| Corpus Refs: | Davies/etal/2000:I6 |
| Site: | RTIER |
| Discovery: | arch excav, 1994 Meuret, J.-C. |
| History: | Davies et al/2000, 283: `In August 1994, preparatory to the construction of a garage, some slate cist-graves were discovered in the bourg of Retiers, apparently much disturbed. ... A year later, a site assessment preliminary to constructing a parking lot revealed four dug graves and another slate-lined grave. Six months after that, in February 1996, another three dug graves and a further slate-lined grave were revealed; some Roman-period tegulae were found in the neighbourhood of the burials. The left-hand panel of grave S3, the southernmost of the three graves found in parcel no. 147 in 1994, south of the garage, bore an inscription, which was revealed when the panel was washed [Meuret/1998: 85--89]. The stone was examined by members of the CISP team in May 1997 and June 1999, and the site was visited at the latter date.' |
| Geology: | Davies et al/2000, 284: `good quality blue slate'. |
| Dimensions: | 1.61 x 0.39 x 0.03 (Davies/etal/2000) |
| Setting: | unattch |
| Location: | SRAB store, Rennes Davies et al/2000, 282: `SRAB store' in Rennes. |
| Form: | body-slab Davies et al/2000, 284: `The panel bearing the inscription consists of a single trapezoidal slab of slate, measuring 161cm by 39.5cm at its widest and 3.2cm thick at its thickest point.' |
| Condition: | complete , good |
| Folklore: | none |
| Crosses: | none |
| Decorations: | Davies et al/2000, 286: `The cross is … composed of two diagonal lines 26cm and 29cm long, irregularly and carelessly formed'. |
| Meuret, J.-C. (1998): | W/ELITA Expansion: WELITA Translation: Welita(PN) Meuret/1998 97--98 reading only |
| Davies, W. et al. (1999): | {M}/ELITA Expansion: MELITA Translation: Melita(PN) Davies/etal/2000 286 reading only |
| Orientation: | horizontal |
| Position: | n/a ; broad ; beside cross ; undivided |
| Incision: | drill+cut Davies et al/2000, 284--86: `The incision is shallow, barely 0.1cm deep. Regular holes, 0.2cm in diameter, were drilled as a precaution against splitting for all letters but the T.' |
| Date: | 450 - 699 (Davies/etal/2000) Davies et al/2000, 288: `In view of the date of the cemetery and of the lettering, and in the absence of grave goods, there seems no reason to date this carving any more precisely than between the late 5th and early 7th century inclusive'. |
| Language: | name only (rcaps) |
| Ling. Notes: | none |
| Palaeography: | Davies et al/2000, 286: `This tiny inscription is in capitals. The legs of the up-side-down M are quite widely spread, the final stroke thereby giving the E with which it is ligatured a decided lean to the right. The L has an oblique 'foot' much like that seen at Bais [BAIS/1]. This is a common early medieval letter form, as is the final angle-bar A. The I after the L is vertical, and the T has a very short ascender. It is not possible to be overly specific about the dating of this inscription, but a date from the second half of the 5th century, to the early 7th century, seems likely. Bischoff states that the letter form W did not begin to be used until the 11th century, the form VV being used before this. It is therefore much more likely that the initial letter is an up-side-down M than a W. An up-side-down M occurs on an inscription from Castle Dore in Cornwall, and another on a 5th-century inscription from Tarragona; the latter was immediately corrected by an M the right way up [CDORE/1]. |
| Legibility: | good |
| Lines: | 1 |
| Carving errors: | 1 |
| Doubtful: | no |
With double -ll-, the name Mellita is known from France, from the Mâcon, in the 6th century, and from northern Italy in the late 6th century, and (M)ellita for a 5th-century noblewoman in Rome. Mellitus, who was sent to Britain from Rome by Gregory the Great in AD 601 and became the first Bishop of London and third Archbishop of Canterbury (dying in 624), appears in Welsh as Melyd; cf. men called Mellito named on inscriptions from France and Rome. Melyd probably reflects assimilation to the same masculine native name that earlier was written Melitus [Nash-Williams/1950, no. 86], discussed above. At any rate, the Brittonic sensibility was that such a name should have a single -l-, as in the present inscription. The forms with -ll- seem to be Latin and may not be related.
Viewing Melita as a possibly Brittonic name (though it could alternatively be Gallo-Latin or a loan from Greek), the spelling would be consistent with a 5th- or 6th-century date. If the final syllable is purely a Latinization, it could be later as well, i.e. an Early Old Breton Melit (= Welsh Melyd) + Latin nominative -a. In either case, Melita is probably feminine, notwithstanding Meuret, who, quoting Favreau, believed it need not be. Rejecting the reading Welita, as explained above, this name can have nothing to do with the ogham genitive VELITAS 'of the poet' (OIr. filed); that last name is indeed masculine, but the Goidelic masculine genitive -as (later -a) did not occur as such in Brittonic or Latin.'