Ivinghoe (Leighton Buzzard)
By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2016-12-12. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-07-12.
The name of the village of Ivinghoe, roughly 10 km south of Leighton Buzzard, is believed to have been the inspiration for the title and the name of the eponymous hero of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1820). This, easily Scott's most famous novel, is probably the most widely known and most influential historical novel ever published. Robin Hood, Friar Tuck and the other outlaws are important subsidiary characters and allies of the hero of the novel. It is probably fair to say that in terms of significance to the Robin Hood tradition it is rivalled only by the Gest of Robyn Hode and Howard Pyle's Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.
The place-name 'Ivinghoe' is first recorded in Domesday Book (1086), in the form "Evinghehou",[1] from OE Ifinga-hō(g)e, "the hoh ['projecting ridge of land, a promontory'[2]] of Ifa's people". Allen Mawer notes that Ivinghoe is located "at the base of a considerable spur of land jutting out from the main range of the Chilterns".[3]
The following passage from Mawer is worth quoting in full:
The curious way in which Scott, who is always thought (and probably rightly so) deliberately to have altered Ivinghoe to Ivanhoe, actually hit upon one identical with a form found in documentary evidence in the 17th cent. (not then published) is worthy of note. The coincidence is the more remarkable seeing that an for ing is without parallel in other p[lace].n[ames].[4]
The only known occurrence of the place-name in the form 'Ivanhoe' is found in the Hertfordshire county sessions records for 1665, which had not been published when Scott wrote the novel.[5] He was a man of antiquarian tastes and interests; could he have come across the village name in the form 'Ivanhoe' in some historical work?
Related place-names include Ivinghoe Aston, Ivinghoe Common, and Ivinghoe Hills[6]
Gazetteers
- Not included in Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), pp. 293-311.
Sources
- Mawer, A.; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. II) (Cambrídge, 1925), p. 96; and see p. xxviii for the MS source.
Maps
- 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXXV (1883-84; surveyed 1873-76)
- 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX (1884; surveyed 1877-79)
- 6" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXV (1884; surveyed 1877-79)
- 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXIV (1885; surveyed 1879)
- 6" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXV.NE (1900; rev. 1897)
- 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX.NW (1900; rev. 1898)
- 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX.NW (1926; rev. 1922-23)
- 6" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXV.NE (1926; rev. 1923)
- 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX.NW (c. 1935; rev. 1922-23)
- 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX.NW (c. 1950; rev. 1947)
- 6" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXV.NE (1952; rev. 1951-52).
Background
Notes
- ↑ Mawer, A.; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. II) (Cambrídge, 1925), p. 96.
- ↑ OED, s.n. hoe, n. 1 (subscription required).
- ↑ Mawer, A.; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. II) (Cambrídge, 1925), p. 96. Text in bold as in Mawer.
- ↑ Mawer, A.; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. II) (Cambrídge, 1925), p. 96. Mawer's italics. IRHB's brackets.
- ↑ Mawer, A.; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. II) (Cambrídge, 1925), pp. xxviii, 96.
- ↑ 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX (1884; surveyed 1877-79), 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX (1884; surveyed 1877-79), 6" O.S. map Buckinghamshire XXX.NW (1900; rev. 1898).