Gyrwe

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Gyrwe can mean:

  • Gyruum, representing Anglo-Saxon [æt] Gyrwum = "[at] the marsh dwellers", from Anglo-Saxon gyr = "mud", "marsh", from which
    • Gyrwe, Saxon name for Jarrow
      • The Gyrwe, reconstructed Saxon farm at Bede's World at Jarrow
  • Gyrwe name of an Anglo-Saxon population of the Fens, divided into northern and southern groups and recorded in the Tribal Hidage; related to the name of Jarrow.

However, compare gyrwyr, the plural of gyrrwr, the modern Welsh noun for drover or driver (whether of animals or a motor vehicle).

Hugh Candidus, a 12th century chronicler of Peterborough Abbey, describes its foundation in the territory of the Gyrwas, under the name of Medeshamstede. Medeshamstede was clearly in the territory of the North Gyrwas.[1] Hugh Candidus explains Gyrwas, which he uses in the present tense, as meaning people "who dwell in the fen, or hard by the fen, since a deep bog is called in the Saxon tongue Gyr".[2] The territory of the South Gyrwas included Ely. Æthelthryth founded Ely monastery after the death of her husband Tondberht, who is described in Bede's Ecclesiastical History as a "prince of the South Gyrwas".[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Potts, W.T.W., 'The Pre-Danish Estate of Peterborough Abbey', in Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 65, 1974: this paper contains some substantive errors, but is of interest.
  2. ^ Mellows, William Thomas (ed. & trans.), The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, Peterborough Natural History, Scientific and Archæological Society, 1941, p2
  3. ^ Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iv, 19
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