Bishop Jocelyn (1175-1199) Monk Jocelyn and the Place-Name Glasgow
In those days Glasgow had been recently erected into a Burgh of Barony or Bishop's Burgh, with the privileges of a weekly market on Thursdays.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Bishop Jocelyn (1175-1199) Monk Jocelyn and the Place-Name Glasgow” from Mediaeval Glasgow by James Primrose, 1913.
There are two clerics of the name Jocelyn often confounded Jocelyn who was Bishop of Glasgow (1175-1199), and Jocelyn a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Furness. Perhaps the confusion arose from the fact that both flourished about the same period, viz. the latter part of the twelfth century, and that both belonged to the Cistercian Order of Benedictine monks.
The name Jocelyn seems to have been of French extraction, and is often found, spelt variously, in the records of those times.
It so happened that Bishop Jocelyn, who had previously been abbot of the recently-erected Abbey of Melrose, was anxious to build a new Cathedral at Glasgow, the former edifice erected by Bishop John in 1136 having been destroyed by fire. He may have been all the more impelled to this step because the twelfth century in Scotland was an age of great religious activity, when church building might be said to be in the air.
Although Jocelyn was consecrated to the See of Glasgow in 1175, it would seem that, having other important business in hand, it was not till between the years 1189 and 1192 that he was anxiously engaged in building the Cathedral. And further, it would appear that, although energetically carried on, the edifice was not sufficiently advanced for the celebration of worship till 1197, in which year it was consecrated.
In order to procure the necessary means for such an expensive undertaking, Bishop Jocelyn set agoing a society for collecting funds throughout the kingdom, which might be termed "a Cathedral Building Society." He also commissioned Jocelyn, of Furness, to write a biography of St. Kentigern, the founder of the See in the sixth century, and sing his praises as one whose glorious memory deserved to be perpetuated. To perform this task satisfactorily, Jocelyn of Furness visited Glasgow to gather material for the projected volume. In the prelude or preface of this biography, he tells us that he wandered through the streets and lanes of the city " seeking the recorded Life of St. Kentigern." He found a volume used by the Church, but this he described as " stained throughout by an un-cultivated diction, discoloured and obscured by an inelegant style," as well as containing "something contrary to sound doctrine, and to the Catholic Faith"; a hint, indeed, that the ancient Celtic Church differed to some extent in doctrine from the Church of Rome. There is reason to believe that the volume thus referred to is the fragment of the Life of St. Kentigern, a transcript of which is preserved in the British Museum, and which appears to have been written by a foreign ecclesiastic, also a cleric of Glasgow, at the request of Herbert, Bishop of Glasgow, who died in 1164.
Jocelyn also tells us he "found another little volume, written in the Scotic dialect, filled from end to end with solecisms, and tainted with what was perverse or opposed to the faith, but containing at greater length the life and acts of the holy bishop." By the "Scotic dialect" is here meant the Irish form of Celtic, and as the influence of the Irish Church was felt along the West of Scotland, the language was probably intelligible to all.
In the biography of St. Kentigern which he himself wrote, Jocelyn incorporated the contents of these two volumes or as much of them as he considered necessary. And he makes what, from a controversial point of view, may be regarded as a pregnant remark, "that he seasons what had been composed in a barbarous way with Roman salt."
In those days Glasgow had been recently erected into a Burgh of Barony or Bishop's Burgh, with the privileges of a weekly market on Thursdays. Besides, in connection with the consecration of the Cathedral in 1197, an anniversary "dedication feast" had been instituted, with a great fair of eight days' duration in the month of July the origin of what is now well known as Glasgow Fair.
But the Fair was vastly different then from what obtains in our day. Now it is the signal for an exodus of the population; then the city was crowded with an influx of visitors bent on business, burghers and craftsmen from neighbouring towns, Solway fishers, shepherds from the Forest, Nithsdale yeomen, squires of Carrick and Clydesdale, knights, the lordly Abbots of Jedburgh and Crossraguel, Highland chiefs from the Lennox, and Border moss-troopers.
As Jocelyn of Furness wandered through the streets of Glasgow, attired, doubtless, in the habit of the Cistercians a black cowl and scapular and his robes of white he would be "the observed of all observers." The only other monks likely to be seen in the city in those days would be the black-robed Clugny monks, from the neighbouring Abbey of Paisley. The "streets" of the city through which Jocelyn wandered would be few in number. The High Street, stretching from the Cathedral in more or less broken outline to the Cross, if not to the river, with the Rottenrow and the Drygate branching off on either side, would be the main thoroughfares. The "lanes" referred to by Jocelyn would be the narrow alleys or vennels leading from the streets to what are termed "back-lands.” The houses, too, at this period would be mere mud hovels, thatched with turf or reeds, excepting, perhaps, the residence of the Bishop. Very few, if any, would be of stone. The outstanding building, overshadowing all, would be the Cathedral, then in course of erection, and although Bishop Jocelyn completed only the choir and the Lower Church, i.e. the eastern half, nevertheless the Chronicle of Melrose significantly informs us that Jocelyn enlarged the Church of St. Kentigern in a glorious manner.
In those days, too, according to Jocelyn, the cemetery, long before consecrated by St. Ninian, was pointed out, and one of the tombs at least was "encircled by a delicious density of overshadowing trees." So far as can be made out, this cemetery would be situated where the Fergus aisle now stands, and close to the reputed tomb of St. Kentigern.
There was also to be seen in this cemetery a very large stone cross, a monolith, said to have been erected by St. Kentigern with supernatural aid. A wonderful cross this must have been, for the Monk of Furness assures us that "many maniacs, and those vexed with unclean spirits, are used to be tied to it of a Sunday night, and in the morning are found restored.” "But," he somewhat naively remarks, "ofttimes they are found dead, or at the point of death."
But the question may be asked here Why did Bishop Jocelyn select the Monk Jocelyn of Furness to write the biography of St. Kentigern? The answer would seem to be that the monk had already acquired some reputation as the accomplished biographer of St. Helen, King David of Scotland, St. Patrick, and of St. Waltheof of Melrose.
As we shall see immediately, the Life of St. Patrick was written about 1184, while the Life of St. Waltheof would not be written till 1206-7.2 That is to say, Jocelyn, ere he came to Glasgow, had already written the Life of St. Patrick, if not others of the above-mentioned biographies, excepting that of St. Waltheof.
From Beck's Annales Furnessienses we learn that in the year 1180 Jocelyn was sent to Ireland to help in founding the monastery of Iniscourcy, on a little island in Strangford Lough, and that while he remained in Ireland he was requested by two of the Irish prelates and by John De Courcy, the conqueror and Prince of Ulster, whose name figures frequently in the Annals of the Four Masters, to write a Life of St. Patrick. But Jocelyn felt that to perform such a task satisfactorily, and gather up the traditions of the Saint current among the peasantry, he must learn the native tongue, Irish or Erse, a dialect akin to the Scottish Gaelic.
As is well known, the ancient Celtic language was divided into two branches, the Gaelic spoken in Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, and the Cymric, or Welsh, or British, or Brythonic spoken in Wales and Brittany. In the days of the Monk of Furness, the Welsh dialect of Celtic was not confined to Wales, it prevailed also in Scotland especially in Strathclyde, as several of the place-names found in the ancient documents indicate. Jocelyn, then, coming from Furness, where Welsh was spoken, and studying the Irish or Erse dialect of Celtic to qualify himself for writing the Life of St. Patrick, would thus become master of the two leading branches of the Celtic language, viz. the Gaelic and the Cymric or Welsh. Now, so far as we can gather, he published the Life of St. Patrick about 1184, and everything points to the conclusion that it was after this he came to Glasgow at the request of Bishop Jocelyn to search out material for the Life of St. Kentigern. This visit to Glasgow, then, may have been somewhere about the year 1190, at which period, as we may infer from history, the Welsh dialect was fast disappearing; and, while the Gaelic might still be holding its own, the Saxon tongue was making headway, especially among those who had received some education.
Thus we may conclude that Jocelyn of Furness may be regarded as an authority on both branches of the Celtic language, the Cymric and the Gaelic, and if so, we should give due weight to what he has to say as to the interpretation of Celtic place-names. He seems to have been a fastidious writer, one who delighted in research, and the only outstanding literary man connected with Furness Abbey.
A specimen page of his Life of St. Patrick has been preserved among the Facsimiles of the National MSS. of Ireland. While well versed in the knowledge of Scripture, Jocelyn's chief defect as a writer is undoubtedly his credulity in accepting legends of the supernatural a blemish only too common among the biographers of saints in Mediaeval times. This, however, need not detract from his authority as a Celtic scholar.
We are now in a position to enquire into the etymology of the place-name "Glasgow," concerning which there has been so much speculation. Those who are interested in the more scientific attempts to solve the problem will find these discussed in Macgeorge's Armorial Insignia of Glasgow, and in the Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, in a paper contributed by Mr. W. G. Black. Both of these writers come to the same conclusion that the place-name "Glasgow" is compounded of two Celtic words, viz. "glas," signifying "green," and "cu," an abbreviated form of "cum," meaning " dear." So that, in their estimation, the etymology of "Glasgow" is "the dear green place." With all deference, however, to the above-mentioned writers, it seems to me that we should attach some consideration to the interpretation Jocelyn himself offers.
What, then, is the interpretation Jocelyn gives? Taking the text of the British Museum MS., which Dr. Warner deems to belong to the early thirteenth century, as the earliest extant Life of the Saint, we quote: "Cathedralem sedem suam in villa dicta Deschu, quod interpretatur Cara Familia quae nunc vocatur Glaschu, constituit," which may be translated: "St. Kentigern established his cathedral seat in a town called Glasgu, which is interpreted 'the dear family’ and is now called Glaschu." Jocelyn states that in his day, circa 1190, the town was called Glaschu, but he implies that in Kentigern's time, six centuries previous, it was named Deschu. And, not only so, but in an earlier chapter of his biography, Jocelyn gives us to understand that when Kentigern first came here the place was called Cathures, as it would appear, the original Celtic name.
Thus we discover that three successive names for the city emerge: first, Cathures, then Deschu, and later on Glaschu or Glasgu. Confining our attention meantime to "Deschu,” a distinguished authority, Mr. Whitley Stokes,suggests that the initial "d" in "deschu" has arisen through the copyist bringing the letters "c" and "l" into too close juxtaposition, thus forming a "d," so that we should read not "deschu" but "cleschu," a pronunciation that lingers in the vernacular to the present day.
Nor is this the only instance in which the letters "c" and "I" have been brought too closely together so as to form a "d." Mr. J. T. T. Brown detects a similar error in writing Carcleuin for Cardeuin (Cardowan), and Dr. Skene draws attention to the same mistake in the transcript of a History written by Asser in the ninth century. Now, it is generally admitted that the terminating syllables of the names Mungo and Glasgow are identical, viz. that "go" or "gow " is the Welsh for "cu" or "chu" or "cum," signifying " dear." Hence Mungo is interpreted " the very dear man," or, as it might be rendered, "the man greatly beloved."
Seal of Joceline, A.D.1175-1199
If, then, the "chu" in both "Cleschu" and "Glaschu" signifies "dear," what is the origin of the first syllable "cles"? If the name Cleschu signifies "the dear family," we must look for the meaning of "cles" in some word that has the significance of "family." And Jocelyn insists on this interpretation of "dear family," because he tells us that at Deschu (Cleschu), St. Kentigern united to himself a famous and God-beloved family who practised continence, and who lived after the fashion of the primitive church of the Apostles, without private property, in holy discipline, and divine service. The monastery in those days was constituted on the model of a family. The Abbot was the father and the monks were his children. Hence the community of monks at lona was known as the " family of Hy." Indeed the early Celtic church was monastic rather than episcopal, and its missionary work was carried on by little monastic communities or colleges of monks, whose heads were Abbots.
With this clue we would accordingly look for the etymology of "cles" not in the Celtic "glas," but rather in the Latin "ecclesia," under its Welsh form "eglwys " or its Gaelic "eaglais," for we must bear in mind that the Celts, having no word of their own for a church or Christian family, adopted from the Romans the word "ecclesia," literally "an assembly," but which, later on, was applied more particularly to a Christian assembly or church or congregation. Thus, in those early days, the terms "family" and "church" were virtually interchangeable.
Accordingly, we come to the conclusion that the placename "Cleschu" signifies "the dear church," and that in all likelihood Kentigern bestowed this term of endearment upon it on his return from Wales, whither he had exiled himself to escape the persecution of Morken, the pagan king of Strathclyde. Evidently Kentigern looked forward with expectation to once more occupying the scene of his former successful labours on the banks of the Molendinar, for he left Wales accompanied by quite a large number of disciples, while King Rederech, who had succeeded Morken, came towards the Borders accompanied also by a great multitude of his people to give a hearty welcome to the man of God. Nor is this all; Jocelyn represents Kentigern several times as referring in somewhat affectionate terms to his own church of Glasgow, a church, too, that is described by William the Lion as the "mother of many nations."
To resume if "ecclesia" in its Celtic form be the direction in which we must look for the interpretation of the "cles" in "Cleschu," this satisfies the contention of philologists that the first syllable of the place-name "Glasgow" should be a substantive, and the second an adjective. Besides, if "ecclesia" be the original, we can easily see how the two oldest forms "Cleschu" and "Glaschu" sprang from it, and, indeed, why there should be two forms at all, the one beginning with a "c" and the other with a "g." That "cles” is a likely abbreviation seems to me confirmed by the fact that the accent of "ecclesia" is on the second, not on the first syllable.
While it must be confessed the more common form in which "ecclesia" appears in place-names, is that which is transmuted in full, such as we see in Eccles, Eaglesham, Heglish, yet we have other forms which are just as likely abbreviations of "ecclesia.” We may mention two Lesmahago and Legsmalee. As to Lesmahago, according to a charter of 1144 A.D., the church there was dedicated to St. Machutus. Hence the original form of the name is said to have been "ecclesia Machuti," abbreviated into Lesmahagu, later on Lismago, later still Lesmachute, while it is now Lesmahago. Then, as to Legsmalee l in the Parish of Aberdour, Fife, the name was originally Ecclesmaline, the Church of St. Maline. In the course of time, however, this passed through several abbreviations, first into Egilsmalye, then into Egsmalye, and now it is Legsmalee. A somewhat similar process of abbreviation is found also in Eglismaly, or Egsmalee in Kinghorn Parish, Fife. Here, then, in Lesmahago and Legsmalee we see the first syllable of "ecclesia" elided as we claim to have occurred also in "Cleschu," the original form of Glasgow.
But not to press other instances meantime, such as Cleish in Kinross, the oldest spelling of which is "Cles," there is another strong reason why we should give heed to Jocelyn's interpretation of the place-name "Cleschu," as "dear family" or "dear church"; for, if we carefully read his biography of St. Kentigern, we discover that his knowledge of Celtic qualifies him to be somewhat of a philologist, albeit he was so credulous in the matter of the supernatural.
The etymology of Cleschu is not the only one he offers: he gives interpretations of several other place-names, and, so far as I am aware, they have never been questioned by competent critics. It is the Monk of Furness who tells us that "Mungo" or "Munghu" signifies "the dear man," that "Kentigern" means "the chief lord," that "Gulath," a little eminence in Glasgow, signifies "Dewhill," that "Throp-Morken" was so named because King Morken was buried there, and that "Crosfeld" is the English for "Crucis Novale," the field in which St. Kentigern erected a cross as the sign of the faith.
To sum up, then, so far as we have light, the simplest and most feasible etymology of the much disputed placename "Glasgow," originally "Cleschu," would seem to be "the dear church,” a name probably given by St. Kentigern himself on returning from his enforced exile in Wales to the beloved scene of his former labours on the banks of the Molendinar. Here he erected his cell or chapel, the nucleus of the City of Glasgow. And in this respect the origin of Glasgow resembles that of many other towns and cities houses built round a church causing the place to grow into a village, and then into a town or city, as we see also exempli- fied in Durham, Salzburg, Fulda, St. Gall, St. Neots, St. Ives, St. Boswells, St. Andrews, and Kilmarnock.
Why was this particular site on the banks of the Molendinar chosen for the cell of St. Kentigern? Well, hereabouts according to legend the car with the body of Fergus halted. Here also there existed in St. Kentigern's time a cemetery that had been consecrated by St. Ninian about two centuries previously, in which the body of Fergus was buried, where also his tomb was pointed out to Jocelyn at the end of the twelfth century.
When St. Ninian consecrated the cemetery for the burial of Christian dead, probably towards the beginning of the fifth century, just at the period when the Roman legions were being withdrawn from Scotland, there was probably attached to it a cell or chapel from which as a centre, he evangelized the district.
Here, then, the question arises, Why should St. Ninian choose this particular site for a cemetery and a cell ? Tradition avers that the Necropolis Hill, termed in the twelfth century "The Crag," and for centuries afterwards "The Craigs," was originally a seat of Druid worship. If so, there would be a cromlech or circle of stones here, round which, according to the venerable and wide-spread custom of "deisiol," our Celtic forefathers danced "sunwise” and made invocations to the Deity, the visible symbol of which was the sun.
If the tradition be credited, that the Necropolis Hill was originally a centre of Druidism, then at once we see a possible explanation for the site of St. Ninian's cell, viz. that it was erected on the opposite side of the ravine of the Molendinar as a Christian centre to counteract the influence of Druid paganism. The early Apostles of Christianity adopted this method of setting up churches near pagan centres; witness the Apostle Paul originating churches at Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. This example the early Celtic missionaries imitated; St. Patrick made his headquarters at Tara, the great Druid centre of Ireland, St. Columba at lona, and St. Modan at Dryburgh. Recent writers have a tendency to deny that the so-called Druidism of Scotland in the early centuries had any priesthood offering sacrifices or, indeed, any marked resemblance to the Druidism of the Gauls, as pictured by Julius Caesar.
Undoubtedly the Druids referred to in the lives of the early Celtic missionaries are presented rather in the character of "magicians" or medicine-men. But it must be borne in mind that an interval of five or more centuries had elapsed since the days of Caesar, and that during this period Druidism must have degenerated, for Caesar expressly informs us that in his day young men on the Continent designed for the priesthood were often sent over to Druidical Colleges in Britain, where the purity of the ancient faith was preserved, that they might learn there more correctly the principles of their religion.
It must be confessed we are yet much in the dark concerning Druidism, whether the megaliths known variously by the terms, cromlechs, dolmens, and menhirs are the remains of ancient Celtic races, or of prehistoric peoples, who lived centuries anterior. It has even been questioned whether these megaliths are the remains of pagan worship at all, and not rather sepulchral monuments pure and simple, as the dolmen appears to have been. But if we study these megaliths at Carnac in Brittany, where they are to be seen at their fullest splendour, where the alignments or oriented lines of menhirs are evidently vast avenues leading to the cromlech, the conviction is impressed upon us that this must have been originally a temple of the Sun, and that while at first these standing stones may have been employed exclusively for places of worship, nevertheless in course of time they came to be used also as places of interment, just as the space surrounding the old parish churches has from time immemorial been occupied as a churchyard set apart for the burial of the dead.
In any case, the site of Glasgow Cathedral is associated with the early preaching of the gospel in Scotland. In this respect Glasgow can claim a more venerable antiquity than either St. Andrews or Edinburgh. As Dr. Jos. Robertson writes: "Here the cross was planted and here was ground blessed for Christian burial by a Christian bishop, while lona was yet an unknown island among the western waves, while the promontory of St. Andrews was the haunt of the wild boar and the sea-mew, and only the smoke of a few heathen wigwams ascended from the rock of Edinburgh.”
Primrose, James. Mediaeval Glasgow. James Maclehose and Sons, 1913.
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