Southampton
county:
coords:
coords:
Hampshire
SU417122
50.55N 1.25W : lat'n'long
otherwise: hamwig, 842-9; hamwic, 973-1015?; homtun, 825-12; hamtune, 837-12; hamtun, 900-11; amtun, 924-939; aamtun, 973-1025?; suthamtunam, 962-12; suthhamtun, 980-11
SOUTHAMPTON
This name has been extensively discussed by Rumble (1980), and his account should be consulted by interested readers. There are many mentions of the 11th century and before showing that the generally used name of the place was 'Hamtun' representing an earlier hypothetical 'Hammtun' Old English 'hemmed-in land town', referring to its situation between the Itchen and Test estuaries. The site was much more obviously a Dodgson-2a 'hamm' -site before the reclamation of land in the Test estuary for the New Docks. The alternative name tradition was 'Hamwic'='hemmed-in land trading place', often cited by archaeologists and historians in the once off 8th century Rhineland German form 'Hamwih' a custom which should be discarded. There is little reason to suppose that the two names represent separate places; rather they are likely to be names for the town in its topographical or administrative ('tun') and mercantile ('wic') aspects. The town is distinguished as 'SOUTHampton' as early as the Old English Chronicle (Suthhamtun, s.a. 980 (mid 11th century), C-text), and it has been surmised that this was an invention at a place for which North- and Southampton were equally important. Abingdon (Oxfxordshire) on a major through route from Southampton to the Midlands, where the C-text of the Old English Chronicle was written, seems the likely candidate. This is where the bulk of the examples of this name form stem from or derive from at second hand. This name form does not begin to become general, however, till the high Middle Ages, and plain 'Hampton' is found as late as 1465/6; it is this form which appears in the name of the county. The abbreviation 'Hants'. represents the Anglo Norman version of Old English 'Hamtunscir' for which 'Hantescire' in Domesday Book can stand as a model.
The modern suburb 'Hampton Park' contains, of course, a fancy revival of the older simple place name.
Moule 1830 (image)
blazon - per fess argent and gules, three roses counterchanged
The arms are ancient, perhaps late 14th century, the roses coming from associations with Dukes of Lancaster and York who saled from the port during the Hundred Years War - there is no proof of this; the arms have supporters, tudor ships - two masted armed carracks, with a lion in the bow of each.
