mersc

Forms

mersċ m (strong a-stem; genitive singular mersċes, nominative plural mersċas)^[1] Also written merisċ, and mærsc in a charter.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *marisk (“marshy; marsh”), a formation in *-isk on Proto-Germanic *mari (“sea, lake”).^[1] Köbler sets up a feminine *mariskō (“marsh, morass”) and refers the word to mere “lake, sea”.^[3] The same formation is found in Old Frisian mersk, Old Saxon mersk and Old High German mersk.^[3] Etymonline also derives it, with a “probably”, from the Proto-Germanic word for the sea.^[4]

Kroonen explains the Proto-Germanic word for the sea as the regular continuation of a neuter i-stem Proto-Indo-European *móri (“sea”), the source also of Latin mare (“sea”) and Old Irish muir (“sea”).^[5] Orel compares the same Latin and Irish words.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in a charter of 858 by which King Æthelberht exchanged land at Mersham in Kent: the king made the land into folkland butan ðem merscum “except the marshes” and the salt-works at Faversham.^[7] Its single sheet is of the mid-ninth century and is held by several scholars to be contemporary.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word names wet, low-lying ground: Bosworth and Toller quote the salt marsh of the psalms (on sealtne mersc, rendering “in salsuginem”), marshland that went with an estate in the charters, and the plants of the Old English Boethius whose home is on merscum “in marshes”.^[2][9] In the glossaries it renders “calmetum”.^[2] A legal text sets fersc “fresh water” against mersc.^[10] As a name, Mersc is Romney Marsh in the Chronicle annal for 796.^[2] In the charter bounds the word is one of the terms for marshland.^[11]

It lived on as Middle English mersch and survives in English marsh.^[4]

Timeline

• 858 – butan ðem merscum “except the marshes” in a charter of King Æthelberht, in a single sheet held to be contemporary.^[8][7]
• 863 – twenty weys of cheese of mersce “from the marsh” in a charter surviving in a single sheet of the mid-ninth century.^[12][7]
• 890×897 – in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[13][7]
• s. x med. – plants whose home is on merscum in the Old English Boethius.^[14][2]
• s. xi med. – Caningan mersces in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle D, in the annal for 1010.^[15][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. a marsh, swamp or bog;^[2][16][3] sealt mersc a salt marsh.^[2][16][3]
2. (charters) a tract of marshland belonging to an estate.^[9][11]

Descendants

• Middle English mersch (→ English marsh; English merse; Middle Scots mersk)^[1]

Related words

• mere

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 680
3. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. mersc
4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 354
6. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 261
7. ^ a b c d Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
8. ^ a b The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 328
9. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 636
10. ^ Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 144
11. ^ a b LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
12. ^ The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 332
13. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 499
14. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 296
15. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 318
16. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 234