By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson. 



41 



always been called the Old, the other the New : a distinction which 

 of itself implies that the one existed before the other. Some in- 

 terval of time there appears to have been, because at first we find 

 only one Park spoken of, afterwards a second. During that 

 interval therefore the town could not have stood between two parks ; 

 nevertheless its name all the while and from the first was ad Divisas. 



"Whether the derivation explained at some length in the volume 

 of " Wiltshire Collections" 1 printed by our Society in 1862, is or 

 is not the true one, it is at all events one that seems to have some 

 support from facts. 



So far back as the year 1854 (as may be seen in a Note to the 

 Wilts Arch. Mag., i., 180) it had occurred to myself that the secret 

 of the derivation lay in some meaning of the word divisa, which 

 might possibly be applicable, but had never been applied to the 

 present case. A close investigation, first of the strict history of the 

 word itself, and secondly, of the parish map, led me to the con- 

 clusion set forth in the volume referred to. 



1. — As to the Name. 

 • Ad Divisas is Latin, unquestionably : but there are two kinds of 

 Latin : the old Classical, and the Medieval ; and sometimes words 

 which in old Classical Latin were used in one sense, were used in 

 Mediaeval Latin in quite another way. We do so ourselves to this 

 day : as for instance in the common word " omnibus." In old 

 Latin it is an adjective, of the dative plural, meaning "for all." 

 We have borrowed it for a different purpose : we make it a noun 

 substantive, the name of a vehicle. The word omnibus is common 

 enough in Caesar ; but though, as we school-boys used to say, Caesar 

 did go into Gaul summa diligentia, on the top of a Diligence, he 

 certainly never made use of an omnibus. It is much the same with 

 the word Divisa. In Classical Latin, it is a passive participle, 

 meaning divided ; but in Mediaeval Latin it is used as a noun with an 

 active sense, that which divides — viz., a boundary line. And further, 

 it appeared that the ecclesiastics in their monastic charters always use 

 it as the established word for a minor kind oj boundary — whether 

 nedge, ditch, stream, or anything else that serves for such purpose. 

 1 " Wiltshire Collections by Aubrey and Jackson," 4to., p. 306. 



