A lost Lancashire Place-Name: Lox(h)am

Der verschwundene Lancashire-Ort Lox(h)am lag vermutlich in der Gemeinde (parish) Penwortham. Der Ortsname Lox(h)am, der als Familienname überlebt hat, ist ein Kompositum, das aus einem Fluss- oder Bachnamen Lox < britisch *Losko- ‘der Verbogene’ und der Dativpluralform hūsum ‘bei den Häusern’, die formal sowohl altenglisch wie altskandinavisch sein kann, gebildet wird. Die Bedeutung wäre dann ‘bei den Häusern, die in Verbindung mit dem Flüsschen Lox stehen’. In diesem Beitrag wird vielmehr eine skandinavische Etymologie für hūsum bevorzugt. Die Anwesenheit von Skandinaviern in diesem Teil von Lancashire in der Wikingerzeit wird durch das Vorhandensein von skandinavischen Personennamen in mittelalterlichen Privaturkunden bestätigt.

here as well.The first edition of the Ordnance Survey 1:10, 560 map, dating from the 1840s, has a Loxam's (Grid reference SD 48302594 ac) in Longton.It would be tempting to identify this place in Longton with the medieval Lox(h)am, but it is unfortunately the case that its name could derive from the surname Lox(h)am.
The etymology is difficult.The first element is clearly paralleled by two Somerset river names, the Lox Yeo ([on, & lang] Loxan, [into] Locxs, [of] Loxs 1068 [copy, 15th century] Ekwall 1928: 267) and the Lox (the old name of the stream running from near Priston to the Avon at Newton St Loe) ([innan, andlang] Loxan 931 [copy, second half of the 12th century] S 414, [into, of, be] loxan 946 [copy, second half of the 12th century] S 508 [Ekwall 1928: 267]).Ekwall (1928: 267-268) suggests that the stream-name Lox belongs to a Celtic (i.e.British) *losko-(< *loksko-) with the sense 'crooked, oblique' .The metathesis of [sk] in *Losko-to [ks] in Lox is an English development (cf. Campbell 1959: 178 and n. 2 [ § 440]).Final -um is a dative plural ending and formally this can be either Old English or Old Scandinavian (see Smith 1956, II: 224-226;Fellows-Jensen 1985: 326-327).Mawer (1929: 11-14) pointed out that the English examples of the type are confined to Anglian and are especially frequent in the Northumbrian dialect area.I would argue that in northern England the type was reinforced by Scandinavian influence.I would suggest that the second element of the place-name Lox(h)am is the dative plural of OE hūs, ON hús n. 'house' .The reconstructed base would then be *Loxhūsum, -húsum 'at the houses associated with a stream called Lox' .On account of its unstressed position, [h] is lost (cf.Jordan 31968: 174-175 [ § 195]).For the same reason, [u:] in medial -(h)usum-is shortened to [u] which is then reduced to [ə] (cf.Jordan 31968: 132-134 [ § 142]).The graphemic realization of this [ə] presented difficulties for medieval scribes and hence we find it represented by <u>, <o>, <i> and <e> in the thirteenth-century Lancashire records cited above.Subsequently, the medial [ə] disappears entirely, this final phase being represented by the spellings Loxum, Lox(h)am.Final -ham is the result of substitution of the English element -hām 'village, homestead' for the grammatically opaque dative plural ending -um.
It should also be noted that Scandinavian personal names are also attested in the Farington-Hutton region.Here we can cite the example of one of the witnesses of DDHo F 286, Richard, son of Roger son of Ravenkil, who founded Lytham Priory (see Farrer 1902: 376).
The grantor of DDHo F 286 was a Norman, Richard Bussel, son of the first holder of the Barony of Penwortham, Warin Bussel.The orthography of the name forms shows some traces of the influence of the Latino-French system of post-Carolingian Neustria.So, Raue<n>chi<l> (genitive) < ON Hrafnkell has <ch> for [k] in accordance with early AN usage (see Feilitzen 1937: 107 [ § 113]), while in Sueni (genitive), Sueno (ablative) < ON Sveinn, we are unlikely to be concerned with the East Scandinavian monophthongization of the diphthong [aei] (< Germanic [ai]), but rather with Anglo-Norman scribal practices in which <e> is used to render the unfamiliar Scandinavian diphthong [aei] (see Fellows-Jensen 1969: 67-71).
I would argue that the place-names formed with the dative plural -um are a further indicator of Scandinavian influence in this region.Ultimately, it would be necessary to fit this evidence into a general picture using place-name evidence and the lexical material provided by dialect research.