THE STREAM-NAMES OF ROMAN RIBCHESTER

[Original unaltered map courtesy http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/roman2.htm]

As the Roman fort at Ribchester, Bremetennacum Veteranorum, is my proposed site for the birthplace of the legendary Dark Age Arthur, I thought it might be interesting to briefly investigate the relationship between the stream-names of this location.  

The modern name for the large river at Ribchester is Ribble, but we know from Classical sources it was anciently called Belisama, a goddess name probably meaning something like 'the Most Shining One' (see Rivet and Smith's THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN).  As the name of the fort itself is derived from another stream-name - *Brematona - we must assume this stream is the Stydd Brook that empties into the Ribble immediately to the NE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stydd_Brook).

But what of the Ribble name itself, now applied to the Belisama?

Many theories have been attempted, but none of them work.  The most outlandish is often found on the Web, deriving from the neopagan writer Nick Ford.  He claims (in LANCASHIRE'S SACRED LANDSCAPE, p. 82)Ribble is from Rigabelisama, i.e. 'Queen Belisama.'  This is etymologically impossible (never mind that Riga- does not mean queen; we would need *rīganī-).  The idea has been floated that we should see a British *Ro-belo- in the Ribble, a formation that would be remarkably similar semantically to Belisama.  Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work. Place-name expert Alan James has informed me that

"That idea has been tossed around, trouble is lenition (pre 500 AD), unless OE speakers adopted the name very early, it would be *Rivel."

Richard Coates of the English Place-Name Society agrees, saying

"I’m sceptical about *ro-, which seems unlikely to have given such a consistent English /i/ at the relevant period (see LHEB 657-9)."

Fortunately, we don't have to make up an etymology for Ribble.  The early forms of the river-name (see Watts) - Rippel, Rypel - lead me to believe that this Ribble is simply OE *rip(p)el, 'a strip of land.'  This element may be present in several English place-names, but is certainly the basis for Ripple in Hereford and Worcestershire and Ripple in Kent.  Watts says of these two places:

"The reference is probably to a tongue of higher land along the Severn west of Ripple..."

"The reference is to a strip of high ground forming a spit or ridge of land."

I would assume, then, that such a place existed at Ribchester and precisely because this strip of land ran along the river, the river was given the name through the usual process of back-formation.  Alan James has another equally possible and related idea, which he shared with me only recently:

"It's not impossible that the river was named from some land on the estuary, not necessarily at Ribchester, which was more probably named from the river, rather than v.v."

As a final note, I would add that the Ribble valley was an important region for the Vikings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuerdale_Hoard).  Alan James reminded me of

"Cf. ON skogar-ripel 'strip of woodland'; the OE word is simply a diminutive of ripp 'strip.'

In any case, there is no reason to search for improbable derivations for the Ribble river-name (like something drawn from the language of the Sarmatian Iazyges whose veterans settled at the fort).