You say Lisia, I say Lesia

A letter in the Guernsey Press caught my eye recently:

Lisia is correct name for island
by Diane Ward

IN HIS letter published on 20 July, the Rev. Craske is, of course, quite correct in quoting from de la Borderie’s 19th century work on the Life of St Sampson, which shows the spelling of Guernsey’s Latin name as ‘Lesia’. However, the Roman Itinerarium Antoninum, which dates from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD, shows the name of Guernsey as ‘Lisia’. Whilst the original document is no longer extant, the generally accepted authority on this document is Wesseling’s 1735 work. Perhaps we just have to put this slight conflict in spelling (‘Lisia’/'Lesia’) down to a transcription misunderstanding somewhere along the line.

Modern scholarship concludes that writers in the Middle Ages, with their limited access to information, were wrong in their attribution of ‘Sarnia’, itself a corruption of the name ‘Sarmia’ appearing on the 1406 map from Mont St Michel.

As for having to explain ‘Lisia’ to people from outside of the island, I seem to have spent a great deal of time over the years explaining just where Guernsey is located so I don’t think explaining the name is really a great deal.

I am just heartily relieved that children are now being taught the correct Latin name for Guernsey. All we need to do now is persuade journalists to use the correct name – particularly in their sports reporting because ‘Sarnia’, whilst Latin, is not another name for Guernsey.

Incidentally, this information is taken from Eleanore Browning’s (nee Ward) classics dissertation: Cum Asterice in Insulis Obeliscorum – A Study of the Channel Islands in Antiquity, a copy of which is available in the Priaulx Library (only the title is in Latin!).

Background Information and Discussion

So let us look at the background and see how right the author is.

In "Variation and Change in Mainland and Insular Norman" by Mari Jones, she notes that:

"Latin was first taken to the region that would become Normandy by the Roman armies of Julius Caesar during the first century BC. Caesar subjugated the local Celtic tribes, known as Gauls, who had lived there since the Bronze Age. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, in the fifth century, the mainland territory was invaded and settled by Germanic tribes, known as the Franks, under whose rule it formed part of Neustria, itself under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian dynasty between the sixth and eighth centuries. Between the late fourth and early seventh centuries, migration from the British Isles to Armorica created the region that was to be known as Brittany and it may be presumed that the Channel Islands formed part of this new entity, both linguistically and politically "

The Maritime Itinerary

But where do the Latin names of the Channel Islands come from? We have no texts which preserve both Latin and Norse names – a Rosetta stone – by which we can be certain of which name belongs to which Island.

The key here is the Maritime Itinerary produced under the time of the Emperor Antoninus. This found at the end of the land itinerary and is headed “ Imperatoris Antonini Augusti Itinerarium Maritimum”; it gives a few sea routes, measured usually in stadia but sometimes in miles.

http://www.romaeterna.org/antichi/itinerario/index.html

The earliest manuscript source is from the 7th century and has various inaccuracies, as we will see..

Escorialensis R II 18. Date: 7th century. Contents: 1.1-373.2 and 487.1- 529.6. This MS. thus includes the Maritime Itinerary but not the British section of the Land Itinerary

Between Britain and Gaul we have

Vecta, Riduna, Sarmia, Caesarea, Barsa, Lisia, Andium, Sicdelis, Uxantis, Sina, Vindilis, Siata, Arica

But where these are is unknown!

The Irish Version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius gives “The Isle of Wight” – and its Latin name “Vecta”. Vecta was a Latinisation of Wiht which became Wight. Other ancient texts also provide this parallelism. But we have nothing like this with the Channel Islands, and indeed an examination of the land routes also produces similar problems with identifications.

After Wight, it is it possible that Alderney is Riduna. In times past Sarmia, corrupted to Sarnia was attributed to Guernsey and Caesarea to Jersey, but this is now thought almost certainly to be wrong.

Modern attribution places Lisia as Guernsey and Andium as Jersey - hence the Jersey company Andium Homes. But this is just as likely to be wrong as right. We have no real bearings.

Another View

In "The History of the Island of Guernsey: Part of the Ancient Duchy of Normandy" by By William Berry, published in 1814, the author argues for the above listing. While widely criticised for his history in general, he makes a case for Barsa and Lisia because the text mentions a crossing by land.

The Life of Samson

The "Life of Samson of Dol" is given in detail in Vita Sancti Samsonis, written sometime between 610 and 820 and based on earlier materials, and the main Island which he lands on in this is lists referred to as Lesia, the ancient Roman name for the Island. Given the historical attributions to St Samson in Guernsey, this makes it likely that Lesia is the Latin name for Guernsey, but of course, the Itinerary has Lisia.

Interestingly it mentions no other names found in this section of the Itinerary.

The Itinerary Revisited

But which is the more reliable source – the life of Samson or the Itinerary? In “Ireland and the Classical World”(2001) by Philip Freeman he notes how it is not wholly accurate. It states, for example (in translation):

Also in the Ocean sea that flows
between the Gauls and the Brittanic Isles:
the Orcade islands, three in number,
the island Clota in the Hivenione Sea.

And comments:

“The misplacement of the Orkneys and other islands in the sea between Gaul and Britain does not inspire confidence in the accuracy or textual transmission of this section of the Itinerary, and indeed, the passage as it survives is problematic. Mela and Ptolemy number the Orkneys at thirty (XXX), which Orosius expands to thirty-three (XXXIII).”" The three (III) Orcades here may be a corruption of either tradition. The line ‘insula Clota in Hivenione’ is even more puzzling..... In any event, the supposed island Clota is probably a misreading of the Scottish river name Clota (the Clyde) labeled on the sea on a source map and taken by the Itinerary author for an island.”

Now this is significant because this is the very itinerary where we find the Channel Islands!

The words in the Itinerary, as given in the édition by Wesseling (Amsterdam, 1735) a copy of which (originally belonging to Falle) is to be found in the Jersey Public Library, are as follows : —

But this is the same text which places the Orkney Islands somewhere between Gaul and Britain!

Given this I think we must not be too definite in taking the name Lisia as more authentic than Lesia for the name of Guernsey.