first printed in Standfast (in two parts) in 2015 and 2016

Part 1

In a previous issue of Standfast I drew attention to the widespread misunderstanding of the name "Jock(y)". There are several other names which are similarly misunderstood (Archibald and Gillespie, for example, have no connection with each other), but for Grants in particular, as for Scots in general, one such name stands out: James

Look in any dictionary and you will find a rehearsal of the "well known fact" that 'James' is a variant of 'Jacomus', itself a variant of 'Jacobus' or Jacob.

Jacob is a very well known Hebrew name. It would appear that all the early Saints we call James were really called Jacob. From Jacob we do get Jack (which is ironic as Jack is often seen, again wrongly, as a pet form of John). The website "BehindTheName.com" provides a good explanation of the meaning of "Jacob":

From the Latin Iacobus, which was from the Greek Ιακωβος (Iakobos), which was from the Hebrew name יַעֲקֹב (Ya'aqov). In the Old Testament, Jacob (later called Israel) is the son of Isaac and Rebecca and the father of the twelve founders of the twelve tribes of Israel. He was born holding his twin brother Esau's heel, and his name is explained as meaning "holder of the heel" or "supplanter". Other theories claim that it is in fact derived from a hypothetical name like יַעֲקֹבְאֵל (Ya'aqov'el) meaning "may God protect".

It is because Jacob and James are understood to be equivalent that we recognise Spanish placenames such as Santiago and San Diego as being dedicated to St James. Compare these also with Shakespeare's Iago.

The problem, however, is that I am fully confident that, the alleged intermediate forms notwithstanding, this is drivel - the result of some carelessness by a scribe at some stage several hundreds of years ago. I say this not only because it is "obviously" stupid the minute you stop to think about it, but also because there is the perfectly good Hebrew name (C)haim (many members will remember among others Chaim Hertzhog, the Israeli politician who died in 1997). Haim is a contraction of Chaim or even Chayyim (just as Anne is short for Anna which is short for Hannah, which is actually short for Channah!) and of this name Behind the Name says:

Derived from the Hebrew word חַיִּים (chayyim) meaning "life". It has been used since medieval times.

So I say that James is actually a variant of Chaim and actually has nothing to do with Jacob. [One source suggests that this name was particularly given to sick babies to confuse (and hence deter) the angel of death!]

Wikipedia adds this interesting extra (of which many members will be aware already):

L'Chaim in Hebrew is a toast meaning "to life". When a couple becomes engaged, they get together with friends and family to celebrate. Since they drink l'chaim ("to life"), the celebration is also called a l'chaim.

It will not take a huge imagination to see a certain resonance here (he said, tongue in cheek!)

George Black ("Surnames of Scotland") says that St James (he does not say which one) was the patron Saint of the Stewarts - and, without enquiring into why this should be (one likely explanation is that one of them will have completed the pilgrimage to Compostela), this nevertheless offers us an explanation as to how the name came to Scotland. The first Grant with the name James (14th Chief) was the son of John Grant the Bard Roy and was born about 1480x90 - around the time the Grants were being made stewards of Glenmoriston and Glenurquhart - right in the middle of a period in which five Stewart kings called James occupied the throne - so we can see easily why the name should have been adopted.

In Spanish there is also the given name Jaime. Of this Wikipedia (5/15) trots out the usual nonsense:

Jaime is a common Spanish and Portuguese masculine given name for Jacob, James, Jamie, or Jacques. In Occitania Jacobus became Jacome and later Jacme. In east Spain Jacme became Jaime; in Aragon it became Chaime, in Catalonia it became Jaume. In western Spain Jacobus became Iago, in Portugal it became Tiago. The name Saint James developed in Spanish to Santiago, in Portuguese to São Tiago. The names Diego (Spanish) and Diogo (Portuguese) are also Iberian versions of Jaime.

So it appears that the confusion originated in Iberia and there is ample opportunity for this to have arisen as there has been a very substantial Jewish community in what is now Spain from before the Christian Era (later it was the existence of these Jews which prompted the institution of the Spanish Inquisition). I am still hoping to persuade a relevant academic to take on the task of trying to pin down the circumstances in which the confusion occurred. It could make a fun research project for a student in a suitable faculty.

So it seems that the Spanish got it half right: they refer to San Diego/Santiago which is a fair representation of Saint Iago/Jacob. But just as we conflated Archibald and Gillespie, so they conflated Jacob and Jaime.

Perhaps our Chief should really be Sir Jacob! There again, perhaps not.

Conclusion: The English language names John, Jack and James are entirely separate from each other. They are our mangling of three Hebrew originals: Yochanan, Jacob and Chaim.

PS.

  • Gillespie (from Gille Espic) is a Gaelic name which means "servant of the bishop" - ie embodying piety and allegiance/obedience to the church.
  • Archibald is a Scottish variant of Erkenbald which is Germanic and means "genuinely brave".

Part 2

In a previous Standfast I offered my view that John, James and Jack are derivatives of three different Hebrew names. The principal controversy is over James - with the received version being that it is a corruption of Jacob, while I propose that it is a version of Chaim, meaning “life”. I have since come across a webpage suggesting that comes from Jaime - an ancient Iberian name of now unknown meaning. We have seen before how different names from different languages have been conflated (remember Erkenbald/Gillespie, Jock/John) so I would not necessarily dismiss this, indeed it could mesh with my thoughts. On this occasion I take the examination one stage further and consider why the name James came to Scotland at all - digging into the proposition that St James was the patron saint of the Stewarts.

Background

Our story may start usefully in the period leading up to the year 385. Based in Avila in Spain was a bishop by the name Priscillian. His views were close to those of the Cathars (who flourished much later); he was extremely ascetic. This brought on the wrath of the Catholic church which condemned him as a heretic. He was executed in 385. His followers, however, retained their fervour and sought refuge in the farthest ends of the earth - Galicia (where “Finisterra” corresponds to the French “Finisterre” and “Land’s End in Cornwall). This area remained outwith serious government/church control and so the followers continued to flourish.

We may now jump forward to the period following the year 573. In La Rioja (a district fairly close to Zaragoza) is a village named San Millan de la Cogolla after the monk St Emilian who lived there as a hermit, dying in 573. After his death he was reputed to appear as a horseman with a banner and wearing a cowl; the purpose and/or value of such an apparition is now obscure.

Forward again we go to 711 and the Moorish invasion of Spain; local chieftains fell like ninepins. But as they capitulated readily many of them sought and received freedom of religion. Not only that but divisions within the Moorish forces saw some Berbers in the front line - especially in the far North and West - converting to Christianity. So again the Priscillianists remained largely unscathed. Not only that but it was just a decade before the fight back started - the first victory being in 722 at Covadonga, where the Virgin Mary was especially venerated and prayed in aid. The war leader, Pelagius, was proclaimed King of the Asturias and the Christian battle against the Islamic Moors was “on”.

The Moors had also invaded what is now France and so the counterforce was led by Charles Martel and his successors to Charlemagne and beyond, eagerly backed by the popes.

Enter St James

It was Theodemar, Bishop of Iria who is credited with the official ‘discovery’ of the bones of St James the Great at Compostela - so this must have been after 818 (when his predecessor was still in post). Yet the first date associated with this is actually 814. This paradox is quite easy to explain - as Charlemagne who died in January of that year (old calendar - so towards the end of the year) invested the bones of some eight saints at the cathedral of Toulouse. Specifically these included bones from St James the Great and St James the Less. From this we may suppose, therefore, that the bones alleged to be of St James the great arrived in Toulouse in 814.

Theodemar, as with the Catholic church as a whole, was desperate to suppress the Priscillianists. The next date that we have is 818 - when a monk is supposed to have been led by a divine light to ‘discover’ the ‘tomb’ of St James the Great. This attribution was made probably because there was already a legendary association (apparently current by the year 700) between St James and Iberia - the truth of which need not detain us. We may suppose again that this was the date when Theodemar established the Shrine, at the behest of Pelagius’ descendant, King Alfonso II “the pious”, which was soon replaced by a church in 829 (itself replaced in 899), at least in theory incorporating some of the bones from Toulouse. It is Henry Chadwick who proposed that the location of the shrine at Compostela was selected as part of the suppression of the Priscillianists - and, through time, indeed this seems largely to have been effective. The Compostela base served a secondary purpose, however, as it was pretty much the safest place in all Spain from Moorish attention.

Battles against the Moors continued apace. One victory was at Monte Laturce in 859 and some elements of this battle were incorporated into the legend of the wholly fictional battle of Clavijo - which was variously dated to 834 and 844. [We have our own wholly fictional battles - such as the Battle of Barry, normally allocated to the year 1010.] In this battle the legend of St Millan was borrowed and given to St James, whose appearance (with banner and sword) guaranteed victory and who thence acquired the Soubriquet “Santiago Matamoros” - Saint Iago, the Moor Slayer. [Some readers, ahead of me, will have seen already the correspondence with St George the Dragon Slayer.]

Thereafter St James was firmly established both as the patron saint of Spain, eclipsing all predecessors and as a principal source of aid in battle against the infidel Saracen. His fame soared exponentially and a pilgrimage to Compostela became de rigueurfor many an aristocrat.

The Stewart/Scottish connection

So far as I can see, the first person in Scotland to be called James was James Stewart who was to become the 5th High Steward, who died in 1309. The date of his birth has been a source of controversy, but we can now tighten it up.

Firstly he is the reputed father of Andrew Stewart, ancestor of the Grant chiefs thereafter. Rechecking the numbers I find that Maud Grant the heiress could have been born as later as 1274, probably around 1270. Given the story as we have it in the Monymusk Text it seems likely that Andrew was a few - not many - years older, so let us make an estimate at 1265x70. Assuming that my analysis is correct - ie that he was the eldest, illegitimate son of his father (or, if the DNA people have their way, was supposed to be) his father could have been born as late as 1253, but certainly not the1260 of revisionist historians. These academics, however are right to question the c1243 which was previously current.

However we have two more vital pieces of information: James Stewart’s father (a) took part in the 7th Crusade (1248-54) and (b) went on pilgrimage to Compostela in 1252.

This pilgrimage has been used as a basis for claiming that James must have been born after 1252. However we have to ask why on earth Alexander would have undertaken this pilgrimage?

The early action of the 7th Crusade all took place on the river Nile; militarily it was a bit of a disaster. So the way I see it, Alexander Stewart was in a bit of a pickle fighting people easily described generically as “Moors”. He invoked the assistance of St James the Moor Slayer, promising that if he got out alive (many of the crusaders actually starved to death) he would, by way of acknowledgement and giving thanks, go on pilgrimage to Compostela. He also dedicated his firstborn son to the saint - calling him James. Thus James Stewart could have been conceived at any time after his return from Crusade - I would estimate 1251.

This in turn implies that Andrew Stewart was probably born around 1270 - the latter end of the range previously offered.

St James’ influence would seem to have been effective as the second James we have on record would appear to be James Douglas, born c1286 the son of Elizabeth Stewart (James Stewart’s elder sister) and Sir William Douglas the Hardy who himself took part in the 8th Crusade in 1270. This was in Tunis - classical “Moorish” territory and I would not be surprised if he also sought the saint’s intercession.

Afterword

Many who completed the pilgrimage to Compostela take pride in the use of the Scallop shell motif. Although church authorities try to claim that pilgrims used scallop shells to beg for arms, as I explain in my book (“Scottish Clans: Legend, Logic and Evidence”) the Scallop shell motif is far older. The feast of St James the Great was superimposed on the old pagan festival of Neptunalia (July 25th) which was in essence a several day orgy. In art and myth Venus is depicted as being born out of a scallop shell - whose shape and size so closely resembles the female pudenda. [St James the Less’ feast was intended to suppress Beltane: May 1st.]

Conclusions

The name James came to Scotland because of the entirely confected reputation of St James the Great as a “Moor Slayer”. Alexander Stewart clearly attributed his survival of the 7th crusade to the saint - whence he became the patron saint of the family. It was the eminence of the early bearers of the name that ensured that it would become so extremely widespread here.