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Noms de personnes/ Anoiù Tud Noms de lieux / Anoiù lec'hioù

CORNOVII (Caithness)

 page ouverte le 07 Septembre 2004   forum de discussion

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

dernière mise à jour de la page, le  22/10/2014 09:04:08

Définition : peuple 'celtique' archaïque localisé à l'extrême nord-est de l'actuelle Écosse.

 

Extrait de la carte Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain

Histoire :

Étymologie :

* Rivet & Smith : Place-names of Roman Britain, p 325.

- Ptolémée, II,3,8 : Kornaouioi ( = CORNAVII); variante Kournaouioi ( = CURNAVII), Kornabioi ( CORNABII), Kornouboi ( = CORNUBI).  

Sens étymologique, selon ces mêmes auteurs : 

DERIVATION : See CORNOVII (1) ( = Report à l'analyse concernant les Cornovii du Cheshire).

" The base of these names is British *corn- 'horn' (Welsh and Irish corn; Latin cornu) and it has been suggested (Watson CPNS 16) that the British peoples were so called because they lived on 'horns' of land, promontories. In the case of Cornwall C. Thomas (Rural settlement in roman Britain (London, 1966), 86) has plausibly argued that the Cornovii there, as Venetic immigrants, might have been given the name by the Dumnonii because they dwelt in promontory forts (cliff-castles), but in Cheschire (where the wirral peninsula would be involved) and in Caithness to interpret the name geographically is probably to use the perception of moderns accustomed to looking at maps. For the people of Shrophire and Cheshire the vertical 'horn' of the Wrekin might conceivably be invoked, but this would not explain those of Caithness. Ross( 1967) 143 thinks that peoples do not neme themselves in this way and that the Cornovii are rather 'worshippers of a horned deity of the Cernunnos (stag-god) type', which is surely preferable.

 IDENTIFICATION. A people of Scotland, placed furthest 'east' (i.e. north-east) by Ptolemy and so to be locatcd in Caithness.

Note. The two namcs Durocornovium (qq.v.) indicate the presence of Cornovii also in Cornwall and Wiltshire. In Cornwall (to which they ultimately gave its name) they were presumably either a subdivision or a client-tribe of the Dumnonii and the appearance of the place-namc in Ravenna suggests that they were there before any supposed migration from the Shropshire area in the fifth century (e.g. J. Morris, The Age of Arthur (London, 1973), 68-69). The name in Wiltshire is unexplained, but it might represent a group who settled there in the course of an early migration or the early garrison of a fort.

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JC Even : mon étude sur le thème consonnantique *KRN, tenant compte de la juxtaposition locale des peuples Caereni, Carnonacae, Creones, Cornovii, recoupée avec le thème de Kronos (Saturne) ' réfugié dans les îles au nord du Monde', ainsi qu'avec le thème de Corineus, fondateur mythique de la Bretagne, selon Geoffroy de Monmouth, et l'analyse du nom de la ville Corinium / Cirencester par Eilert Ekwall (Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names). La racine de ces noms est celle du dieu Kron-os.

Voir sur la carte la proximité immédiate, au sud, des Lugi ( = le dieu Lug), et des Smertae ( = surnom du Dieu brillant = clone de Lug).

Le nom de *Kronos est peut-être à mettre en comparaison avec celui du dieu celtique Cernunos (dieu aux cornes). (voir le site l'Arbre celtique; envoi du 07.06.2002. signé : Patrice)

Sources. Bibliographie

- Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain

- A.L.F RIVET & Colin SMITH : The Place-names of Roman Britain. B.T Batsford Ltd. London. 1979-1982.

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

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