What have the Romans ever done for us? Well, they probably didnt give the Island its name, despite popular belief.
This is explained in the first of a new series of articles on myths and mistakes of Jersey history by Mike Bisson, former editor of the JEP, and now editor of Jerripedia, the online historical encyclopedia for Jersey, which he founded in 2010
How did Jersey get its name?
That’s simple. Just ask the Caesarean Cycling Club or Caesarean Tennis Club.
The Romans named Jersey Caesarea after their Emperor, Caesar, and the name was eventually corrupted to Jersey.
Or was it?
There is some evidence to suggest that if the Romans did give Jersey a name, it was Andium, the name which has been adopted by Andium Homes, now responsible for States-owned housing.
And even if, as some historians have suggested, there could have been a progression from Caesarea to Jersey, it is impossible to find one from Andium.
But that does not really matter, because many place names throughout the British Isles today bear no relation whatsoever to what they are known to have been called by the Romans.
Just think of York and Eboracum; Cambridge and Durolipons!
It is important to realise that Caesar and the Romans were present in this part of Europe through the first four centuries AD.
Until 2010 there was precious little evidence that they ever occupied or lived in Jersey. Then archaeologists found evidence of a building and skeletons of the Roman era at Grouville Church.
Whatever the Romans may have called Jersey and the other Channel Islands, Jersey has gone through a host of variations since.
At one point the Island did not even have a name.
Early French records show it called ‘the island near Coutances’; the importance of Coutances being that it was the centre of religious administration in Normandy, and the church in Jersey came under the control of the Diocese of Coutances for many centuries.
So where did the suggestion that the Romans called Jersey Caesarea, and that this metamorphosed into Jersey, originate?
It seems that the credit, or blame, can be given to Philippe Falle, who published the first known history of Jersey in 1694, calling it ‘An Account of the Isle of Jersey, the Greatest of those islands that are now the only Reminder of the English Dominions in France’.
He wrote: ‘Tis abundantly sufficient for the honour of this Island, in point of antiquity, that it was known to the Romans; who called it Caesarea, a name of distinction given to favourite places; and by that name the Emperor Antoninus lays it down in his Itinerary, among the Isles of the Britannic Ocean.’
More of the Antonine Itinerary shortly, but it is worth recording here that Falle was not the first to write a major work about the Island.
That honour goes to Jean Poingdestre, a Lieutenant-Bailiff, whose ‘Caesarea: Or a Discourse of the Island of Jersey’ was written in 1682, but not published until the end of the 19th century.
It then became apparent that much of what was written by Falle was copied from Poingdestre’s work.
Back to the Antonine Itinerary, which was a road map of Europe drawn up for the Emperor Antonius.
The British section is known as the ‘Iter Britanniarum’, and included references to offshore isalnds.
Of the 15 mentioned, it is variously believed that either seven or five were off the south coast, in the Channel Islands or neighbouring waters.
The favourite five were Sarnia, Caesarea, Barsa, Silia and Andium. Guernsey has long adopted the first of these as its ‘pet’ name, although any comparison between the two names is as vague as York and Eboracum, and recent research has suggested that Sarnia might have been the Antonine name for Sark.
It is suggested that Andium, which translates as ‘largest’, is more likely to be the name intended for Jersey, and that Caesarea was the name given to Chausey.
In the absence of any conclusive evidence that the Romans knew Jersey as either Caesarea or Andium, it is now necessary to step forward in time and examine names for the Island which have appeared in early documents.
They include Andium, Angia or Augia, Gersey, Gersui, Jarsoi, Jerseye and other variations on a fairly common theme. Jersey itself seems not to have made an appearance until around the 14th century. Before then official documents tended to be written in Latin and the Island was referred to as Insula Gerseii, or similar names, but never Caesarea.
Although many writers still cling to the belief that Jersey had a Roman name, it is now more generally accepted that the current name has Viking (or perhaps Celtic) origins.
The Norsemen who founded Normandy arrived some half a millennium after the Romans left, and the -ey suffix, which is found in Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Chausey, as well as Anglesey and Orkney, is said to be a Norse word for water or island. Others say that it is of Celtic origin.
If this is to be believed, there only remains the mystery of the ‘Jers’ and ‘Guerns’ parts.
Some etymologists suggest that they derive from the names of Norsemen, perhaps Geirr and Grani.
A final fascinating suggestion was made in a 1913 article in the Annual Bulletin of La Société Jersiaise by C Oberreiner, who noted that opposite Jersey at Carteret is the mouth of the river Ger, and that the river Guer flows into the sea on the north Brittany coast to the south of Guernsey.
The material on which this and subsequent articles in the series are based can be accessed at www.jerripedia.org.
