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ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE runs in the required direction ; it is practically the only one that does so, and the sites along it are the only sites suitable for our purpose. The difficulty however remains that the Itinerary mileage is wholly irrecon- cilable with the distances between these sites. This difficulty has induced Gale, Reynolds and some others to seek both road and stations elsewhere. But their remedies are worse than the disease. In the present state of our ignorance it seems preferable to suppose, at least provisionally, that the Itinerary numerals are wrong.' Such a conclusion however cannot be called certain, or even approximately certain, without some external evidence to support it. (ii.) Such evidence it has been proposed to find in one of the old English names for Castor. This name appears in two forms : Dorme- ceastre mentioned by Henry of Huntingdon about 1 130 a.d., and Dor- mundescastra mentioned two centuries later by John of Tynemouth. Unfortunately neither of these forms can be connected philologically with Durobrivae. The shorter of them is an abbreviation of the longer,* and the longer is derived simply from the English masculine name Deormund. They affiDrd no proof that Castor was called Durobrivae in the Roman period.' If we believe that it was so called we must rely solely on the consideration urged above — that the Itinerary route by Durobrivae and Causennae to Lincoln seems, despite all difficulties, to be the Roman road still traceable by Castor and Ancaster to Lincoln. Whatever doubts may obscure the name, none affects the place. For nearly eight centuries it has been recognized as a Romano-British site. The twelfth century antiquary, Henry of Huntingdon, leads the way. Native and resident in this part of England, and possibly himself acquainted with the spot, he alludes to the ruins on the south bank of the Nene as those of a British city penitus destructa ; further, he invents for it a name Cair-Dorm out of the contemporary English name Dorme- ceastre, and he inserts it thus labelled in the list of British cities which he adapts from Nennius. Medieval writers copied him freely ; Camden added a few details and the name Durobrivae, but the site first became well known in the early years of the eighteenth century. Then it was visited by Horsley and others, and notably by Stukeley, who lived close by, and these visitors recorded numerous finds made sporadically, both during the construction of the great turnpike road in 1739 from Water Newton to Wansford and at other times. Eighty years later, in 1820-7, Mr. Edmund T. Artis, F.S.A., then house steward to Lord Fitzwilliam at Milton, made extensive though unsystematic excavations, which he ^ See p. 205. • Compare the two forms Godmanchester and Gumicastre. ' Henry of Huntingdon, i. 3, referring to the remains on the south bank of the Nene ; John of Tynemouth in MS. Bodl. 240 (fo. dzxd) copied by Capgrave, Legenda nova Anglice (London, I 5 16, fo. ccxiii.), referring to Castor. Camden quotes a name Dornford, but I cannot trace it, nor could Morton two centuries ago ; it is possible that Camden invented it. The idea, due to Camden, that Norman- gate Field at Castor is a corruption of Dormangate is of course absurd ; it deserves notice only because it illustrates the wilfulness of sixteenth century etymologizing. A British name for the site, Cair-Dorm, is sometimes adduced, but it is an invention of the twelfth century. I am naturally indebted to Mr. W. H. Stevenson for guidance in dealing with these names. 167