et d'Anderita / Pevensey (Hastings). 

*****

Forteresse romaine : en attente

*****

En 449, pour faire face au danger des Pictes et des Scots sur les frontières du nord et de la Mer d'Irlande, le dux de Bretagne, Vortigern, fait appel à des mercenaires Jutes, venant de l'actuel Danemark. Après leur victoire commune, Vortigern offre à ses alliés de s'installer dans l'île de Thanet, au sud-est du Kent. Mais dès 455 s'élève une querelle entre les anciens alliés, querelle qui aboutit à une bataille à Aylesford. Les Britto-romains sont vainqueurs dans la bataille, mais tombent naïvement dans le piège tendu par Hengist, le chef Jute, qui en fait massacre plus de deux cent, selon les chroniques. Les Jutes s'emparent d'une partie du Kent, dont Canterbury, Richborough et Douvres. On ne sait s'ils se sont alors emparés aussi de Durobrivae / Rochester. Le lieu de la bataille, à Aylesford, un peu plus à l'ouest, laisse à penser qu'ils auraient évité d'attaquer une place forte. 

Quoi qu'il en soit, à peine un peu plus d'un an plus tard, les Britto-romains subissent un désastre militaire face aux Jutes et aux Saxons, à Crayford, un peu plus au nord, sur la route de Londres, et les Jutes s'emparent désormais du Kent. Hengist se fait proclamer premier roi Jute du Kent. Comme les autres villes de cette province, Durobrivae / Rochester cesse d'être bretonne et devient ville forte des Jutes. 

Étymologie : 

A. Durobriavae :

* Rivet & Smith : 

- Inscription : " ... scito me manere aput (Duro)briuas et cababi et ..."

- Itinéraire d'Antonin, 472₃ (Iter II) : DUROBROVIS; variante DUROPROVIS.

- Itinéraire d'Antonin, 473₃ (Ite III) : DUBROBRIUS.

- Itinéraire d'Antonin, 473₈ (Iter IV) : DUROBRIVIS.

- Ravenna, 106₃₇ : DUROBRABIS.

- Ravenna, 106₃₉ : BRINAVIS.

- Table de Peuntinger : RORIBIS.

Of the writing-tablet, it is argued that Duro fits the space available (Duroco of Durocobrivae would not), and that Rochester rather than Water Newton is the likelier candidate; the letter is addressed to a recipient in London. Forms given by AI illustrate a number of the common kinds of miscopying. For TP's form it was suggested by Miller in 1916 that like other names it lost letters by having been written across the join of the sheets (of which the first was later lost), hence in the surviving copy [Du]roribis with -b- omitted and as often b for v. As for Ravenna's second entry, which R&C took literally and for which Williams provided an etymology, it seems to have arisen from Duro/brivis written in two parts, of which the first was neglected when the name was read from a map by the Cosmographer; this was miscopied as *Bravis or *Brabis, and a correction iv (iu) written in over the name was misread in and then incorporated into the name; such is the ingenious reasoning of Dillemann (p. 67). There can be little doubt that this is right; the sequence in the Cosmography — Landini, Tamese, Brinavis — shows us the direction the compiler's eye was taking as he read his map-source(s), unaware that he was duplicating, as often.

Despite the prevalence of locative forms in records of this name (and in one record of the next name), the writing-tablet with -as and AI's form for Durobrivae (2) show that the name was or could be declined; we have therefore stated it as a nominative.

DERIVATION. The name is British *Duro-briuas, a plural. The first element is *duro- 'fort, walled town', apparently usually on low ground (and named in contrast to *duno- ' hill-fort ') : this is cognate with Latin fores, forum, German Tor, Tür, English door, but is not related to Latin durus 'hard', which has u (Welsh dir, Irish dur). The element was very widely used, always compounded; see the names that follow in this List, and Lactodurum, the only British instance in which *duro- appears in second place. The element appears in names all over Gaul and as far east as Moesia, but is rare in Iberia where only two examples are known (Ocelodurum now Zamora in W. Spain, and Octodurum a polis of the Vaccaei in Hispania Tarraconensis, Ptolemy II, 6, 49, an unknown site). This may indicate that *duro- names constitute a somewhat late stratum of Celtic toponymy. Holder I. 1383 has many names; those with the element in second place are perhaps three times as numerous as those that have it in first place. When in second place -durum was unstressed, which explains why in the Latin sources its vowel is liable to some variation and even elision, and why names having this element are sometimes wrongly referred to other roots. Often -doro -dorum are found, as in British Lactodoro of AI. Continental instances include Hicciodero and Iciodiro for Icciodurum, Brivoduorum for Brivodurum, Autesiodor for Autessiodurum, and Boiotrum for Boiodurum (mention of these may help in further identifications). The -durum names were taken into Latin as neuters (despite early Octodurus (Martigny, Switzerland) in Caesar BG III, I). 

The second element is British *briua 'bridge', abundantly documented in Gaulish (Vincent 208), rare in Iberia and seemingly unknown in the easterly Celtic regions. It is present in the Vienna Glossary : brio = 'ponte'. It is found alone and compounded in both first and second places. In Brivodurum > Briare (Loiret, France) the elements of the present British name are reversed. Holder I. 610 lists many names; scribal and spoken variations which appear include Carobriis for *Carobrivis (further reduced in one text to Gabris), Briodurum for Brivodurum (cf. brio in the Glossary), and Bruusara for Brivisara or Briva Isarae. Ravenna 62,20 even records Brivodurum as Heliodorum. It is not easy to see the justification for the two British -brivae names being plural in form, but they are clearly so in all our sources, and also in some (by no means all) of the Continental cases (a plural preserved in several French Brives, Brèves, etc.). Many were small places which can have boasted only one bridge, and this may well have been true also of the British places with a bridge apiece (over the Medway and Nene respectively). Moreover, this plural is reflected in Romano-British Pontibus and Tripontium (not in Ad Pontem, Pons Aelius) which might be translations of earlier *briva names (rather than named in Latin because the bridges were post-Conquest constructions, as Pons Aelius certainly was). It may be that the names both Celtic and Latin were plural because rather than a single unified span, a series of stages or spans, or at first no doubt piles of stones in the river, was in question; for Tripontium in particular, ' three-stage bridge ' seems to be indicated. See also DUROCOBRIVIS. 

The name means, then, 'bridge(s)-fort'. The whole question of how these Duro- places received their names is discussed in Britannia, II (1971), XVI-XVII, and is of interest for many other types of name also. The Duro- names seem to have been taken into Latin usage in the early Roman period (they are not found north of Water Newton and Towcester in the Midlands) and can only signify 'fort ' ; an alternative sense for British *dûro-, 'walled town', is certainly possible but is here inapplicable because the towns in question did not receive their walls until long after the naming must have occurred. In some cases pre-Conquest Belgic settlement is known at the sites, but even if these had earthworks they would hardly qualify as *dûro- places, and a name in -dunum would be expected. That Celtic names should have been adopted for Roman forts is therefore something of a mystery; reasons are suggested in Britannia. It has to be remembered, in addition to what is mentioned there, that the Romans were well acquainted with Celtic naming-habits in Gaul, and that names involving latinised durum abounded there and had been established in Latin usage for nearly a century when the conquest of Britain was begun. There may thus have been a degree of conventionalism in the process, rather than any direct response to peculiarly British circumstances (compare, perhaps, British Branodunum).

IDENTIFICATION. The Roman town at Rochester, Kent (TQ 7468). Rochester was an important centre in the later Iron age and although no pre-Roman fortifications have been positively identified it is likely enough that some existed, but if the 'certain river' referred to by Cassius Dio LX, 20, 2 (p. 60 above) was, as the context suggests, the Medway, there was evidently no pré-Roman bridge. Remains of the Roman bridge over the Medway, on the other hand, have been noted and an early Roman fort to protect the crossing must have existed, probably on the site now occupied by the castle. Since the Roman town walls were not built until after A.D. 200, the name must originally have referred to this fort (perhaps replacing the name of the unit in garrison) and was later transferred to the town which succeeded it.

Note. Bede in II, 3 knew the ancient name, in civitate Dorubrevi, presumably through ecclesiastical tradition renewed by Augustine from Rome. Elsewhere he used the Anglo-Saxon form Hrofi, etc., which derives from the Romano-British name. For discussion of this, see LHEB 267.

>>>>>>>>>

Explication étymologique, selon ces auteurs : *duro- = ville fortifiée, + *briva = pont.

" The name means, then, 'bridge(s)-fort' = le(s) pont(s) du camp, ou le camp du(des) ponts). 

*****

B. Rochester :  

* Eilert Ekwall : Hrofaescaestre c 730 Bede; Hrofesceaster c 700 Laws, 839 ASC; Hrofescester 811 BCS 339; Rovecestre, DB. "Le fort romain de Hrofi". Hrofi 'ciuitas Hrofic c 730 Bede, civitas Hrobi 842 BCS 439), est une une forme adaptée du nom brittonique  (Durobrivis (dat. plur.) 4 I.A; (in) Dorubreui c 730 Bede; Dorobrevi 844 BCS 445), qui signifie "les ponts de la forteresse"" (bret. duro- = forteresse et briva = pont).

Blason : "d'or à la croix de gueule chargée en son cœur de la lettre R, qui est l'initiale du nom de la ville, au chef de gueule au léopard d'or, qui est d'Angleterre"

Sources : 

* Eilert Ekwall : The concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. 4è édition. Clarendon Press. 1936-1980.

* Frank W. Jessup : A history of Kent. Phillimore. 1974-1978.

* A.L.F Rivet & Colin Smith : The place-names of Roman Britain. Batsford Ltd. 1979_1982 

Liens électroniques des sites Internet traitant de Rochester / Durobrivae :   

* lien communal officiel : 

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

hast buan, ma mignonig vas vite, mon petit ami

go fast, my little friend