Sweet chestnut in Britain: when and whence did it arrive? searching for ancient ‘chestnut-scapes’ using names & place names ACCEPTED WISDOM has Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) first coming to Britain with the Romans ~2000 years ago (Godwin 1975, Huntley & Birks 1983). There is scant evidence to accept or reject this view (Fig. 1 summarises all the finds previously reported or published) – but now the new technique of genetic characterisation, coupled with targeted palaeoenvironmental and historic assessment, could provide new evidence for sweet chestnut’s antiquity in Britain. This research assesses sweet chestnut trees in the Forest of Dean and south and west of England, searching for evidence of the earliest occurrence of chestnut. It is presumed from continental European experience (e.g. Conedera et al. 2004; Squatriti 2013) that people in Britain would have valued chestnut foremost for its nuts from their first encounters with it – either from trees that grew in the locality or as nuts that were imported from elsewhere. Rob Jarman 1 , Frank M. Chambers 1 , Julia Webb 1 , Karen Russell 2 Stool with 16 metres basal circumference Chestnut tree with 9 metres basal circumference REFERENCES Godwin, H., 1975: The History of the British Flora. CUP, Cambridge; English Heritage, 2001: Review of wood and macroscopic wood charcoal from Archaeological sites in the West and East Midland regions and the East of England. Centre for Archaeology Report 23/2001; English Heritage, 2002: A review of Archaeological wood analyses in southern England. Centre for Archaeology Report 75/2002; English Heritage, 2010: A Review of wood and charcoal recovered from Archaeological excavations in Northern England. Research Department Report Series 68/2010; Huntley, B., Birks, H.J.B., 1983: An Atlas of Past and Present Pollen Maps for Europe: 0-13,000 years ago. CUP, Cambridge; Krebs, P., Conedera, M., Pradella, M., Torrioni, D., Felber, M., and Tinner, W., 2004: Quaternary refugia of the Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.): an extended palynological approach. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 13: 145-160; Mattioni, C., Martin, M. Angela, Pollegioni, P., Cherubini, M., Villani, F., 2013: Microsatellite markers reveal a strong geographical structure in European populations of Castanea sativa (Fagaceae): evidence for multiple glacial refugia. American Journal of Botany 100(5): 951-961; Rackham, O., 1980: Ancient Woodland. Arnold.; Smith, A.H., 1964: The Place-names of Gloucestershire, Part Three. CUP, Cambridge. 1 Centre for Environmental Change and Quaternary Research, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK 2 K Russell Consulting Ltd., 6 The Avenue, Leighton Bromswold, Cambs., UK ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE Fig. 1: summary of all archaeological finds for chestnut in Britain Total Castanea nuts pollen wood charcoal Pre-Roman 0 0 0 0 Roman 1 ✓ 1 ? 0 6 ✓ 8 ? 7 ? AD 400-1100 0 0 0 1 ✓ 3 ? AD 850-1350 0 1 ? 1 ✓ 3 ✓ 4 ? This evidence could be interpreted as: i) chestnuts were not grown or consumed in Britain until after the medieval period; ii) chestnuts were grown/consumed in Roman Britain but no evidence has been found; iii) chestnut growing/consuming has not left any evidence. WRITTEN ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE The earliest written record for chestnuts in Britain is from AD 1153, the gift of the ‘tithe of chestnuts” from the Forest of Dean to Flaxley Abbey, in a charter from Prince Henry, subsequently confirmed by Henry II in 1157. ‘…et singulis annis totam decimam castanearum de Dene…’ ‘…in valle Castiart…’ This is reinforced by an earlier - 1145 - first written record for a chestnut place name – the area in the Forest of Dean called ‘Castiard’, from which the chestnuts being tithed were collected. ‘…et nominatem essarta de Chestiard”. No other place name similar to ‘Castiard’ has been found in Britain, not even in the areas where Roman occupation, appropriate habitats or Brythonic speakers have all coincided. Chestnut derived place names in other parts of England take the Anglo-Saxon or later name forms based on cisten. or chesnut. 1. SCHRIJVER Jackson is correct in tracing the name Castiard to something like British Celtic *kastan-gard 'chestnut enclosure'. I am not aware of other place-names on English soil that contain a Celtic (or Latin, hence Roman-period) reference to chestnut. What may be of help, however, is the following consideration. The Welsh word for 'chestnut' is castan. It has a cognate in the closely related Breton kistin 'chestnut(s)'. The vowel difference reflects an old difference between singular (Welsh) and plural (Breton). Both are obvious borrowings from Latin castanea. The question is: can we find out when the Latin word was borrowed into Welsh and Breton? The answer: yes, up to a point. In order to turn Latin castanea into Welsh castan, it is crucial that Latin -ea is lost early enough for the -e- to no longer be capable of changing the vowels of the preceding syllables. That early loss of -ea only happens to EARLY Latin loans into Welsh and Breton, that is to say, to loans that were adopted during the period of Roman rule over Britain. So based on our knowledge of regular sound changes in British Celtic I would think that the Latin word for 'chestnut' was already borrowed in Roman-age Britain. Whether this means that chestnut was known only as imported fruit and wood at the time, or chestnut trees were already planted in Britain, I cannot say, however. 2. COATES 1. Castan-iarth vs castein-iarth, two hypothetical possible sources of the Gloucs name The former form, if it can be taken at face value, indicates a borrowing before the change of the vowel to <ei> in anticipation of the "y"-sound in the final syllable (represented by the <e> in Latin) AND therefore before the loss of that final syllable: i.e. before the late 5th century (on Jackson's dating). That would almost certainly mean that castan was borrowed into the local English, and that the second element is therefore Middle English yerd 'yard'. But how did it get into English here before AD 500? The latter form is compatible with Middle Welsh castein, and also with any relatively late borrowing into Late British/Brittonic/Old Welsh of Latin castanea, in which the final syllable has affected the second vowel before the final syllable disappeared: i.e. any time after about 500. The latter form is also compatible with borrowing from French casteine, i.e. a Norman form of the French word descended from Latin castanea. The Anglo-Norman form of the word for the tree is found, written castenere. The existence of casteine remains a theoretical possibility. 2. Getting to Castiard getting rid of the syllable with <n> in the name... English medial <n> most often disappears if the syllable it was in was an inflection. That doesn't apply here. But it happened so often in the medial syllable of three-syllable place-names (e.g. *niwan tun > Newton) that you could appeal to analogy here. Other Marches place-name analogies might include Wigstanes tun > Wistaston (Cheshire), Wisteston (Herefs), Alhmundes tun > Alcaston (Shrops), Wulfrune tun > Wollerton (Shrops), though they could just be evidence of the massive reduction of a 4-syllable name and/or dissimilative loss of <n> before another <n>. 3. GAMMELTOFT The Old English form for Chest(nut) is Cisten-, and it has already then undergone i-mutation and palatalization owing to the new front vowel created because of the i-mutation. I-mutations are usually thought to be prior to the Germanic conquest of England. What you have to ascertain is that Castiard cannot be a loan from Norman French, then you have your evidence for an early introduction of chestnuts to the British Isles and most probably also evidence of a continued use and importance of the site as a chestnut-producing site. EUROPEAN CHESTNUT NAMES Sweet chestnut has a consistent name throughout the European languages – all from ancient Greek kastan and Roman castanea… There do not seem to be any indigenous names, despite the confirmation of ice age refugia for chestnut in various parts of Europe including N Spain, N Italy and Greece? In Britain it is named in maps and charters using monastic Latin castanea, or medieval English chesnut. Brythonic castan Primitive Welsh castein Old English cist(en), cist-beam Cornish kesten - kestenen German kastanien, Edelkastanie Turkish kestan Serbo-Croat kesten Dutch kastanje French chataigne, marron Portugese castanheiro, castinceiras, castincal - souto, soito Spanish castana, castano – souto Italian castagna, castagno, marroni, farine Breton kistinen for the tree and kistin for the nut, Welsh castan-wydden for the tree and sataen for the nut. ORIGINS OF CASTIARD NAME PN Glos (Smith 1964) states: “Castiard, Prof Jackson suggests, could be from PrWelsh Castein-iarth meaning ‘chestnut hill’ or ‘chestnut-enclosure’. THREE EXPERT INTERPRETATIONS -IARTH Garth is an element denoting sometimes an enclosure and sometimes a ridge. It may be that the second meaning is an extension of the first, as enclosures (in the form of a caer or of a field) were so common in primitive times on hill-tops. In compounds the lenited form -arth or -iarth occurs in Penarth (Glam.), Sycharth (Denb.), Peniarth (Mer.), Llwydarth (Glam.), Llwydiarth (Mont.), etc. Brycheiniog - Vol. 11 1965 Some Breconshire place names Charter of Duke Henry to Flaxley Abbey – “Castiart”; “decimam castanearum” ‘tithe of chestnuts’ Charter from Willelmi de Mineriis to Flaxley Abbey of land “sub Castpard”; charter from Willelmi de Dene to Flaxley Abbey of land “sub castiard”. AD 1153 AD 1282 Dean Eyre – “Chastenariis”, “Chastenarijs” “Chastaniis” “Chestnuts Wood” – illegal felling of chestnut trees; Abenhall ‘chestnut grove’. AD 1255 Fine Roll, Henry III to Robert Walerand, custody of Dean including “nutui” ‘nuts’ and “castaneam” ‘chestnut-trees’. Dean Accounts – sales of chestnuts AD 1145-50 Charter of Roger, Earl of Hereford to William of Dene – “…et nominatem essarta de Chestiard”. Charter of Henry II to Flaxley Abbey – “valle Castiard”, “decimam castanearum”, “subtus Castiard” AD 1157 TIMELINE FOR CHESTNUT NAMES IN FOREST OF DEAN