By J. U. Powell, M.A. 289 



Warminster. The objection to the " mynster " theory is not the 

 meaning of the word. Examples of "mynster" used in early 

 English in the sense of " Church," with a priest or priests attached, 

 are quite common : although when Canon Eaine says^ " minster is 

 applied generally in Saxon writers not to a monastery, but to a 

 church," his statement appears too strong. In the article 

 Mynster, in Bosworth & Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary the 

 number of examples given there of the meanings " monastery " and 

 " church " is about equal. So Monasterium is the word once used 

 in the Abingdon Chronicle of St. Aldate's Church in Oxford ; and 

 Monasteriolum is the word used of St. Martin's in Cnut's charter 

 of 1034.- The objection is, that the derivation from Mynster only 

 throws the difficulty further back. What, on this view, is to be 

 made of War, or Wer, as it sometimes appears ? It can hardly 

 be a river-name ; such a form is not found among the roots from 

 which river-words are formed. Indeed, it would hardly be possible 

 to maintain that the town is on a river, for the original settlement 

 is quite a distance off, and in a different valley from the Wylye. 

 And one would like to know more about the authority for the 

 name of the " brook Were." So this theory, specious as it is, and 

 appearing to be a short cut to the truth, really lands us in a 

 greater difficulty than ever. 



To the previous examples of mediaeval field-names which are 

 still used, may be added from Bishopstrow, Tunmead ; and Midles, 

 which is certainly short for Middleton ; these are found in a Lacock 

 document of about 1260, published in Wilts Arch. Mag., xxxii., 320. 

 The name Scratchbury is connected by Hoare with crechen, which 

 appears in Cold Kitchen. If so, it will be the common Celtic 

 diminutive Cruachan, often found in Ireland and Scotland {cf. 

 Crockern Tor, on Dartmoor). It would be an appropriate name 

 for it is especially applied to those hills which present " a round 

 or stacked appearance," ^ cruach originally meaning a rick or stack. 



' St. Mary's Abbey, York, p. 19. 



^ Parker, Early History of Oxford ; Oxford Historical Society, p. 292. 



•* Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names and Places, I., 388. 



