Maiden Castle, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Harun al-Rasid

Coates, Richard

Abstract

A submitted article in an onomastics journal, accepted without major revision, whose main thesis is that the place-name Maiden Castle, recurrent in Scotland and England, has its immediate origin in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He transposed it from a context of crusaders' knowledge of a prominent ruin in the Levant to the fortress of Edinburgh, from where the name, used as a topos, eventually spread throughout Britain. Some other theses are addressed briefly, such as that the topos is in part responsible for the direction of the development of the roman courtois tradition.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2006
• Journal: Nomina
• Print ISSN: 0141-6340
• Publisher: Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Pages: 5-60
• Keywords: Maiden Castle, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Harun al-Rasid
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1036114
• Publisher URL: http://www.snsbi.org.uk/Nomina.html