298 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April of local nomenclature, we might even wonder that the change did not always take place. Mr. Mawer's other arguments seem to me to rest on a misapprehension. ' What can we make ', he asks, ' of names like Werburgingwic and Cyneburgingtun on the patronymic theory ? Patro- nymics are not formed from women's names.' Obviously not, in the etymological sense of the word patronymic. But we must not be the dupes of our makeshift terminology. When iElfric says that English, like Greek but unlike Latin, has patronymica, and gives as an example Pending meaning "' son of Penda ', he is using the term in its strict sense. But the strictly patronymic function of the suffix -ing is merely a specific applica- tion of its wider meaning as expressing origin in general, as the ' topo- phyletic ' use shows. It was comparatively rare in Old English times for a woman to be a landowner and the head of a family ; but in these rare cases there seems no reason why the lady's descendants (not necessarily lineal) who inherited her property should not have been known by the (miscalled) ' patronymic ' derivative of her name. When Werburh lived, men would no doubt speak of ' Werburh's dwelling ' ( W erburge-wic) ; after her death they spoke of ' Werburh's people's dwelling ' (Werburging- wic). The author's two remaining objections to ' the patronymic theory ' — that it implies a wider prevalence of the clan-system, or of division of property among sons, than is likely to have existed, and that it cannot account for the name Bisceopingdene — are, I think, already answered. There is yet another function of the suffix which Mr. Mawer has not mentioned. In a former number of this Review I showed, on the evidence of Old English charters, that Wantage (Wanating), Lockinge (Lacing), and Ginge (Gceing), which are now names of places, were originally names of streams. We thus find that there was a suffix -ing, which the modern pronunciation shows to have been pronounced -indzh, serving as a formative of river-names. Doulting in Somerset (Duluting) also appears in a charter as the name not of a village, but of a brook ; it is reasonable to suppose that we have here the same suffix, though now assimilated in pronunciation to the ordinary -ing of place-names. Of the origin of this suffix, whether English or pre-English, I know nothing ; but names of rivers or streams ending in -inge and -ing are very abundant. Some of the names in -ing may no doubt be back-formations from village-names containing a patronymic ; but this explanation is not always admissible. Mr. Mawer records only one name of this type, Irthing ; but then he professedly deals only with such names as are mentioned in early documents. I would suggest that the place-name Easington, the early forms of which, Yesyngton, Yhesington (thirteenth century), Yhessyngton (sixteenth century), have greatly puzzled the author, may contain the name of a stream, Yesing, cognate with the Yese (in OE. form *Giese) already mentioned. An alternative possibility, however, is that the Easington stream was called Yese, and that Yesing is a ' topo- phyletic ' derivative. In his citation of the documentary forms of names the author is, so far as I can judge, almost faultlessly accurate ; but he has made one extraordinary slip, which may seriously mislead uninformed readers His list of the early forms of the name of Durham includes the startlin n g
