> Today, 9 September, is the feast of ...
>
> * Bettelin (eighth century)
> - in his younger, not-so-saintly years, he almost slit St
> Guthlac's throat while shaving him, in the hope that he would succeed
> him; he is patron of town of Stafford
The conflation of Bettelin of Crowland (more correctly Beccel; possibly cognate
with what in modern Welsh became 'bachgen', a pet-form of 'bach', 'little', for
the interest of those concerned with Celtic survival in eastern England) with
Bettelin of Ilam in Staffordshire (alias Bertram but more correctly
Beorhthun?) is as least as old as the Nova Legenda Angliae. The latter's feast
day, with Vita borrowed from that of St Berthelme of Fecamp, is August 10.
My guess (and it's only that) is that the key to the conflation is twofold: the
(probably historical) attachment of Beccel's master Guthlac to the apostle
Bartholomew, and a perceived phonetic similarity between the names Bartholomew
and Berthelme/Bertram. (Now, I'm out of my depth onomastically, so Dave Postles,
are you scanning your mail? Help me out, here, please!)
My evidence for speculating thus is as follows: Ilam lies in a cluster of
parishes with Bartholomew as their relatively rare patron saint (One of them,
across the valley from Ilam, may have been in possession of Ilam in the
eleventh century). The only relevant parochial dedication of which I'm aware
(Ilam's is in honour of Holy Cross) is less than twenty miles from Ilam, in
Cheshire, where a St Bertolin is patron of Barthomley.
Forgive me for complicating today's list, Carolyn! But thanks for the
opportunity to explore another possible case of 'folk etymology' in the corpus
of dedications.
Graham Jones
Leicester (until the end of the month)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|