Origin of Carlisle/Carlile/Carlyle
Where did the name Carlisle come from?
First, we may assume that we Carlisles of various spellings got our names from the beautiful city of Carlisle, in what is now the northwest English county of Cumbria.It is a city of around 70,000, surrounded in part by a brick wall built by Henry VIII and later improved.Before the arrival of Agricola and his Roman army around 78 AD, the territory was inhabited by various Iron Age tribes, probably loosely aggregated within the larger federation called the Brigantes.There is some evidence that the Carvetii were the local tribe with some sort of built-up stronghold at Carlisle.
As the Romans took control of the area they established a base fort of turf and wood where Carlisle Cathedral stands today.When Emperor Hadrian’s army came up against the indigenous tribes (of today’s Scottish-English border lands) the Romans fell back to a frontier they could hold and in 122 AD began building Hadrian’s Wall, a turf berm just north of the site of the present Carlisle Castle, and then a substantial stone wall with fortresses beginning some twenty miles eastward.It was the custom of Roman soldiers to honor their favorite deities, battle heroes, or political figures with monuments.The wall in this locale was dedicated to the minor deity Lugus and to the Romans the settlement became Luguvalium.One source translates “valium” as “wall,” thus “Wall of Lugus,” however, another source translates “valium” as “strength,” giving “Strength of Lugus.”[Kelly’s Directory of Cumberland, 1938, London]
The local indigenous folks, applying the Welsh pronunciation, called it “Caer” (fort) “Liwelydd” (Luguvalium), giving today’s pronunciation.It wasn’t until around 1200 AD that the custom of adopting surnames was introduced following the Norman Invasion and people individualized themselves by identifying their place of origin, trade, heritage, lineage, physical characteristic, etc.By this time the families who identified with the place could have been indigenous descendants, or remaining Romans, or other invaders, including Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, etc., however, Oppenheimer [See the “Prospect Magazine” link, below.] writes that invaders had little genetic influence on the indigenous gene pool.When you see references to the Latin-sounding “Karleolo” put forth as the origin of Carlisle it is usually from the 12th century or later, long after Caer-Liwelydd had already established itself as the name of the site.
You will find lots of interesting information and links at
http://www.visitcumbria.com/car/http://www.visitcumbria.com/car/which you may challenge the ideas I have presented here.
Tulllie House is the local museum in Carlisle and its linkwww.tulliehouse.co.ukwill give you general information online.Look in their Online Shop for Local Interest Books, especially Carlisle, The Border City.
Are we Carlisles/Carliles/Carlyles Celts?
Since the warming of northern Europe some 10,000 years ago, after the Last Glacial Maximum, people have been migrating to and from Britain, Scandinavia, and the Atlantic coasts of Europe, exchanging goods, language, cultures and technologies, as well as introducing and reintroducing genes.Archeological evidence of Celtic cultures has been identified through much of western and eastern Europe.In addition to settlements, the ranges of their tribal and mercenary soldiers left evidence in Syria, Carthage, the Roman Empire, Egypt, and beyond. [The Ancient World of the Celts, Peter Ellis]
Stephen Oppenheimer’s book, The Origins of the British, describes the British Isles as being connected to the European Atlantic Coast when the glaciers retreated but much of the earth’s water was still frozen in the northern ice cap.During this time, after the Last Glacial Maximum, the populations that had sought refuge from the cold in Iberia and southern France migrated as hunter-gatherer beachcombers along a continuous coastline from Portugal-Iberia, across the lowland that is now the English Channel, and along the western shores of the British peninsula.This is one of the reasons for earliest settlements being located in present day Ireland and the Atlantic coast.Adding to the populations and to the spread of culture and technology was coastwise travel by boat, out of the Mediterranean and up the ancient coast.Oppenheimer proposes that the Celtic language may have been spread as a trade language, which together with goods and technology advanced independent of genetic migratory expansion.It is more likely, Oppenheimer says, that the R1b haplogroups originated in the Basque Ice Age Refuge.
See a follow-up article by Oppenheimer at:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817
To visualize the confusion that is caused by identifying a genetic group by its culture and language, imagine today’s archeologist identifying any group, from Ethiopia to Japan to Turkey, based on its use of the English language and the presence of artifacts of the Christmas season.
There are several problems with trying to identify any particular group as “Celtic.”I quote here from the BBC:
“However, there is one thing that the Romans, modern archaeologists and the Iron Age islanders themselves would all agree on: they were not Celts. This was an invention of the 18th century; the name was not used earlier. The idea came from the discovery around 1700 that the non-English island tongues relate to that of the ancient continental Gauls, who really were called Celts. This ancient continental ethnic label was applied to the wider family of languages. But 'Celtic' was soon extended to describe insular monuments, art, culture and peoples, ancient and modern: island 'Celtic' identity was born, like Britishness, in the 18th century.”
For a link that will educate and entertain you on this thread, see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistoryhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory
In my own travels I have seen exhibits on Celtic settlements in the Salzkammergut of Austria; Budapest, Hungary; Numancia, Spain; Prague, Czech Republic; Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Carlisle, England.Several of the exhibits cited Roman encounters with the Celts in the years around the beginning of the Common Era, during the reign of Julius Caesar.Some doubt should be allowed for the primitive investigative techniques and biased conclusions of the Roman military intelligence service.
Since all of the participants so far in the FTDNA Carlisle/Carlile/Carlyle/Lyles surname group are of the same haplogroup--R1b1b2—I believe (with no authority but my understanding of Oppenheimer’s book) that we are probably either descendents of the indigenous tribes or of later occupying populations which had our same common haplotype, ebbing and flowing from the continent.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtmlhttp://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml
defines the subclade R1b1b2 (formerly R1b1c) as originating 9,500 years before present, with “Mesolithic European” as the associated ethnicity. The Celtic ethnicities are noted as originating only ~3000 ybp.So we R1b1b2 types originated somewhere before a Celtic ethnicity existed?
What is our connection with Robert the Bruce?
Many websites that feature “tartan finders” or “clan finders” will list the Carlisles as a sept of the Bruce clan.If you subscribe to the notion that one should be “entitled” to wear a particular tartan then here is your entitlement.Lady Margaret Bruce, Robert the Bruce’s sister, married Sir William de Carlyle sometime around 1322, and had two sons, William and John de Carlyle.See:http://thepeerage.com/p10790.htm#i107892http://thepeerage.com/p10790.htm#i107892.
Also,The Historical Families of Dumfriesshire and the Border Warsat http://www.electricscotland.com/history/dumfries/chapter1.htmhttp://www.electricscotland.com/history/dumfries/chapter1.htm, which seems authentic, describes many close associations between the Carliles and the Bruces back at least to the Norman Invasion.Although the Bruces originated in Normandy, at Bruis or Brix near Cherbourg, the origin of the Carlisles, I do not doubt, is indigenous to Cumbria, as explained at the start (and here the definition of “indigenous” is arguable).Not having a clan of our own, we are well established as a sept of the Bruces, who were lords of Annandale, the valley of the river Annan, where lived at least four family groups of Carlyles.The Annan River flows into the Firth of Solway, west of Carlisle.
If the various Bruce tartans are not to your taste (Not everyone looks good in red.) A Mr. C. Justus of North Carolina registered both Carlisle and Old Carlisle tartans in 1987 with a light blue field.Various tartan authorities advise that you may wear any tartan, except a royal design, without giving offense.
The Carlisle Arms and the Bruce Family Crest
The Carlisle Blazon of Arms is described as “Or a cross flory gules” with the motto “Humilitate,” which means: the blazon is a shield; Or (golden) is the background color; a cross flory (the cross has flowery endings) gules (the cross is red).A flowery red cross on a gold shield.Think of the cross as having tulip endings on each arm.And “Humilitate” means “With Humility.”The Arms belong only to the Chief and may only be used by him.In the United Kingdom, The Lord Lyon may prosecute unlawful use of Arms.
The Bruce Family Arms is shown as a red saltire (X) with a bar across the top and the rampant lion in the uppermost left corner, all on a golden shield background.The current Chief of the Bruce Clan is the Earl of Elgin who alone has the right to display the Arms.The Bruce crest is a rampant lion with the motto “Fuimus”—“We Were.”The Carlisles being a sept of the Bruce Clan, we may display the rampant lion surrounded by a strap and buckle.
The Border Reivers
At the Tullie House Museum I discovered that the Carlisles were among the thieving, murderous, rapacious, rustling, arsonist families that terrorized the western borderlands.With no law in the districts until the March Wardens were appointed these family gangs and alliances preyed on each other and on the towns through the 15th, 16, and 17th centuries, mostly with the purpose of “lifting” cattle and ponies.An excellent book on the subject is Alistair Moffat’s The Reivers, however he leaves the Carlisles out of his list of family names.I found our name in a handout at the Tullie House Museum, and in the passageway from the museum to Carlisle Castle is a stone bearing the Curse of the Archbishop of Glasgow upon the border reivers.In the stone floor is engraved the name “Carlisle.”For a DNA study of the reiver families, go to:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gallgaedhil/border_reiver_deep_ancestry.htmhttp://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gallgaedhil/border_reiver_deep_ancestry.htm
There you will find information that will keep you busy for days.
Further notes for contemplation:
“When James VI. became King of England; in 1603, it was of the first importance that the clans on the frontier should be quelled, lest their incursions upon his new kingdom should make him unpopular with the English. He appointed Johnstone of Graitney and two colleagues to survey the “Debatable Land” and surrounding parts, with the view of placing them under large and responsible landholders.Many outlaws who well deserved it were summarily hung.
In 1612 bonds were drawn up and signed by the different clans protesting their loyalty, lamenting over the blood shed in times past, and the loss of life they had sustained from thieves and murderers within the Highlands and Borders; and promising for the future to pledge themselves for the good conduct of the Borders, as they would at once arrest and execute any such offenders.”
END
I offer this goulash of information as a starting point for your own enquiries, with apologies to any sources I may have neglected to credit.As we are a small group and related in some way I will entertain questions through e-mail, again not setting myself forth as an expert on anything and trusting your honorable use of this access.
Craig Michael Carlile