medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Friday, March 31, 2006, at 9:02 am, Christopher Crockett wrote:
> otOh, it sounds to me like you may have the equivalent in the
> English sources
> of what we see in the French ones as a _villa_.
>
> which is not, of course, a nice mansion on the Riviera for
> kelptocratic former
> heads of state, but rather a "manor" or farmstead, perhaps a proto-
> village;just depends upon historical circumstance.
And whose descendants in southern France are still called a 'mas', as in
parts of Italy they are called a 'massa' (both from 'mansio', with loss
of the nasal before /s/; compare Fr. 'mois', Ital. 'mese' from
'mensis'). In Italy, at least, many toponyms in 'Massa' are from
'mansio' in its sense of 'roadside inn'; these often became _fortified_
farmsteads, with the result that vernacular 'massa' and documentary
Latin 'mansio' come also to denote a fortified farm or village generally.
Best,
John Dillon
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