Finding Ala Chocha - a manorial seat of William of Eu in Sussex, possibly Cock Marling

What makes me spend hours following arcane links to track down something that niggles?  The amazing sensation of succeeding in solving a mystery that others have let slide for centuries!  Today I tracked down the place recorded in a notification of plea of William the Conqueror as Ala Chocha and a manor of William of Eu.  There is no place with this name in any other English or Norman record. 

Ala Chocha is now Cock Marling, on the Udimore ridge in East Sussex.  929 years ago William the Conqueror and William, Count d'Eu, would have looked across the Channel to Normandy, overlooked the harbour where ships moored in the port in the lee of Winchelsea, been opposite Old Hastingas across a ford at low tide, had views north to the London road from Appledore.  It presented an ideal spot for a prestigious manor for the man responsible for defending the coast and principal Norman port from attack.

Ala Chocha was named for the the greatest coastal saltworks in all of Britain: the 100 salt pans attributed to Rye in the Domesday Book.  Fecamp Abbey's Rameslege domain probably had even more salt pans, omitted from mention in Domesday records as free of the king's taxes.  1,195 salt pans - salinae - are mentioned in Domesday Book, but 100 is the most in any one place.  The next nearest in size is Maldon with 45 salt pans.  Cheshire has its -wiches with varying levels of production.  (Virtually all -wich names were associated with salt production.)

A 19th c. historian suggested Laycock in Wiltshire, as a near cognate for Ala Chocha, but this has been discounted by later historians as William of Eu did not own any land in Wiltshire or have any association with Laycock.

After the conquest William d'Eu, Count of Eu, was made lord of the Honour of Hastings, which included the manors of Hastingas and Bretda, both possessions before and after the conquest of Fecamp Abbey.  Possession had been interrupted from 1052 to 1066 by seizure from the abbey during Godwin's rebellion against Edward the Confessor, and Earl Harold, restored during the rebellion, refused their return after Godwin's death.  The Saxons and Danes called the region Rameslege - Rome's Law or Rome's Lowey.  A lowey was an area freed from royal dominion and taxes, with privileges of self-rule and church law.

The two manors of Rameslege bracketed the greatest estuarine port in the southeast of England.   The Brede Valley was then a huge fluvial port and the principal heavy cargo port between England and Normandy.  It was known to the Normans as Portus Hastingas et Peuenisel, Hastinge port (as used in the Carmen at line 597) and Hastingaport.

Bredta was the Udimore ridge from Sedlescombe to Rye.  The Udimore ridge is named after William of Eu, so his first manor after the conquest is likely somewhere nearby.

Thanks to this blog and some collaborative etymology and research on the LinkedIn Ancient History Group, I think we can pretty confidently place Ala Chocha as depicted below.

Taking ala to mean wing, Ala Chocha may correspond to the modern settlement of Cock Marling or a manor at nearby Udimore.  [Hat tip to Thierry Sempere on LinkedIn's Ancient History Group!]  St Mary's Church at Udimore was built by Fecamp Abbey, and there may have been a Roman or Norman signal beacon as on a fine day you can see Cape Griz Nez on the French coast opposite.  The projecting ham at the bend of the wing at Cock Marling strategically overlooked the entrance to the port on the Brede estuary to the south and also the estuary of the Tillingham River to the north.  It would have been a very important defensive site when the port was at its height, with huge treasure, trade and immigration flowing between England and Normandy.  Now it is pastoral farmland.  The toponym 'La Coque' in northern Cotentin also refers to a promontory surrounded by seawater.  The name Coque Aliensis (foreign cup) may be a basis for Cock Marling, as it is just down the road from Rye Foreign.

Both Ala Chocha and La Coque might come from the use of a large cup-shaped container to provide a beacon or coquenarium - a salt cooker. Cocca is attested in 11th-century French to mean cup and cup beacons along a series of promontories were common features of Nordic, Gallic and Britannic landscapes for defense and navigation. Promontories were obvious places to place beacons, and these needed a container for fuel. As the picture from Dover castle shows, medieval monastic cells and churches were often co-located with pharos or beacons so that the monks could service the beacon as part of their duties in administering the affairs of the port and defending the realm by practical exertions as well as prayer.

The list of witnesses to this negotiation of plea at Ala Chocha is extensive, both ecclesiastics and nobles, and some would have travelled from Normandy.  The port would have been a sensible place to meet, convenient to both those settled in England and those travelling there from Fecamp Abbey.  As Fecamp Abbey was in the jurisdiction of the Holy See of Rome, rather like embassies have separate territoriality today, it might have been deemed neutral ground between the claimants and instilled due respect in the witnesses.

Professor David Bates has reviewed the itinerary in his William I Acta (pp. 78 and 82) and helpfully confirmed that King William sailed to the Isle of Wight in the summer or autumn of 1086.  [Cheers, David!].  This may coincide with his visit to Ala Chocha for the negotiation of plea, though we don't know for certain his departure or return ports.

Google offers alterantive meanings for chocha which are also intriguing.  When I put Ala-Chocha into Google what I discovered is that chocha is Spanish slang for vagina.  [Don't try this as you'll be offered a lot of links you probably don't want to follow.]   Look at the map of the ancient port of Hastingas and Peuenisel at the top of this page.  It is a massive geographic chocha!  Chocha may have been used a thousand years ago without the sexual connotation, as vagina was the usual term then for a sheath or scabbard in medieval times, just as rape was used without sexual connotation for taking things of value by force or authority.  If derived from salsus, as suggested below, then chocha may have been an archaic nautical term for a salty marine channel or saltworks and been geographically descriptive when naming the manorial seat.  If derived from cocere, to burn or parch, that may also relate to salt flats as it took days to concentrate salt in seawater by evaporation in pools before drying the salt in saltpans.  The Brede Valley was surrounded by bloomeries to make charcoal for forges.  Charcoal-making requires a steady, moderate heat - the same as salt pans, making a natural synergy between the two businesses.

There is no entry for chocha in the glosbe.com Old French online dictionary and similarly no matches for Frankish or Norman when I search for those.  MyEtymology suggests the Spanish chocha may be a cognate of the Latin word salsus.

I wonder if we have lost an ancient meaning for Chocha as 'salty channel' or 'taxation channel', a speculation I am led to by two other usages in similar contexts.  The derivation of Kilcoagh in Ireland may come from chocha:

At Kilcoagh by Donard is her Holy Well, Tubar-no-chocha, at
which stations were formerly made. The cell is mentioned in a grant
of 1173 to the Abbey of Glendalough as "Cell Chuachje."

As does Foca in Bosnia, also a scene of border trade taxation, contested sovereignty, and multiple slaughters like the Brede Valley:

FOČA (pronounced Fáwtcha), a town of Bosnia, situated at the confluence of the Drina and Čehotina rivers, and encircled by wooded mountains. Pop. (1895) 4217. The town is the headquarters of a thriving industry in silver filigree-work and inlaid weapons, for which it was famous. With its territories enclosed by the frontiers of Montenegro and Novi Bazar, Foča, then known as Chocha, was the scene of almost incessant border warfare during the middle ages. No monuments of this period are left except the Bogomil cemeteries, and the beautiful mosques, which are the most ancient in Bosnia. The three adjoining towns of Foča, Goražda and Ustikolina were trading-stations of the Ragusans in the 14th century, if not earlier. In the 16th century, Benedetto Ramberti, ambassador from Venice to the Porte, described the town, in his Libri Tre delle Cose dei Turchi, as Cozza, “a large settlement, with good houses in Turkish style, and many shops and merchants. Here dwells the governor of Herzegovina, whose authority extends over the whole of Servia. Through this place all goods must pass, both going and returning, between Ragusa and Constantinople.”

---

In trying to trace the word, I've been directed by several people to a bird.  The Spanish name for a woodcock is Chocha Perdiz, where perdiz means game bird.  Now more commonly called Becada, the Scolopax Rusticola can be hunted while it feeds in tidal mud flats during freezing weather when worms in its preferred woodland habitat are harder to come by.  If Chocha once meant salty channel then that would fit nicely in explaining the older name for this game bird.  The English bird chough, a coastal relative of the daw now pronounced chuff, may have the same etymological root.  Choughe first enters the language around the 12th century, used by Chaucer and understood as a jackdaw. Its name was thought to come from the sound it made rather than its coastal habitat, but it is hard to know at this remove of time and changed pronunciation.

Ala usually means wing in Latin, although a la in French would mean 'at the(f)', which also works though unusual for an English or Norman place name. Wing would fit as a geographic descriptor if it were referring to the Udimore ridge as one of two wings of land bracketing the fluvial port. That would be elegant as the Normans spoke Romanz, a seacoast Latin, rather than Frankish or Nordic dialects. Wing is probably right given the shape of the then-peninsula (see map for the Pevenesel Peninsula above), extending long and narrow between the estuarine reaches of the Rother and Brede rivers, with a slight bend.  It would also be consistent with the manor of Peuenesel becoming known as the Honor of Aquila (the eagle), given its important strategic contribution to protection of the port from attack.

Latin, Iberian or Nordic influence on the Normans is more likely than Celtic influence, especially in the Brede Valley. This strategic corner of Britannia was occupied by Belgian Gallic tribes for at least four centuries before Caesar and continuously held by them until Godwin's raids in 1052. Al- begins many, many Iberian place names, Arabic place names too, and the Normans traded widely from Iceland to Palestine.  Nautical terms were often common among dialects, as ras means a tall headland almost everywhere.

Celtic influence can be discounted as Al does not begin any Celtic names in Britain.  A search for a place beginning with ala on the Nottingham University English Place Name directory offers Aylsby near Grimsby, but it identifies Ali as a Danish name for the settler.  The Gazetteer of English Place Names offers no matches for names beginning with ala.

A commenter on the British Military History Group at LinkedIn suggested Ala could also mean armpit. If Ala Chocha did mean Armpit Vagina in a geographic sense, then the more likely location for the manor will be between Brede and Sedlescombe, nearer the top of the medieval tidal reach. Peuenisel, which I believe was somewhere around Brede, is recorded in Domesday Book as having 25 burgesses under Edward the Confessor and zero in 1085.  Godwin and Harold presumably slaughtered or enslaved all the Anglo-Franks when they raided Peuenisel three times in 1051 and 1052 as exiled outlaws, before forcing Edward the Confessor to reinstate them as earls.  The invading Normans retook the ruined auxillary fort or abbey cell as their first act on arriving in the port, rebuilding and garrisoning the fort. After the conquest William d'Eu acquired possession and may have placed his manor nearby.  Brede was a also a strategic site as it controlled traffic on the road (now the A28) that crossed from the ford below Brede (from the Old English ba-ridu meaning 'by the ford') to the ford on the Tillingham River on the other side of the peninsula below Northiam.

If the Normans picked up chocha as a name for the port from Iberian sailors, and then later considered the name rather rude, that would explain why it is unique to this instance and did not persist as an English or Norman place name.  Alternatively, it may not have been rude at the time the manor was named, but the manor may have been a temporary residence for William d'Eu in 1086 while the fort at Peuenesel, wherever it was, and the castle at Hastings were being constructed. 

Etymology of the Spanish word chocha

the Spanish word chocha

derived from the Spanish word chocho

derived from the Quechua word chuchu

derived from the Mozarabic word šóš

derived from the Latin word salsus (salted, salty, preserved in salt)

derived from the Latin word sallere (salt, salt down, preserve with salt)

derived from the New Latin word sal (salt; wit)

derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *sal-

The Portuguese chucha is now equally rude in meaning vagina, slut or bitch, but its derivation is attributed to a different root. 

Etymology of the Portuguese word chucha

the Portuguese word chucha

derived from the Portuguese word chuchar

derived from the Latin root *suctiare

derived from the Classical Latin word sugere (suck; imbibe; take in)

derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *seuə-

The Carmen describes the Norman fleet navigating into a fluvial port three hours from the sea consistent with either derivation for the place name:

^113.         Sed veritus ne dampna tuis nox inferat atra •

But cautious lest dark night impose losses,

^114.         Ventus et adverso flamina turbet aquas •

And contrary wind and current disturb the sea,

^115.         Sistere curva jubes compellat ut anchora puppes •

You order the fleet to halt course, form up and drop anchor.

^116.         In medio pelagi litus adesse facis •

On the open sea you moor offshore.

^117.         Ponere vela mones • exspectans mane futurum •

You caution to take in the sails, awaiting the morning to come,

^118.         Ut lassata nimis gens habeat requiem •

When the exhausted men will have had enough rest.

^119.         At postquam terris rutilans aurora refulsit •

But when the dawn had spread red over the land,

^120.         Et Phebus radios sparsit in orbe suos •

And the sun cast its rays over the horizon,

^121.         Praecipis ire viam committere carbasa ventis •

You order the sails set to the wind to make way

^122.       Praecipis ut solvat anchora fixa rates •

While the ships weigh anchor.

^123.       Tertia telluri supereminet hora diei •

The third hour of the day overspread the earth

^124.       Cum mare postponens littora tuta tenes •

      Since leaving the sea behind when you seize a sheltered strand.

The Bayeux Tapestry illustrates the landing at the estuarine strand.  Unlike Harold's landing in Normandy, there are no anchors.  The boats are poled to shore, masts are lowered, oarports are opened, and horses are walked off without ramps onto firm strand.  This is not a coastal port!

Whether at Cock Marling, Udimore or elsewhere, this manorial seat of William d'Eu at Ala Chocha is consistent with a place at the medieval Brede Valley port, a salty channel only accessible by ship on a flooding tide above the sea-ford where the Rye Camber met the Channel with 100 salt pans at the time of the 1086 meeting, and the principal port for cross-Channel trade (and taxation of trade) with Normandy. 

William of Hastings, Count of Eu, would later rebel against William Rufus and be tried by battle for his treason.  On losing he was blinded and mutilated, but not executed or exiled.  He died and was buried at Hastings Castle, the great coastal edifice facing toward Normandy built under his supervision.

UPDATE on 04/06/2015:

I've been searching the East Sussex Historic Environment Record for sites that might be Ala Chocha.  The leading candidate is the ancient manor house of Court Lodge at Udimore.  The original Court Lodge would date to about the right time, there was a church at the site, it was permitted crenellation in the 15th century, and it was moated.

Court Lodge - (1) Remains of homestead moat (dry) enclosing church and Court Lodge. (2) The old manor-house, Court Lodge, having been pulled down, was purchased in 1912 and re-erected at Groombridge, near Tunbridge Wells. Licence to crenellate was granted in 1479. (3) Only two areas of the moat that once enclosed the church and the old Court Lodge now exist. The extant area north of the church has an average depth of 1-0m with a partly dry pond within its banks. The existing area east and south of the old Court Lodge is under close scrub with an average depth of 1.0m. The former line of the moat has been overlaid by buildings and farmland. No trace exists of the original Court Lodge. (4) Permission to crenellate granted 1479.

Udimore - dispersed ridge top hamlet Dodimere - 1086 Uda's mere' [EPN] Held by Count of EU 6 hides, a church and 2 acres of meadow [1]
Known as 'Dodimere' 1086 Domesday Book [2]

UPDATE on 12/07/2015:

Found that a 9th century saltworks was known as salis coquinariam - a salt evaporator or salt cooker - while doing research on the salt pans of Sussex.  Coque is a near enough cognate for Chocha.

The identification of Ala Chocha as Cock Marling is strengthened by the discovery that marl was also a term for a by-product of traditional salt production, as well as something dug up for use on fields.  The marl is the sediment clarified from brine solution.

Salt was money in ancient times.  I wonder how much of the conflict between Saxons, Danes and Normans was for control of the coastal salt pans that promoted the wealth of their fisheries and farms and sustained their urban settlements for trade and manufactures.

Understanding Bede: Correcting 2 Common Errors and a Jest in Paragraph 1, Chapter 1

The thing I love about Latin is the precision and richness of the language, which is why I find bad translation so irritating.  Word order is not so important because case and tense and other indicators of grammar confirm the intended meaning clearly.  Yet bad translations are often the received stuff of English history because too many English historians, like historians everywhere if we're honest, prefer inaccurate, romantic, patriotic whimsy to accurate but uncomfortable historical truths.

Below is the Venerable Bede's first paragraph of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

Brittania Oceani insula, cui quondam Albion nomen fuit, inter septentrionem et occidentem locata est, Germaniae, Galliae, Hispaniae, maximis Europae partibus, multo interuallo aduersa. Quae per miliapassuum DCCC in Boream longa, latitudinis habet milia CC, exceptis dumtaxat prolixioribus diuersorum promontoriorum tractibus, quibus efficitur, ut circuitus eius quadragies octies LXXV milia conpleat. Habet a meridie Galliam Belgicam, cuius proximum litus transmeantibus aperit ciuitas, quae dicitur Rutubi portus, a gente Anglorum nunc corrupte Reptacaestir uocata, interposito mari a Gessoriaco Morynorum gentis litore proximo, traiectu milium L, siue, ut quidam scripsere, stadiorum CCCCL. A tergo autem, unde Oceano infinito patet, Orcadas insulas habet.

It is commonly translated as appears below, from The Medieval Sourcebook:

BRITAIN, an island in the ocean, formerly called Albion, is situated between the north and west, facing, though at a considerable distance, the coasts of Germany, France, and Spain, which form the greatest part of Europe. It extends 800 miles in length towards the north, and is 200 miles in breadth, except where several promontories extend further in breadth, by which its compass is made to be 3675 miles. To the south, as you pass along the nearest shore of the Belgic Gaul, the first place in Britain which opens to the eye is the city of Rutubi Portus, by the English corrupted into Reptacestir. The distance from hence across the sea to Gessoriacum, the nearest shore of the Morini, is fifty miles, or as some writers say, 450 furlongs. On the back of the island, where it opens upon the boundless ocean, it has the islands called Orcades.

The first common error in the translation is to suggest Galliam Belgicam is opposite Britain, which is not at all what the sentence plainly says.  Habet means 'it has/holds/manages/possesses', and 'it' is Britain.  This means that whatever follows is in the south part of Britain itself, not offshore somewhere.

A or ab as a preposition takes the ablative case, hence a meridie means in the south.  If the place being held or possessed was across the Channel, the place of reference would also be in the ablative case: Gallia Belgica.  Galliam Beligcam is in the accusative case, and therefore Belgian-Gaul is instead the object of the verb being held or possessed in the south of the island of Britain.  Also, if Bede meant the statement as orientation he would have included it above where he gives orientation of the island to Germany, Gaul and Spain, distinguished as geographic rather than political entities.  None of this says 'as you pass along' which is just a nonsense translation not represented in the Latin original. 

In short, there was a part of Britain that was quite simply a Belgian Gallic canton in Bede’s day - the civitas Bede references later in the same line.  The bit about cuius proximum litus transmeantibus aperit ciuitas is more accurately translated as "whose nearest shore opens/reveals the colony on the Channel crossing."  Aperit does not mean 'opens to the eye', it means opens or discloses and the noun is the nearest shore.  Deep fluvial ports along the Channel coast from Richborough to Pevensey made the Belgian-Gallic colony open and accessible to Gallic and Frankish tribes opposite on the continent, kinsmen of the Gauls and Franks living in coastal areas of Britain.  Transmeantibus is the ablative case of the verb participle of cross, and therefore can only mean 'on the Channel crossing'.  If you think of the Channel as a watery commons surrounded by Gallic and Frankish tribes who traded and inter-married with each other all around its coasts you would have the right idea.

What Bede was saying was that in his day (672 to 735) there was a Belgian-Gallic canton in the south of Britain, held by Gallic tribes that had settled both sides of the English Channel and controlled all trade and emigration across the Channel for nearly a thousand years.  Bede distinguishes ethnography very carefully throughout his writings, and he makes clear distinctions between Galliorum (Gauls) and Franci (Franks).  He pairs the Franks with the Saxons as recent interlopers who gain ascendance in the lands that were previously held by Britons and Gauls under Roman protection.  Anti-Viking, Anti-German and Anti-French sentiment, 800 years of war with France, and separation from the Roman Catholic Church mean that most English would rather not recognise that long before the Norman Conquest, in their very earliest history, they were colonised and taxed by Gallic tribes.

The second common error is to take Bede's reference to the gente Anglorum here and in other places in his writing as a reference to Bede's own ethnicity or allegiance.  Bede may be regarded as the father of English history in retrospect, but he would have been gravely insulted to have been called English to his face during his life.  Bede was emphatically not 'English', nor was he one of the other indigenous tribes he describes as Britons, Gewisse, Picts and Scots.  He also was not from the invading tribes he called Angles, Jutes or Saxons.  When Bede was writing, the Kingdom of Northumbria was not yet part of England, nor did it want to be.  Even if Northumbria had been remotely considered English, Bede was raised in a coastal ecclesiastical community that saw itself as separate and apart from the native inland populace.  Bede's allegiance was with Belgic-Gaul and Rome more than Britain.

Raised and writing at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, Bede was likely a wealthy Northumbrian Gaul or Frank.  When his colleague Cuthbert, an Angle going by his name, described Bede's death, he recorded a song commended by Bede on his deathbed in Anglo-Saxon vernacular.  His comment that Bede "was learned in our song" confirms that Bede was an outsider to the Anglo-Saxons.  Bede was writing about the Anglo-Saxon church as an outsider on the northern coast looking inland.

Bede was probably from a wealthy Gallic or Frankish family of clerics (they could marry back then, as Bede himself was married), merchants or trademen.  The very elegance and clarity of his Latin support him being Gallic, as the coastal Gauls considered themselves the inheritors of Roman privilege and spoke Latin - or Romanz as they called it - in preference to any local tribal languages.  Romanz was like Swahili to the coastal mariners, the language of trade for the continent of Europe as well as the language of the Christian faith.  Bede was likely descended from the Belgian-Gallic colonists Rome had installed at York, Colchester, Rochester, London, Hastingas and Canterbury to control and tax trade and markets in Britain, or the skilled Gallic emigrants who came to Roman ports, ecclesiastical settlements and market towns to bring their superior industry and sell their goods to the backwards British.  That Bede was a Gaul himself is supported by his being sent to Monwearmouth to be monk at the tender age of 7, the age at which Gallic families typically sent their children away to be trained to a profession or trade that would expand the family’s influence.  In confirmation of his Gallic and Frankish connections, more than half of the manuscripts of Bede's works that survive were found in religious orders on the continent.

Finally, people miss the jest about Ritupi portus being corrupted to Reptacastir by the English.  A more medieval name would be Reeve City or Rape City (N.B. rape did not usually have a sexual connotation back then, but meant taking by force or superior authority).  Bede probably thought this was a knee-slappingly funny way to begin his history, as his Roman, Gallic and clerical readers would get the jest. The Ritupi Port canton, the capital of the Belgian-Gallic colony in the south of Britain, was where the Belgian-Gallic tax-farmers of the Roman Empire had been stationed since Caesar's conquest of Britain in 54 BC.  After Caesar took Britain he gave control of cross-Channel trade and taxation of its inland tribes to a Belgian-Gallic client king named Commius under a publicani contract with the Roman state to tax the inland tribes of Britannia.  Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars mentions plainly that he was using tax-farmers under Commius' direction to collect taxes in Gaul, and he extended the system to Britainnia after defeating the Morini in 55BC and invading with 8,000 Roman troops in 54BC.  Coins of Commius and his sons are found on both sides of the Channel indicating common control and common trade.  Caesar also used the same system of Gallic tribes in trading cantons along the Rhine to tax trade with Germanic tribes, situating them in defended cities along the river that are now the capital cities of the region.  In exchange for tax collection on behalf of the empire, the colonists in the cantons were given Roman citizenship, excused military service away from their homes, exempt inheritance tax and immune from poll taxes (tributa) - privileges these urban polities would strive to maintain into the medieval era.  These privileges proved very persistent over the centuries, well into the Merovingian era, as attested by Gregory of Tours.

Think of Ritupi Portus as a Roman-era New York, Hong Kong or Singapore, all of which are modern instances of using the Roman canton-taxation-trade model of a walled, enisled and defensible self-governing political unit at the margin of a large, uncivilised and dangerous hinterland.  Port cantons had a special political status from the early Roman Republic as self-governing colonies, exempt from royal and feudal imposts and exempt from military service away from the locality to be able to defend the port at all times.  Traffic into ports was closely controlled, both for security of the port and the hinterland.  Port exemptions and privileges were jealously guarded and preserved by the Gauls into the Carolingian and Merovingian eras, one reason Charles the Simple didn't mind giving the troublesome Neustria to the Normans some centuries later.

Caesar’s canton-based taxation method was so successful that Strabo observed within a century Rome was collecting more in tribute from Britain than if it invaded and occupied the island.  The restoration to the impoverished Roman Republic (where the portorium tax at Italian ports had been temporarily repealed) of huge tributes of gold and silver, steel, grain and wool, from Gaul and Britannia largely explains Caesar's popularity and rise to power in Rome.  Claudius invaded and occupied Britain a century later anyway, of course, but the Gallic colonists settled in Britain's ports and cantons continued to run the ports, control cross-Channel shipping, and collect the taxes from the natives.  The Roman Catholic Church kept the model, demanding a free port for a Roman-affiliated abbey from every king as the price of Christian conversion and legitimacy before the king could be consecrated and the realm added to the scope of the Church's protection.  By sharing a little pun about Ritupi/Reptacastir at the English people's expense with his readers in his opening paragraph, Bede is pretty clearly signalling that his allegiance is with the Belgian-Gallic tax-collectors and with Rome, not with the diverse tribes of Britain.

The good merchants of Hong Kong 200 years ago did not describe themselves as Chinese, nor did the merchants of Singapore describe themselves as Malaysian, nor did the early burghers of New Amsterdam describe themselves as American, nor did medieval Londoners describe themselves as English.  Bede certainly did not identify himself as English when he wrote about the neighbouring territory from his remote coastal religious order.  It is the modern historians making the error in describing Bede as English.

Cantons are usually mixed race, but have a powerful and cohesive political identity distinct from the hinterland that comes from shared profit and collective security.  They identify with the source of their imperial authority, not the hinterland beyond their walls.  In Roman and early medieval times the cantons on both sides of the Channel were dominated by privileged coastal tribes that we later came to think of as Frankish (after Gregory of Tours), though Belgian-Gallic would be more accurate.  We don't have a good word for this concept of cantonal identity, and the Belgian-Gallic tribes never became a nation as others did, so their unique sense of identity was eroded over time.

Makes you wonder what else has been badly mangled by translators and historians after the first paragraph, doesn't it?

UPDATE 05/06/2015:  I've been schooled yet again by Bede.  Going over ethnic identities in his work I find that he carefully distinguishes between Galliorum (Gauls) and Franciorum (Franks).  I've amended the text above to clarify Bede's allegiances accordingly.

Blogging the Archaeology of Portus - Ostia/Ostend/Oslo/Hastingas - and the corpora naviculariorum

Not far from Rome stands the Monte Testaccio, a hill of potshards 35m high extending over a kilometre and composed of the remains of 53 million amphorae.  It is an enduring ceramic testament to Rome's trade throughout the empire and beyond.

Most of the potshards are from amphorae that carried wine, oil and fish sauce to the tables of Roman households.  DNA tracing also shows amphorae carried beans, nuts, ginger and juniper - sounds like a tasty hummous! Amphorae were designed and standardised to optimise transport by sea, hence the pointy bottom for stacking securely in a ship's hold.  The ships that carried these amphorae were also specially designed to optimise the storage of their valuable cargo and deliver cargo safely through storms to the Roman harbours at Ostia and Portus.  If the Romans were good at anything, it was repeatable systems for profitable commerce and taxation. 

Ostia is from the word mouth - os - and like a mouth could admit nourishment or poison, trade or foreign attack.  Portus, like os, has a duality - being either an opportunity or a vulnerability - e.g., fortune (one of many cognates) may be good or bad.  Ostia was the first Roman colony, established in the early Roman republic to control emigration and trade, to tax shipping and commerce.  Siting the port colony at the mouth of the fluvial port 20 miles from Rome removed the threat of foreigners from the city of Rome, while canals and roads carried goods to and from the city.  Self-administration as a republican colony encouraged emigration of skilled artisans, craftsmen and bankers, who made rules favouring their own prosperity and collectively ensured defense.  The via Hastiensis leads to Rome from the port of Hostis in the Tabula Peutingeriana.

The port model was repeated througout the empire as an efficient way to collect tribute and taxation.  Rome asked client kings to grant fluvial or island ports (e.g., Stockholm (literally 'collective defence'), Oslo, Ostend, Hastingas, Londinium, etc.) removed from the native tribal capital but near enough for efficient trade.  Each port was governed as a republican civitas of its burgesses, which might include skilled emigrants, under a common set of Roman legal principles.  Foreign businessmen, merchants and seamen could enjoy protection from the threat of inland tribes for the purpose of trade under a common set of laws from Constantinople to Dublin - having liberty of the port.  Jewish bankers could trade coin and write bills of exchange.  They could not pass out from the port inland without the leave of the inland lord - a pass port.

The harbours and warehouses at Ostia and Portus would be similarly designed for optimising the throughput of cargos from port to warehouse to market to city.  Given the reliance of Rome on imports of food and revenues from trade in all its forms, these ports, warehouses and markets were critical civil infrastructure.

I'm currently doing the MOOC on the Archaeology of Portus with the teams in charge of excavations at the ancient Roman port.  I'm hoping to understand the methods of archaeology and the interpretation of findings to better hone my ambitions for exploration of the Roman port in the Brede Valley.  I'm already recognising that much of what existed around ancient Rome also existed in Britain under the Romans and is still reflected in some civic institutions we cherish today.

I hope to blog some of what I learn and some of what I suspect as theory to create a record for further research when I have more leisure.  Consider this the first installment.

Today I started tracing the legal entities privileged with building, operating and taxing the ports.  The development of complex commercial legal principles for the promotion of Roman trade would influence the history of global capitalism in ways that continue to be controversial.

One of the important innovations was the corporation.  Roman law in the first century evolved to recognise some collegia (colleges or guilds) and societates publicanorum (public associations) as corpora (corporations).  The legal distinction was that corporations could contract with the state of Rome for supply of food, could survive the death or resignation of partners, and the shares could be traded and inherited as investments.  Our modern concepts of joint stock corporations and equity share ownership come directly from this legal innovation.

Because the corporation was such a powerful legal construct, the scope of the privilege was severely limited by the Roman senate.   Only collegia comprising the skippers of ships (not necessarily their owners), the bakers, those running mines, and perhaps undertakers were extended the privilege of corporate status.  These were all bodies that would need to contract long term with the state to justify high investment and the maintenance of high standards of quality control and/or hygiene.

The innovation of corportions for trade along sea routes was particularly important.  Ships are extremely expensive items with a high capital cost, and the threat of storms and pirates meant that they were at constant risk of loss.  Mutualising investment to raise capital and mutualising risk to share losses would greatly encourage trade by sea.  Systems to finance the capital costs of ships, ensure equitable allocation of trade routes and cargoes, mandate collective defense and mutual assistance were the key to widespread Roman trade.  Societates naviculariorum arose naturally in many small trading villages, and some evolved into collegia naviculariorum along trade routes.  Then after the 1st century some were recognised as corpora naviculariorum under contract to the state of Rome at the principal food trading ports under Roman dominion - including Ostia, Arles and Alexandria.

I am beginning to think that rights and privileges of collegia naviculariorum as practiced at the time of Julius Caesar's dominion in Gaul were the basis for the special privileges in favour of heritability of shares and against foreign military service and taxation of inheritance which distinguished the coastal Gauls around Normandy and the ports of London, Hastingas and York in Britain.  They may even have been the pattern for ports outside the Roman Empire as in Stockholm - a name which literally translates to 'mutual defence' and originally an island remote from the tribal capital.

The recognition of York, London and Hastingas as corporate ports under republican administration of their Roman veteran colonists and shipmen - and later the Roman Catholic Church - may have evolved from the earlier privileges accorded to merchant shipmen.  Hastingas may be special because it was administered from Gaul and then Normandy.  It may have been the colony of Roman veterans that Bede describes in the 5th century as the tribe of Latins.  A similar system of mutual defence and obligation in exchange for freedom from taxation would become the basis of the Cinque Ports Federation that Godwin and Harold forced on King Edward after they successfully rebelled against the king with the aid of shipmen and landed freemen in 1052.  William the Conqueror's 1066 charter for London assuring the burgesses - both French and English - that they would remain law-worthy (enjoying republican self-rule) and that their sons would inherit echoes the corporate privileges of ancient Roman port colonies.  For a time only men who owned ships in London were privileged to vote in its councils.  The same was true in other European ports, demonstrating the persistence of the collegia naviculariorum privilege in medieval corporate ports.

There is a tantalising line that is becoming traceable from 55 BC to 1066, and that line is a little clearer to me this week.