Replies.
SAINT IRENE AND THE ISLAND OF SANTORIN.
(Vol. iv., p. 475.)
Your correspondent Σ asks for information about St. Irene or St. Erini, from whom he thinks the Island of Santorin in the Grecian Archipelago acquired its name; and in reply, you have referred him to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, for particulars of the canonized Empress Irene.
But Σ is, I suspect, mistaken in supposing Santorin to be indebted either to saint or empress for its present appellation; although he errs in company with Tournefort and a succession of later geographical etymologists, who in this instance have trusted too much to their ear as an authority. Another correspondent in the same number, F. W. S. (p. 470.), has directed attention to a peculiarity in the formation of the modern names of places in Greece, the theory of which will guide Σ to the real derivation of the word Santorin. F. W. S. states truly that many of the recent names have been constructed by prefixing the preposition εἰς to the ancient one; thus ATHENS, εἰς τὰς Ἀθήνας, became Satines, and COS, εἰς τὴν Κῶν, Stanco. Lord Byron has explained this origin of the alteration in one of the notes to Childe Harold, I think; but I apprehend that the barbarism is to be charged less upon the modern Greeks themselves, than upon the European races, Sclavonians, Normans, and Venetians, and later still the Turks, who seized upon their country on the dismemberment of the Lower Empire. The Greeks themselves no doubt continued to spell their proper names correctly; but their invaders, ignorant of their orthography, and even of their letters, were forced to write the names of places in characters of their own, and guided solely by the sound. Negropont, the modern name of Eubœa, is a notable instance of this. In the desolation which followed the Roman conquest, Eubœa, as described by Pausanias and Dion, had become almost deserted, and, on its partial revival under the Eastern Empire, the old name of Eubœa was abandoned, and the whole island took the name of Euripus, from a new town built on the shore of that remarkable strait. This, pronounced by the Greeks, Evripos, the Venetians, on their arrival in the thirteenth century, first changed into Egripo and Negripo, and next into Negro-ponte, after they had built a bridge across the Euripus. This last name, the island retains to the present time. Another familiar example is the modern name of Byzantium, Stamboul, by which both Greeks and Turks now speak of Constantinople. The Romans called their capital par excellence "the city" (in which, by the way, we ourselves imitate them when speaking of London). Among the ancient Jews, in like manner, to "go to the city," ὑπάγετε εἰς τὴν πόλιν, meant to go to Jerusalem (Matt., xxvi. 18., xxviii. 11.; Mark, xiv. 13.; Luke, xxii. 10.; John, iv. 18.; Acts, ix. 16.). The Greeks of the Lower Empire followed the example in speaking of Constantinople; and the Turks, on their conquest in the fifteenth century, adopting the provincialism, wrote εἰς τὴν πόλιν, Istampoli, and thence followed Istambol and Stamboul. The same theory will explain the modern word Santorin, about which your correspondent Σ requests information. The ancient name was Thera, and by this the island is described both by Herodotus and Strabo, and later still by Pliny. Thera, submitted to the usual process, became, from εἰς τὴν Θήραν, Stantheran, Santeran, and finally Santorin. In the latter form it almost invited a saintly pedigree, and accordingly "Richard," a Jesuit, whose work I have seen, but cannot now consult, wrote, about two centuries ago, his Relation de l'Isle de St. Erini, in which, for the glory of the Church, he explains that the island obtained its name, not from the Empress Irene, but from a Saint Erine, whom he describes as the daughter of a Macedonian prefect, and from whom he says it was called Νῆσος τῆς Ἁγίας Εἰρήνης. I incline, however, to etymology rather than hagiology for the real derivation.
J. EMERSON TENNENT.
THE OLD COUNTESS OF DESMOND—WHO WAS SHE? NO. II.
(Vol. iv., pp. 305. 426.)
My "NOTES AND QUERIES" coming to me monthly, I am as yet in ignorance whether any of your numerous correspondents have answered my inquiry (Vol. iv., p. 306.): "Whether the portraits of 'the old Countess of Desmond,' at Knowle, Bedgebury, or Penshurst, correspond with my description of that in the possession of the Knight of Kerry?" I have since met a painter of eminence, who assures me that Horace Walpole's criticism is correct, and that the portraits commonly known as those of the Countess are really the likeness of "Rembrandt's mother." If they be identified with that I have described, the idea that we possess a "counterfeit presentment" of this ancient lady, must, I fear, be given up as a delusion.
But the lady herself remains a "great fact," and a physiological curiosity; and there is yet a subject for inquiry respecting her. We may identify her on the herald's tree, if not on the painter's board or canvas. Who was she? In attempting to discuss this question, I must not take a merit which does not belong to me in any thing. I may say I am but following out the original research of an accurate and accomplished antiquary, Mr. Samthell of Cork, of whose curious Olla Podrida (privately printed) I possess, by his favour, a copy, which contains a paper on this subject originally read before "The Cork Cuvierian Society." This paper, together with some MSS. notes of Sir William Betham, Ulster king-at-arms, furnish my text-book; and I have little more to do than correct some mistakes, which appear to me so obvious, that I think they must arise from slips of the pen, or slops of that most teasing confounder of dates and figures, the printer,—who can so often, by merely dipping into a wrong cell of type, set us wrong by a century or two in a calculation.
All authorities are agreed in fixing on "Margret O'Bryen, wife of James, 9th Earl of Desmond," as the long-lived individual in question. Sir Walter Raleigh, by calling her "The old Countess of Desmond, of Inchiquin," determines the fact of her being of the O'Bryen race,—Inchiquin being the feudal territory of the O'Bryens. There was more than one intermarriage between the Desmond earls and the O'Bryen family; but none of them include all the conditions for identifying the "old Countess," except that I have specified.
We now come to dates: and here it is that I have the presumption to question the conclusions of the two eminent antiquaries on whose researches I am remarking.
"James Fitzgerald, ninth Earl of Desmond, was murdered by John Montagh Fitzgerald, of Clenglish, A.D. 1467, ætat 29," says one of my authorities. "The old Countess bore the title only for a few months, for she became dowager on the murder of her husband in 1467 (not 1487)," adds my second authority. These are formidable dicta, coming from such sources; and if I venture to question them, it is only under pressure of such circumstances and authorities, as at least demand a hearing.
I think both these gentlemen confound the murder of James, the ninth Earl of Desmond, with the execution of his father, Thomas, the eighth Earl, who, according to all annals and authorities, was beheaded at Drogheda in the year 1467. Of this fact there can be no question. Ware gives it in his Annals, stating that "John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, called a parliament at Drogheda, and passed a certain enactment, in virtue of which "the great Earl of Desmond was beheaded, 15th of February, 1467." We find the very act itself (in the Cotton MSS. Titus, B. xi. 373.) headed and running as follows:—"VII. Edw. Quarti" (1467). "Pur diverses causes, horribles treisons et felonies prepensez, et faitez per Thomas Count de Desmond, et Thomas Count de Kildar," &c. &c.
We now proceed with Ware to the date 1487, and he writes thus:—"On the 7th of December, James Fitz-Thomas, a Geraldine, and Earl of Desmond, who, for almost twenty-eight (?) years flourished in wealth and power, was suddenly and cruelly murdered by his servants in his house at Rathkeale in the county of Limerick." "This James dying without issue, at least issue male, his brother Morrish succeeded him; by whom, John Mantagh, the chief contriver of that murder, was soon after taken and slain." Here is a distinct statement from an annalist which may be contradicted by facts, but cannot be misunderstood as to meaning.
The more I look at Mr. Samthell's account, the more I am disposed to consider the date he gives as a slip of the pen, or the result of that kind of confusion into which the most accurate mind will sometimes fall, from too long and intense consideration of the same point. I say this, because his own statements furnish at every step matter to confute his own conclusions: thus, he says, "Supposing the old Countess to have been eighteen at her husband's death (and the Irish marry young), she would have been 140 years old in 1589." This calculation plainly assumes the death to have taken place in 1467; but in a passage further on he says, "It will be remembered, that Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, father to Margret O'Bryen's husband, was Lord Deputy of Ireland for the Duke Clarence, brother to Edw. IV., from 1462 to 1467!" And again, giving some brief notices of the earls from "A Pedigree of Sir William Betham's," he sets down, "8th earl, Thomas, beheaded A.D. 1467; 9th earl, James (son of Thomas), murdered A.D. 1467;"—overlooking the fact, which would have been in itself memorable, that he makes the beheading of the father, and the murder of the son, to have taken place in the same year! Although I cannot ascertain whence Mr. Pelham took the dates which he has given in his print, I have no hesitation in adopting them, as agreeing best with all the probable circumstances of the case; he places Margret O'Bryen's birth in 1464, her death somewhere from 1620 to 1626; this would sufficiently tally with the opinion, that she was left a young widow at her husband's death in 1487, and agree with Sir Walter Raleigh's statement, that she "was living in 1589," and "many years afterwards." Lord Bacon's express words are, "Certainly they report that within these few years the Countess of Desmond lived to an hundred and forty years of age." These words occur in his History of Life and Death, published in 1623, and add to the probability that the old lady was either lately dead, or that possibly, in the little intercourse between London and remote parts of the empire at that period, she might be even then alive, without his knowledge.
I submit these speculations to correction; and in venturing to dispute the conclusions of the authorities I have named, I feel myself somewhat in the position of a dwarf, who, climbing on the shoulder of a giant, should assume the airs of a tall man; but for the encouragement and assistance of the gentlemen I have named, I should probably never have known how even to state a genealogical or antiquarian question. I shall conclude by committing myself to your printer's mercy, trusting that he will be too magnanimous to take notice of my remarks on the "slip-slop" printing of figures, which will sometimes occur in the best offices; if he should misprint my figures, all my facts will fall to the ground.
A. B. R.
Belmont.
In the Birch Collections at the British Museum there is a transcript of a Table-Book of Robert Sydney, second Earl of Leicester, made by Birch (Add. MSS. 4161.), the following extract from which, P. C. S. S. believes will not be unacceptable to the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES:"
"The olde Countess of Desmond was a marryed woman in Edward IV.'s time, of England, and lived till towards the end of Queen Elizabeth, soe as she needes must be 140 yeares old: shee had a newe sett of teeth not long before her death, and might have lived much longer, had shee not mett with a kind of violent death; for she must needes climb a nutt-tree to gather nutts, soe falling downe, shee hurt her thigh, which brought a fever, and that fever brought death. This my cosen Walter Fitzwilliam told me. This olde lady, Mr. Harnet told me, came to petition the Queen, and landing at Bristol, shee came on foote to London, being then soe olde that her doughter was decrepit, and not able to come with her, but was brought in a little cart, their poverty not allowing them better provision of meanes. As I remember, Sir Walter Rowleigh, in some part of his History, speakes of her, and says that he saw her in England, anno 1589. Her death was as strange and remarkable as her long life was,—having seene the deaths of so many descended from her; and both her own and her husband's house ruined in the rebellion and wars."
P. C. S. S.
COLLAR OF SS.
(Vol. ii., p. 140.; Vol. iv., pp. 147. 236. 456.)
In my communication to you in August, 1850, and inserted as above, I stated that I was uncertain whether the collar of SS. was worn by the Chief Baron of the Exchequer previously to the reign of George I., as I had no portrait of that functionary of an earlier date.
I have since found, and I ought to have sent you the fact before, that the Chief Baron, as well as the two Chief Justices, was decorated with this collar in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In the church of St. Stephen's, near Canterbury, is the monument of Sir Roger Manwood, who died Lord Chief Baron on December 14, 1592, on which his bust appears in full judicial robes (colored proper), over which he wears the collar in its modern form.
EDWARD FOSS.
Was the collar of SS. worn by persons under a vow to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, or to join a crusade, the S. being the initial letter of Sépulcre, or SS. for Saint Sépulcre? The appearance of the above-mentioned collar on the effigy of a person in the habit of a pilgrim in the church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch (see "NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. iv., p. 345.), so strongly confirms the idea, that I beg leave to offer it to the consideration of any readers of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" who may be interested in the question.
E. J. M.