Provenance
Discovery: The stone was first discovered by Rev. E. A. Bray in 1834, when it served as a gatepost to a field in Roborough Down near Buckland Monachorum (Okasha 1993, 278). The finder tried to get it moved but the farmer refused. Only in 1868 did the future Duke of Bedford succeed in offering a new gatepost in exchange and had the stone re-erected in the vicarage garden of Tavistock, where two other early inscribed stones had been brought some decades previously. The ogham inscription was first noticed by Ferguson in 1873 (Okasha 1993, 278).
Findspot: Buckland Monachorum, Devon, England (National Grid Reference: SX 4900 6930)
Last recorded location(s): Now in Tavistock Vicarage Garden, where it was examined and 3d recorded for the OG(H)AM project in April 2024.
Support
Historic Environment Record ID: Monument number: 437968
Object type: Pillar
Material: Grit
Dimensions: H 1.42 × W 0.43 × D 0.3 m
Condition: A pillar stone reused as a gatepost near Buckland Monachorum, the metal fittings are still visible on the upper right-hand side. The stone bears both an ogham and Latin inscription. The ogham text is ‘very worn’, Macalister (1945, 468) noted that there is ‘no trace of a concluding I’ and Okasha (1993, 278) described the inscription as ‘so highly deteriorated as to be virtually illegible’. The Latin inscription is ‘slightly deteriorated’ (Okasha 1993, 278).
Inscription
Text field: The ogham inscription occupies the left arris and Okasha (1993, 278) maintained that it is no longer ‘clear whether it reads upwards or downwards’. The roman inscription reads downwards facing left in three lines on the broad face of the stone. There are two presumably modern letters cut into the back of the stone, reading O.C.
Letters: Macalister (1945, 468) described the Latin inscription as ‘pocked’. The Latin inscription is written in a ‘predominantly capital script’ and set without ‘framing-lines or panels except for traces of one incised line at the top of the stone’ (Okasha 1993, 278). The inscription features Bs with separated bowls and As with v-shaped bars. The letters measure between 7 to 13 cm in height.
Date: Fifth or sixth century to the eighth century
Edition
Ogham text: ᚓᚅᚐᚁᚐᚏᚏ[ᚔ]
Transcription: ENABARR[I(?)]
Critical apparatus:
- Assuming Latin faber is a common noun rather than a personal name, it covers a range of roles which are distinguished in Gaelic/Irish. It can mean gobae ‘smith’, which is twice found glossed with this word, but that means only an ironworker, not the higher-status, precious-metalworker (cerd) which also falls under ‘faber’. It can mean ‘carpenter, joiner’ too, which would be Irish saer. These three professions were deemed of different status — cerd being the highest, but all within dóernemed ‘base nemed (‘noble’)’—and it is hard to know which is referred to here. It is a unique occurrence of the word in early Medieval British epigraphy, and it would be wrong to think that faber is here to add ‘colour’. Rather, it is likely that it is mentioned because the rights which are being exerted by this inscription in some sense depend on this status being acknowledged. Okasha (1993, 280) determined that FABRI could be a ‘Latin personal name’ or a title and ‘could refer to either DOBVNNI or to [E]NABARRI’. Okasha (1993, 280) read DOBVNNI as a Celtic name, ‘it may also be a hypocoristic form, or the first element might be from Primitive Irish *dubu- ‘black”. Jackson (1953, 181, 645) interpreted ENABARRI as Primitive Irish and derived from *Etnobarros ‘Birdhead’. 2. Macalister (1945, 468) read: Ogham: ENABARR; Roman: DOBVNNI FABRI FILII ENABARRI
Translation
Translation from OKA1993
Ogham: of Enabarras
Roman: [the stone] of Dobunnus the smith, son of Enabarrus (Okasha 1993, 280)
Commentary
Okasha (1993, 280) dates the stone from the fifth or sixth century to the eighth century and maintained that the Primitive Irish names and use of the horizontal I are ‘in accordance with such a dating’ and, additionally, ‘if FABRI were a Latin name, this would corroborate it’. While the presence or otherwise of a final -I has important dating significance, unfortunately, the inscription is very worn in this area. There are slight markings visible which are consistent with there having been a final vowel, but it is slight.
References
- Forsyth 2024-05-30,
- Jackson 1953, 181, 645
- Macalister 1945, 467-468, no. 488
- Okasha 1993, 278-281, no. 60
- West 2009-11-08,