Christopher D King PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

A. $ST1 ACT
An investigation by G. P. Cubbin into the local place-
name sources of Lancashire of a time when the vernacular had
a low status isolated the Whalley Coucher Book as the one that
most seemed to deserve further scrutiny. That book therefore
forms the basis of the present study.
The Coucher Boook is a mediaeval work of monastic
provenance and is a compilation of deeds received by Whalley
Abbey over the period. The interest of the source lies in its
representation of many place-names by writers who may be
supposed to have been familiar with them. Whalley's place-
name corpus affords scope for examination of variation that is
of dialectal significance.
A searching analysis is undertaken of the evidence
that the Whalley Coucher Book offers. Questions of dating, of
location of place-names, of the elements that compose them,
and of the status of the text have to be examined with a view
to elucidating the significance for phonology of this evidence.
Such examination is carried out at length, and it is hoped that
these aspects of the present work may be found to have
application in linguistic and historical inquiry both for the
actual results relative to the Whalley Coucher Book and for the
methodological
demonstration.
A considerable amount of dialectal phonological
information from the source is presented in this thesis. It is
critically examined and collated and the attempt is made to
derive actual usage in the territory and period concerned. On
the whole the conclusion is that most of the evidence does
reflect the dialect and that it produces a believable distribution
of forms.
Some of the dialectal information thus acquired
appears as new. More commonly, however, this study confirms
the existing picture or makes it somewhat more precise. The