iu B. xi. APRIL 10,
NOTES AND QUERIES.
291
" MARYLEBONE " :
PREPOSITIONS IN PLACE-NAMES.
(10 S. xi. 201, 270.)
PROF. SKEAT in his very interesting note on the preposition le in English place-names treats the name " Marylebone " as a certain and ancient instance of its use. He says : " We know, historically, that bone has been substituted for bourne ; and accordingly the church of St. Mary-le-bone is explained, in the
- Curiosities of London,' by J. Timbs, at p. 183, as
meaning ' St. Mary-at-the-Bourne,' i.e., St. Mary's near the Brook ; and this is correct."
Plausible as this derivation is, it cannot be looked upon as historically proved. The etymology assumed by Timbs was suggested by Lysons (' Environs of London,' iii. 242), who under the heading ' Marybone ' says :
" The name of this place was anciently called Tiburn, from its situation near a small bourn, or rivulet, formerly called Aye-brook, or Eye- brook, and now Tybourn-brook. When the site of the church was altered to another spot near the same brook, it was called, I imagine, St. Mary at the bourn, now corrupted to St. Mary le bone, or Marybone."
The facts, so far as I have been able to ascertain them, are as follows. There was a Domesday manor called Tiburn, and the manor, church, and vill seem always to have been called by this name for several centuries, the church being stated by New- court in his ' Repertorium,' i. 695 (on what authority I know not), to have been dedi- cated to St. John. In the year 1400 Bishop Braybroke granted a licence to the in- habitants of the parochial church of Tyborne, in consequence of the church being in a desolate place near the public street and subject to robberies, to transfer the church " ad et in locum ubi de licentia nostra nova capella infra fines et limites dicte parochie iam edificata existit."
I have not met with any other name than Tyburn for the manor until the year 1461. In the Inquisitiones Post Mortem, in that year, the manor is referred to as " Tyburne alias vocata Maribon'e " (Chancery I.P.M., 1 Edward IV., No. 46), and for some time the manor is in formal documents referred to by this double description, or as " Mari- bone " alone : after 1634 the name Tyburn disappears. In common parlance, however, the use of the name Tyburn, as equivalent to " Marybone," seems to have dropped out earlier, and to have been restricted either to the gallows itself, or to its immediate neighbourhood ; and from the beginning
of the sixteenth century to the end of the
eighteenth the district and park are com-
monly referred to as " Maribone " or " Mary-
bone."
Now as to the exact form of the word. In the instance above quoted from the Inquisitiones Post Mortem in 1461 it is impossible to say, after a careful examina- tion of the MS., whether the last letter but one is a u or an n ; but there is a mark over it indicating the suppression of the following letter, probably an n. It may therefore be read as either " Mariboune " or " Maribonne," and as this is perhaps the first instance of the occurrence of the name, the form is important.
I have found the word spelt in the follow- ing ways up to the end of the eighteenth century, the dates after each form indicating the first and last instances of its occurrence, and the figures in parentheses the number of times the word occurs in the books, maps, and documents I have consulted : Mariboune or Maribonne, 1461 (1). Maryborne, 1489-90 1539 (4). Marybourne, 1491-21565-6 (5). Mariborne, 1526-7 (1). Maryborn, 152832 (3). Maribourne, 1533 (1). Marybone, 15381794 (28). Marrybone, 1539 1682 (2). Marybound, 1540-41 (1). Maribone, 15501690 (14). Marebone, 1562-3 93 (2). Marybon, 1565-6 1700 (2). Maryboorne, 1566 (1). Maryboune, 1575 (1). Maribon, 15751611 (2). Marribon, 1611 (1). Marbone, 1625 (1).
Marrowbone (Marrow-bone), 1668 1714 (3). Marylebone (Mary le bone, Mary-le-bone), 1689
1796 (8).
St. Mary le Bone (St. Mary-le-Bone, St. Maryle- bone), 16941794-5 (13). St. Mary-la-bonne (St. Mary la Bonne), 1708*
1794 (4). Marylebon, 1730 (1).
Further research might of course disturb this order.
It will be seen from the above list that the particle le does not occur until 1689, and that the commonest jform until its appear- ance is Marybone or Maribone. Since the close of the eighteenth century the form Marylebone has virtually supplanted all others. I do not find the prefix " Saint " before 1694, though the expression " the Blessed Mary of Marybourne " occurs in 1511.
- The form St. Mary -la-bonne in 1708 is not
a genuine instance, being merely proposed by Xewcourt as the probable origin of the name.
