See You, Jimmy! How the name James came to Britain

uploaded to academia.edu October 2021

Abstract

How and why the name James came to Scotland (and even to England) has been a mystery. So far as I understand it, every relevant academic regards the matter as on the one hand interesting but on the other hand unaddressed. In this paper I propose that it arrived c1159 for specific reasons and due to a misunderstanding/conflation which was already well established on both sides of the Pyrenees.

A. Preamble: On Name Confusion

When immigrants arrive in a foreign country they usually bring their culture and, particularly their names with them. There is abundant evidence that the process of acculturation has led to many utterly bizarre suppositions of equivalence. A few of these will serve to illustrate the point. Among examples of name pairs which have been held widely to be "the same" or "equivalent" are:

1.The Campbells arrived in Scotland with William the Lyon on his return from captivity in Falaise. Their heraldry demonstrates that they were cadets of cadets of the Counts of Flanders - but they went to great lengths to assume a Scottish identity/ancestry, being responsible for three such conflations:

(a) Archibald/Gillespie:Archibald is an Anglicisation of the Germanic Erkenbald which, in broad terms means "Sublimely Brave", while Gillespie (for Gille Espic) means "servant (lad) of the Bishop". In Scotland these two names have long been held to be "the same" or "equivalent".

(b) Campbell/Cam beul. The Campbells' real name was "de Campo Bello" and is so recorded in early documents; it means "beautiful field" and there is more than one such place in Normandy. One can imagine some wiseacre Gaelic underling opining (I translate) "Campbell? Cam Buel more like!!" and so keen were the Campbells to claim a Gaelic heritage that they did nothing to prevent this lampoon from sticking - Gaelic "Cam Beul" supposedly meaning "wry/twisted mouth".

(c) Colin/Cailean: Colin is a common given name amongst Campbells; a laissez faire attitude has greeted its conflation with Cailean. Colin is a pet form of Nicholas (see Wikipedia) - a name which the Campbells brought with them (the church in Caenis dedicated to St Nicolas). As for Cailean what meaning one takes depends on how charitable one is feeling. For "Cailean" Dwelly offers us "seedling"/"prickle". If we are to be charitable we might compare this with several other given names which contain the connotation of "sprig"/ "chip off the old block" etc. including "Ant(h)ony". If we are to be less charitable we may imagine the same wiseacre intending a more derogatory implication of "little prick". There is a further conflation here with "Cuilen" meaning "whelp".

2. Gregory/Greig:The name Gregory is Greek in origin, meaning "watchman" and hence, by allusion, "shepherd". But this has not prevented it being conflated with the the Brythonic "Grig" (and variants such as "Gregg") meaning "Heath" (cf Heath Robinson) - essentially the same as the modern Welsh "Grug" (meaning heather). Thus today the MacGregors (whose name derives from Gregory, a name first introduced to Scotland in the 1060s (see "Scottish Clans...." passim) claim that anyone called Greig etc. is "one of theirs" notwithstanding that the latter predates the former and - as noted - has an entirely different etymology. We may add to this that it was most common in Scotland in areas with which the Macgregors had no connection. In this case the matter is complicated in modern times by "Greg" being used as a pet form of "Gregor(y)".

3. "Godfrey":Irish monk/chroniclers were particularly casual in their "translation" of Viking names. Thus it is quite common to find any of the names Guðrøðr(Guthroth), Guðfriðr(Guthfrith) and even Guðþormr (Guthorm/Guthrum) rendered as "Gofraid" etc, giving us only the barest hint as to what the real name may have been. [English Scribes were not immune from similar casualness.] However when it came to spoken language a different practice was normal: the Irish chose to use the closest word in their own language which sounded vaguely like the "proper" name. Thus Guthroth was represented as "Guaire", meaning "noble" (thence Anglicised as "Gorrie"; whence also, inter alia, the Clan MacQuarrie, which does not derive from Guaire at all (for which again see "Scottish Clans....")).

4. "Jack"and "Jock"

It is now commonly supposed (and asserted in The Oxford Names Companion that "Jack" is a pet form of "John" and that "Jock" is a Scottish variant of Jack. This is nonsense.

We may start by disposing of "Jock(y)" which is no more than an Anglicised version of "Eochaid", a very normal Gaelic given name (kings and others bore it) meaning "horseman" (whence also "jockey" for a horserider) - this explained in my "Scottish Clans".

The idea that "Jack" should derive from "John" when there is no meaningful distinction in pronunciation from the French "Jacques" (which is their form for Jacob) would be risible were it not promulgated by those who should know better. However, as we shall see - and as this paper sets out clearly perhaps for the first time - there is a firm basis for understanding how this gained traction: it resulted from the name forms "Jacob"/"Jacques" being supplanted (geddit?) by "James".

B. The Cult of St James

The truth or otherwise of the legends surrounding St James the Great is unimportant. What IS important is, rather, what was circulated and what was believed - particularly around the time we are considering, when belief in the intercession of saints was reaching its zenith.

The basic facts about the legend are well summed up on the Wikipedia page (accessed October 2021) about St James (this despite the author falling into the Iago/Diego trap discussed below). Included here is the story that the claim was made that St James' bones were "discovered" in the Compostela area in the reign of Alfonso II (791-842). However from Searching for Saints in Southern France we learn that Charlemagne (reigned 774/80-814) ordained that some of the bones should be transferred to the Basilica of St Sernin at Toulouse. [See also "The Cult of Santiago: The Images and Legends of Saint James and Their Significance in Modern Spain" Lisa Todd, University of Redlands 1998.]

Patron Saint of.....:St James has been in particular, the patron saint of sufferers of rheumatism, arthritis and associated complaints. The Arlington Catholic Herald tells us that "A legend records that as St. James was being led by a rope around his neck to execution, he passed a man crippled by arthritis or rheumatism who begged the apostle to cure him. St. James stopped and said, 'In the name of Jesus Christ, for whom I am being led to execution, stand up and bless your Creator.' The man stood up, completely cured, and gave thanks to God."

Digression: Note on the Scallop Shell: The Scallop shell is associated with St James in a way hardly paralleled by any other saint. The Catholic Church would have people believe that this was because pilgrims en route to Compostela would use a scallop shell as the receptacle for food or drink offered to them by well wishers. This may have happened but it is not the reason. St James' feast day is July 25th. He was parachuted onto this date to Christianise the festival of Neptunalia - a three day orgy in Roman times to celebrate Neptune and his companion the goddess Salacia (from whom the adjective "salacious"). The shape and size of the scallop shell closely resembles - and hence represents - that of the female pudendum. So this is from where the association derives. The longevity of this association may be seen in such works of art as Aphrodite (variously Venus) emerging from a Scallop Shell. See also "Scottish Clans...." Vol II p290. The Scallop shell may have been adopted as an early symbol in heraldry to represent something maritime - but this remains to be investigated and specified. [The male parallel is the so-called fleur-de-lys.]

C. The Name James: the Story So Far

The current understanding of the name James is deceptively simple - and wrong. We are offered an evolutionary process starting with

the Hebrew "Jacov" => hardening to "Jacob" => Latinised as "Jacobus" =>
which changes to "Jacomus" => then shortened to "Jacme" => whence to "James"

This has been aerated at some length on wordreference.com. Unfortunately all the argument for the proposition takes the form of assertion rather than any proof. Such academic support as is adduced really falls back on very substantial work of Lidia Becker - pages 583-586 of her Hispano-romanisches Namenbuch. Untersuchung der Personennamen vorrömischer, griechischer und lateinisch-romanischer Etymologie auf der Iberischen Halbinsel im Mittelalter (6.-12. Jh.).

Relevant extract at: books.google.de

The format of this entry in her book does show that Becker presumes the evolutionary process outlined above, but again offers no proof. All that she actually says is that many different names occur broadly simultaneously. Her attention to detail is very helpful - including, we may note, a variation of stress (from Iacóbus to Iácobus) for which no-one has offered a specific explanation (pace Angelo di Fuoco on the forum who rightly points in general to differences in stress generated as a word crosses a language boundary).

[Misallocation of stress is all too common and rising amongst English speakers whose cultural heritage is not British - and those who have read the word in question before they ever hear it spoken by someone who actually knows what they are saying - "pastoral", "electoral" and "sectoral" come straight to mind - errr... in each case the stress should be before "-oral".]

Amongst the names included which Becker implies are variants of one name are:

Jaime, Xiame, Jacopo, Jaques are also mentioned.

Objections

This list - the dates may or may not be reflective of the practice in the real world - is not suggestive of a single evolutionary process. In Spanish Jacov has indeed morphed to Iago (and we have seen the same process in Wales). We should note here the absence of any Iacomus! The argument makes this a necessary part of the process - but it cannot be proved. On the one hand "Sardokan 1.0" on the forum suggests interestingly that Jacomus might derive from Joachim rather than Jacov. On the other hand the name "Jacimus" is mentioned by Josephus (autobiography para 11). However we do have the modern Italian "Giacomo" - and I propose here, as I did on the forum, that this is a pet form stemming from "Jacobo mio" ("my little Jacob" - compare this with the Scottish Saint Moluag - from Mo-lu-ag: "my little Lugh").

Christocentrism

The shallow thinking on this subject is a direct result from a myopic Christocentrism. The fallacy of this perspective is well illustrated in Wikipedia's page on the history of Jews in Spain. There have been many Jews on the Iberian peninsula for a very long time, their numbers expanded even more after the destruction of Rome in 70AD. Jews were in particularly good odour in the period 1085-1212, the very time we are considering. In this context we should note that Becker specifies that

"Dompno Jacme", recorded in 1034, is described as a "fidiator". In a time when Christian and Moslem alike took a very firm stand on "usury" we may be confident that this Jacme was Jewish.

So any analysis of the names of the area which does not take full account of Jewishness and Jewish influence is badly lacking.

So far we have noted the names Jacov and Joachim and to this mix I think we should add "Chaim". This is a given name in Israel to this day, but it is special. Meaning "life" it was a nickname or surname given to sickly infants in the hope that this would fool the Angel of Death who would thereby spare the child. It is, therefore, more than possible for children with the given name Jacov or Joachim also to have been "Chaim" - retained as a pet form.

On the forum there were arguments raised about the minutiae of different pronunciations of "dj-" "zh-" etc.. Given the much larger manglings of pronunciation we have been looking at I regard such niceties as spurious - particularly in the context of movement across languages.

So too worry about suffixes is easily overdone cross-language. One objection to a Chaim-based argument was where the "-e" came from. The problem with this is that it should be applied to "Iacobe" also - so it is not a specific objection, albeit worthy of exploration in both cases. [Witness also the way Australians habitually add a "y" to almost any name as a familiar form.]

Digression: Diego and Iago are entirely separate names.

It is commonly - and lazily - supposed that "Diego" (as in San Diego) and Iago (as in Santiago) are interchangeable (Sant Iago => San Tiago => San Diego). I queried this in a separate thread on the same forum.

In her book, Becker (and "Cossue" on the forum quoting her) point out helpfully that the lazy assumption that (T)iago => Diego is not correct. One Diego is recorded in the 900s. Becker proposes that Diego was Latinised as Didacus (St Diego/Didacus of Alcalá lived in the 1400s). The suggestion that Latin Jacobus should end up as Latin Didacus is ludicrous (which sadly does not necessarily make it incorrect and does not prevent many people adhering to the proposal!). However I accept Becker's view. Despite a bit of a Twitter-style pile-on other forum members were very helpful in demonstrating that Diego was indeed of Visogothic origin - and this is not a new understanding, "Rocko!" in particular citing Santos Vaquero, A. (1998): Vicente Díaz Benito: El mercader-fabricante sedero más poderoso de Toledo en el siglo XVIII. Anales toledanos XXXVI. No.36. Pag.133. Diputación provincial de Toledo. España. says: "El patronimico Diaz proviene del nombre godo Diego....."

[It was during this research that it came to my attention that Wikipedia pages in different languages are not mere translations of each other. The Spanish language page on Diego offers a Celtic explanation of the name carrying derogatory undertones and a derivation from Jacob as an alternative. As can be seen I disagree with both (it is silly to give a boy child a derogatory name - and even sillier for soi-disant onomasticians to punt this sort of idea). As we have seen, any real student of the matter is aware that Diego is (Visi)Gothic - rather than Celtic - so it is to the Old English dictionary we should turn. This gives "diegol" as an adjective with the meaning "secret, hidden, private, dark, obscure, unknown, deep, profound, abstruse".]

Meaning of Diego: Thus I propose that the name Diego is cognate with diegol, beginning as a title of respect ("Initiate"/"Master"/"Guru"/"Professor" etc.) to confer on a(n priestly) academic (esoteric or otherwise) of standing, carrying the meaning "one who is initiated into mystery learning" and making "Didacus" a very suitable Latinisation. Only later would it have become a given name in its own right (cf "Dean" etc.).

Synthesis

Thus having disposed of Diego, what then are we to make of the myriad forms offered by Becker?

We may allow that the yellow highlighted entries do indeed derive from Jacov. In my view the peach highlighted entries derive from Chaim. This leaves us with those which have both a "c" and an "m" highlighted in green. I like the Joachim proposition - but I also like Josephus' "Jacimus". Is Jacimus a pet form of Joachim or entirely separate (bearing in mind that "Jesus" is really a contracted/pet form of "Yehoshu'a")? Some letters are more 'droppable' than others so I remain completely unconvinced by Jacme => Jaume/Gaime/Xaime.

Despite this reservation, however, I would be confident that in 1208 when Peter II of Aragon and Marie de Montpelier gave their son the name Jaume (actually we cannot be sure exactly what he was called) they thought they were making reference to St James the Great - the conflation had already occurred.

Summary: So far, therefore, I am proposing that it was the juxtaposition and intermingling of a substantial number of wealthy and influential Jews in an otherwise Christian milieu (and a Christianity where the Cathars were both influential and tolerated, even supported), where the Christians knew perfectly well about Jesus' Jewish heritage, that various separate Hebrew names were conflated by the Christians - Christians who were not overly picky (they might have said pedantic) regarding the meanings of those names.

We are left with the problem of how this conflation made its way to the British Isles.

D. The Siege of Toulouse

St James seems to have been of no more than passing interest to people in Britain up to and beyond the Norman Conquest. In the Wessex Bible produced in the period 990-1175 St James is referred to as St Jacob. However John Wycliffe's Bible, dated from around 1382 refers to him as St James. This gives us a fair first idea of the timeframe within which the change from Jacob to James took place.

So too what is now the South West of France was of no interest to anyone in Britain until 1152 when Eleanor of Aquitaine married King Henry II of England, bringing her lands with her.

In 1159 Henry had it in mind to enlarge his realm southwards by bringing the County of Toulouse under his suzerainty. I will not attempt to enter the debate about the politics of the situation. The circumstances are discussed, inter aliain

1. gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com / Connections: Henry II, Toulouse, 1159
2. the "Relations with France" section of bbc.co.uk / Henry II: An Imperialist King?
3. LSCatilina's contribution at alternatehistory.com / WI: King Henry II of England conquers Toulouse in 1159?

Suffice it to say that the project was not seen through - at least one element being the presence in Toulouse of French king Louis VII (Henry II's feudal superior in respect of at least some of his French lands).

King Malcolm IV of Scotland was in attendance on King Henry - indeed Henry had knighted Malcolm at Perigeux en route to Toulouse. He was not well, his illness manifesting particularly in the bones - such that in modern times it has become fashionable to identify Malcolm IV as the true "Canmore". At that time his malady would have been lumped in with those for which the tutelary saint was clearly St James the Great.

Malcolm's desperation for a miracle may be seen from the fact that he himself made preparations to - and declared that he had - set out on pilgrimage to Compostela. [GWS Barrow ("Regesta Regum Scottorum I: Malcolm IV") suggests (p.21) that his death at Jedburgh thwarted his plans. Whether or not he made it is not relevant to this discussion and I have no reason to suppose otherwise than the generally accepted line.]

Modern attempts at diagnosis (mainly by historians rather than doctors) have come to interpret/ diagnose his malady as Paget's disease of Bone (and osteoarthritis is a principal symptom of this disease), but for a number of reasons I regard this with suspicion. I am grateful to the organisation Versus Arthritis for their offer to discuss this matter further, but it need not detain us here (if I end up with a better likely diagnosis I will share it as well as I can). Whatever his illness, St James the Great was the right saint from whom to seek intercession.

E. Dedications in Scotland

We are fortunate to have the fruits of the Glasgow University-based "Saints in Scottish Place Names" project readily available online starting at saintsplaces.gla.ac.uk

Exploring these sites we see that the earliest reliable record of a dedication to St James is that of Paisley Abbey and can be dated to 1165.

We are very fortunate also to have the People of Mediaeval Scotland database. Not only is there no evidence for "James" before 1159, there is barely any "Jacob" either - and such as these may be appear to be closely connected to the church.

Reign of David I:There is, however what appears to be an earlier dedication - that of St James' Parish Church Roxburgh. In the Old Statistical Account for Kelso, the respondent, Dr Christopher Douglas (p580 footnote) says:

"The Church of St James..... was dedicated anno1134".

Unfortunately there is no reference for this claim and the saintsplaces website does not lend any credence to it.

We may start by noting that St James is not indexed by Barrow in his "The Charters of David I". However in Item 183 (p143, dated by Barrow to 1147x52) we find a passing reference to "ecclesiam Santo Jacobi". Barrow culled this charter from the Cartulary for Kelso Abbey. It is our good fortune that Andrew Smith's 2011 PhD thesis "TheKelso Abbey Cartulary: Context, Production and Forgery" examines this cartulary in great detail. [It is my regret that I have not been able to make contact with Dr. Smith.]

Smith's conclusion regarding this charter matches my own with regard to the supposed 1075 Foundation Charter for Dunfermline Abbey. They are both forgeries. My analysis of the Dunfermline charter is yet to be published, but I would say that both were forged with good intent and to the monks' best abilities. In both cases the trigger for the need for the forgery was the destruction of the original (whether or not specifically deliberately) at the behest of English King Edward I around the year 1300 (Dunfermline Abbey was set on fire in 1304).

The Dunfermline forgery contains many anachronisms - so there is no a priori reason for supposing anything else for Kelso. So on the one hand we may regard the reference in this charter as insubstantial. It merely reflects the fact that it in the early 1300s it was "a well known fact" that this particular church had been dedicated to St James for longer than anyone knew or could remember.

We do not know where Dr Douglas' information came from and churches could take a long time to build, so there are several scenarios into which an 1134 date might be associated with this particular church, but speculation in this field is too idle to specify. Dr Douglas does not actually say that it was dedicated to St James at that date (though doubtless he intended it) - and there are many churches with twin dedications - some contemporaneous, others acquiring a second many centuries later. [The Auld Kirk in Kirkcaldy, for example, was dedicated to St Patrick (probably around the year 850) before being rededicated to St Bryce in 1244 whereafter it retained both attributions although Patrick was hardly if ever mentioned.]

Reign of Malcolm IV: Malcolm IV was born in 1141, came to the throne in 1153 and died in 1165 - aged just 24. His father, Earl Henry, (1114-52) had been only 38 at death, but frustratingly we do not know the cause of that death, only that he had been unwell for near on a decade. I juxtapose these two because eg Paget's disease can be contracted by infection but it can also be inherited. Even if Malcolm did inherit it, clearly it is not very heritable because his younger brothers William the Lyon (died aged 72) and David Earl of Huntingdon (died aged 65+) lived full length lives; however we may also note that David's own son John died aged just 30.

As we have seen, Malcolm IV was not too sick to take part in the siege of Toulouse in 1159 but he died in Scotland just six years later.

The church of St James in Roxburgh (now Kelso) is referred to in passing in a charter of Malcolm IV confirming to Kelso Abbey the liberties granted to it by his predecessors, himself and others ("Regesta Regum Scottorum I Malcolm IV" Item 131 p 193).

Barrow says of the date:

25 March 1159 x 24 March 1160 (almost certainly 25 March x middle of May 1159)

noting:

'In April or May 1159', Lawrie Annals 40. King Malcolm crossed the Channel to Normandy on 16 June 1159 and did not return to Scotland until the following year, by which time the king's clerk Nicholas had become chamberlain (see Itinerary).

In his thesis Smith seems to regard this charter as authentic (see Commentary I starting p214). However the charter is framed and the reverse side of it was not examined - leaving room for some residual doubt.

Discussion

When I came to realise that the immediate antecedents of the name "James" had been coined in the general area of the Pyrennes, that Malcolm IV had a disease warranting the intercession of St James and that the charter could just about be dated to his return from Toulouse, I constructed an initial narrative that Malcolm IV had brought any interest in St James to Scotland - and that really meant early 1160. But something was not gelling. First of all it was a very tight timetable to return to Scotland, dedicate a church and then refer to it in a charter. Second there was the problem of the 1134 date. There was a danger of donning the mantle of Procrustes.

The breakthrough came in considering the aetiology of Paget's Disease (I was still accepting this suggestion), understanding that it can have a genetic cause and hence linking the early death of Malcolm IV with that of his father the Earl Henry. We know that Earl Henry is known to have been unwell throughout the 1140s - and if he had some disease of the bones of a genetic basis which was only gradually progressive, the beginnings of it may already have been "obvious" by late teenage (we can see a parallel with the likes of MS which can even go into remission and then recur). King David I was a very highly religious man and would have sought out the best advice as to which saint's intercession to seek. This would have been how St Jacob (undoubtedly as he was known at the time) would have come to his attention. This then gives the 1134 claim credibility and is a solid reason why a church should be built close to the Monastery of Kelso (at Roxburgh which was also a most important royal base).

When Malcolm IV and his retinue returned from Toulouse they brought with them the local vernacular version of the name which quickly became "James".

Afterword on Gaelicisation

(a) Kathleen: In my paper about the name Kathleen in which I demonstrated that it is not possible that it derives from the name Katharine (and in the process calling into question the idea that the Gaulish/French name Catheline is an intermediate form), I made comparative reference to the "Gaelic versions" of the names James and John. No-one was able to fault the logic over Kathleen - although an interesting distinction between Scottish and Irish Gaelic was thrown up: while Neil Macgregor takes the view that to derive Kathleen from Scots Gaelic "cadhal" (meaning "beautiful") is unlikely because the difference in pronunciation is too great, Martin Counihan opines that a derivation from Old Irish "cadla" (with the same meaning) is entirely reasonable. There are names in many languages (Jamila, Linda, Belle, Pritti etc.) which show just how common this idea is as the basis for a given name. This leaves me unable to choose between the two possible derivations, but strengthens the argument that Kathleen is an indigenous Gaelic name later commandeered to be used for - but NOT deriving from - Katharine.

We may apply this same process to James (and it is instructive to note that there is no direct Gaelic equivalent of "Jacob" as such). I am particularly grateful to Máire Nig Ualghairg for her part in the discussion of my paper on Kathleen, inadvertently not only making my point for me but strengthening it. We need to approach James via John.

(b) John: We should begin by noting that the origins lie in two near synonymous Hebrew names 'Yohanan' and 'Yehohanan' both referring to the grace of God. The names came to the British Isles via Latin (through Greek) most commonly as Iohannes - and will have been familiar to Christians. Thus in Ireland (for the general population from the middle 400s) St John was known as Naomh Eoin. But it is not at all clear that the name enterered general circulation as a given name. I accept Máire's point that 'Seán' would only have come into circulation with the invasion of Anglo-Normans as their representation of Norman-French 'Jean'.

Máire tells us that Eoin used to be Eóin. And here we have an interesting point, because Dwelly lists the word “eòin” (this is Scottish Gaelic) which he says is the genitive singular of “eun” meaning (inter alia) chicken and pout (fish). It would be ridiculous to name these animals after the saint - so the presumption must be that the word “eòin” predates the arrival of Christianity.

I am becoming increasingly aware of the logical contorsions which linguistics 'experts' indulge in in order to favour their preferred explanation - and we have seen examples both above regarding James and Diego, and Kathleen, of course. But we should consider also the Cruithin (see my papers on the Picts and Scots) and placenames such as 'Argyll' and 'Athol' (hyperlinks to my iconoclastic papers on these).

So while Máire says of Sean and Eoin that "the derivation of both names can be traced back to sound changes from the original Latin form (borrowed from Greek and before that from Hebrew)", I agree that if you perform the contorsions yes you can make the argument - but that does not make the conclusion correct. Thus when she says "The derivation from Latin and the Greek makes perfect sense" I don't agree. There is a much simpler explanation which fits both this and other parallel examples: just as Kathleen was a pre-existing name, so Eóin was a pre-existing word - both of them summoned into a secondary use to cover a foreign name in whose meaning they had not the least interest. That Máire is prepared to play fast and loose with the ó in Eóin gives me a basis to play similarly fast and loose with the á in Seán - notwithstanding that today there is a subtle difference in pronunciation sufficient to distinguish the two, but I remain of the view that in the case of John (rather than Ian) it was the Irish and Scottish Gaelic "Sean" (meaning "old") which was commandeered to represent the Norman-French variant of the Hebrew name - and this argument is strengthened by the rendition of James which, at last, we can now examine.

(c) James: Modern Irish Gaelic renders James variously. The Wikipedia page lists many variants:

Seamus, Seamas, Séamas, Seumas, Seumus, Shaymus, Sheamus and Shamus. We may dismiss several of these as inauthentic Anglicisations - and, as the argument presented above demonstrates, the page is entirely erroneous regarding "Iacomus". However the link from Seumas takes us to it own page (the Scottish Gaelic variant). Here it is made clear that Seumas/Seumus is the older form. [This was aired in passing in my Kathleen paper where no-one demurred.]

Ha! Dwelly lists "Seumas ruadh" as meaning "puffin" - from which we may conclude that "Seumas" means "beak". So however much later Irish people may have tweaked the name - presumably to afford a distinction - the first thing they did was to make use of their existing word which had the closest sound to what they heard. We do not need to get overly exercised by any accents as these are new variants! It is as well to point out that whatever else it may mean "Jacob" does not mean "puffin" - or "beak". ["Jacob" actually demonstrates that he was not the firstborn, but because he supplanted his elder twin brother Esau as heir to their father, "Jacob" has come to be (mis)understood as "supplanter".]

From this we may also speculate that "James" in the original Gaelic form "Seumas" reached Ireland by way of Scotland rather than from England - the hitherto current assumption.

F. Dedications in England

In England, sadly, there is no direct equivalent of the Saints in Scottish Place Names project, but, mirabilis mirabile, there is the next best thing - a dedicated individual who has taken on a near parallel task: identifying all Church of England dedications. Listing 467 churches dedicated in whole or in part to a St James, Sean Blanchflower is the eponymous of and he manages a website which includes the subsite blanchflower.org / Church of England Saint dedications.

First of all it is helpful that Sean cannot recall any church dedicated to "St Jacob" - and yet as we have seen this is how St James was represented in the Bible up to and even beyond 1160. Trawling through, there was one church which seemed to be the exception which proved that the rule was a general one: St James Ludgershall in Wiltshire. I am particularly grateful to church warden Julie Walker for engaging in a protracted correspondence and for her local enquiries on my behalf. It is clear that the church is originally a Saxon foundation, but its governance underwent a complete upheaval following the 1177 re-foundation of Amesbury Abbey as a Priory by King Henry II when the church, which had been a daughter to that at Biddlestone (which no longer exists) came under the Priory's aegis. So there is good reason to suppose that a rededication - to St James - occurred at that time.

The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England has a single "Iacob" a deacon and contemporary of Bede - making it problematic as the name could well have been adopted on taking Holy Orders rather than being a given name. One Jacob is noted (a 'subregulus' fl. 963-971). This is very useful in indicating just how uninterested the people of England were in this name in this period; it also recognises Iago ap Idwal - who was king of Gwynedd in the period 950-979 (so it is not clear to me whether these are one and the same person). This shows very helpfully how Jacob was rendered in the vernacular of that time. My general proposition would not be destroyed if it turned out that there were to be one or two church dedications to "St Jacob" or "St Iago" before 1160 - but even if there were any, none seem to have survived. The general point is that there was a flowering of dedications - to James - after that date.

We can understand only too well why even King David I could have developed a particular interest in seeking the intercession of St James: beyond Malcolm IV and his father Henry of Scotland, David I's eldest son, Malcolm and his daughter Hodierna both died "young"; the fact that his other daughter Claricia also died unmarried might be taken to suggest that she too died young. But why would Henry II share that interest?

First we should note the carnage in Henry II's family:

• 1080: his grandmother Edith/Matilda (Henry I's queen and King David I' sister) died at the young age of 38 (the same age as Earl Henry of Scotland)
• 1151: Henry II's brother Geoffrey, Count of Nantes died "suddenly" aged just 24
• 1164: Henry II's brother William fitz Empress died aged just 27 - the claim being that this was due to a "broken heart".

And then we should consider most of Henry II's children:

• 1156: William Count of Poitiers died aged 3
• 1183: Henry 'the young king' died (albeit of dysentery) aged 28
• 1186: Geoffrey Duke of Brittany died aged 27/8
• 1189: Matilda of Saxony died aged 33
• 1214: Joan Queen of Sicily died (albeit in childbirth) aged 34

Henry II himself was born in 1133 and died in 1189.

By the time Henry set off for Toulouse his grandmother, his brother and his eldest son were already all dead, long - decades - before their time. We can see why, by the time he got there, Henry, a very religious man, would come to the view that some serious divine intervention would be in order. By the time we get to 1177 (my suggested date for the dedication to St James at Ludgershall) these casualties had been joined by William fitz Empress. Although omitted from the list we may add to this toll also William Adelin, Henry I's heir who died on the White Ship in 1120, aged 17 - not from illness, clearly, but adding to the idea that there was malevolence afoot and hence to the need for supernatural assistance.

Now, secondly, we should note that Henry II and Malcolm IV were second cousins as Henry's father's mother was Edith/Matilda the sister of King David I. While there is no hard evidence of the cause of these premature deaths I propose that there was a genetic weakness for which the source can only be either Malcolm III or his second queen Margaret Atheling (who died aged just 48 - also of a "broken heart" - although, in the case, with good reason). As with all such genetic diseases not all family members suffered from it - Earl Henry's daughters, for example, lived full length lives. David I was 69 at death - but his position in the tree could be taken to suggest that he was a carrier.

G. Conclusions

It seems possible that the illness of Earl Henry may have stimulated King David I to seek the intercession of St Jacob as early as 1134. In any event it does seem likely that the dedication of St James' Roxburgh did pre-date Malcolm IV's expedition to Toulouse - so the connection to St James there was coincidental and fortuitous rather than being crucial to interest in the Saint - but it WAS crucial to the importation of the name form James.

In England King Henry II will have become progressively more seriously concerned by the health of his immediate family - especially after the death of his son and heir in 1156.

The minds of both Henry II and Malcolm IV were focussed sharply during their Toulouse adventure (1159) where they were impressed by the presence of the bones of one of Jesus' principle apostles - St James the Great - coincidentally directly pertinent to Malcolm IV's malady and quite possibly not irrelevant to the cause of the death which stalked Henry II's family.

It seems likely that the root cause of the death was a genetic weakness which burned itself out in the generation of Henry II's children, with King John and his successors not being carriers.

Both Malcolm IV and Henry II brought the name "James" with them back from Toulouse and this quickly superceded "Jacob" and "Iago" in the vernacular, although the name continued to be represented as "Jacobus", particularly in Latin-text official documents all the way through to the Reformation.

H. Parting Shot!

Just as Malcolm IV was known as "the maiden", so Malcolm III was known as "long neck". If my analysis of the route of the disease is correct, it may yet prove to be that it was Malcolm III in which the genetic mutation first showed itself. If so, the nickname "Canmore" might actually be applicable to both and those modern academics who have dismissed the association of Malcolm III with "Canmore" have promulgated a false dichotomy. But more research is necessary and it would be greatly premature to advance such a claim at this time.

Acknowledgements

Bibliography (not otherwise specified/linked to in the text)

• GWS Barrow "Regesta Regum Scottorum I Malcolm IV 1153-1165" (EUP 1960)
• GWS Barrow(Ed) "The Charters of David I" (Boydell 1999)
• Edward Dwelly "Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary" (Birlinn 2001 reprint)
• Patrick Hanks & al. "The Oxford Names Companion" (OUP 2002)