Duncan Probert (born 13 April 1961, died on 15 December 2016) was a scholar of early medieval British place- and personal names, one of the editors of the ''Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'', and a council member of the

English Place-Name Society The English Place-Name Society (EPNS) is a learned society concerned with toponomastics and the toponymy of England, in other words, the study of place-names ( toponyms). Its scholars aim to explain the origin and history of the names they st ...

from 2005 to his death. He was particularly noted for his work in his doctoral thesis and subsequent publications revising scholars' 'understanding of the relationship between the

West Saxons The Kingdom of the West Saxons, also known as the Kingdom of Wessex, was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from around 519 until Alfred the Great declared himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons in 886. The Anglo-Saxons beli ...

and the Britons of the south west' in

early medieval Britain The history of the British Isles began with its sporadic human habitation during the Palaeolithic from around 900,000 years ago. The British Isles has been continually occupied since the early Holocene, the current geological epoch, which star ...

. This included major contributions to understanding ''Kingston'' place-names in England, and 'searching' and 'painstaking' research showing 'how close scrutiny of

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

s and their bounds can allow detailed understanding of earlier land units and landscapes'.

Life

Prior to beginning his career as a historian, Probert worked as 'a bio-mathematician at Grasslands Research, then after a succession of other jobs (at various times he made intricate miniature model figures, drove a skip lorry, was a school caretaker, a computer programmer, and even did some building work) he started his own graphic-design business in

Stoke on Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England. It has an estimated population of 259,965 as of 2022, making it the largest settlement in Staffordshire and one of the largest cities of ...

'. He returned to education in the 1990s, completing an

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

Arts Foundation course in 1994, taking a First in his BA in Medieval Studies at

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

in 1998, and proceeding directly to a PhD at the same institution, which he completed in 2002. During 2003-6 he was a

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

fellow at Birmingham, and a visiting lecturer in Medieval History 2006-15, as well as a Research Associate on the ‘Family Names of the UK’ project at the

University of the West of England The University of the West of England (also known as UWE Bristol) is a Public university, public research university, located in and around Bristol, England, UK. With more than 39,912 students and 4,300 staff, it is the largest provider of hi ...

2012-14 and, from 2010 to his death, a research fellow at

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

. He also undertook historical re-enactment, mostly of the Viking Age.Shaun Tyas,
Duncan Probert: 1961 - 2016
(9 May 2017). [Also published as Shaun Tyas, 'Obituary: Duncan Probert', ''Journal of the English Place-Name Society'', 48 (2016), 104–108. He 'managed to combine the hard-headedness of real-world employment experience with an irrepressible belief in the power of human ingenuity to solve problems'. Probert was the honorand of a memorial volume of academic essays published in 2022.''Names, Texts, and Landscapes in the Middle Ages: A Memorial Volume for Duncan Probert'', ed. by Steven Bassett and Alison J. Spedding (Donington: Tyas, 2022).

Works

As of May 2016, it was 'hoped that his partner, Alison, and his friend and former supervisor, Steve Bassett, will be able to bring some of his unfinished pieces to publication in the future. Unfinished work includes a draft dictionary of Devon place-names.'

PhD Thesis

* �
Church and Landscape: a study in social transition in south-western Britain, c.300 to c.1200
��, Birmingham University, Ph.D. thesis (2002).

Book

* [co-editor with several others], ''The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'', ed. P. Hanks et al. (Oxford: OUP, 2016).

Articles

* �
A model for evaluating lamb production systems
��, ''Agricultural Systems'' 10 (1983), 213–44. * �
Mapping early medieval language change in south-west England
��, ''Britons in Anglo-Saxon England'', ed. N. J. Higham (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2007), 233–44. * �
Towards a re-assessment of ‘Kingston’ place-names’
''JEPNS'' 40 (2008), 7–22. * �
Two Devonshire “Cheritons”
��, ''The Church in English Place-Names'', ed. E. Quinton (Nottingham: EPNS Extra Series 4, 2009), 15–22. * �
New Light on Aldhelm’s letter to King Gerent of Dumnonia
��, ''Aldhelm and Sherborne: Essays to Celebrate the Foundation of the Bishopric'', ed. K. Barker (Oxford: Oxbow, 2010), 110–28. * o-authored with Margaret Gelling �
Old English stoc “place”
��, ''JEPNS'' 42 (2010), 79–85 * �
The pre-Conquest lands and parish of Crediton minster, Devon
��, ''Place-Names, Language and the Anglo-Saxon Landscape'', ed. N. J. Higham and M. J. Ryan (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2011), 175–94. * �
Wulfnoð, Olaf and the Domesday scribes
��, ''Nomina'' 35 (2012), 1–19. * �
Algar son of Leofflæd and the earliest stratum of the ''fratres kalendarum'' of Exeter
��, ''Notes & Queries'' 60 (2013), 26–8. * �
Peasant personal names and bynames from late-eleventh-century Bury St Edmunds
��, ''Nomina'' 37 (2014), 35–71. * �
Two misread names in the Cornish folios of the Exeter Domesday
��, ''Notes Queries'' 62 (2015), 517–19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjv156 * ‘What has Ingold to Do with Domesday? An Exercise in Identification in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, ''Nottingham Medieval Studies'' 60 (2016), 1–30. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1484/J.NMS.5.111277.

Database

* o-authored with S. Baxter and C. P. Lewis
Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England: Domesday
', 2nd edition (2016).

Cartography

Probert was also noted for his cartographic work for a range of academic books, producing maps 'ranging in date from ancient Nubia to the Boer War'. Examples include: * Simon Yarrow, ''Saints and their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth Century England'' (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006) * Steven Bassett, 'Anglo-Saxon Warwick', ''Midland History'', 34.2 (2009), 123-55, https://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175638109X417332 * C. P. Lewis, 'Danish Landowners in Wessex in 1066', in ''Danes in Wessex: The Scandinavian Impact on Southern England, c. 800-c. 1100'', ed. by Ryan Lavelle and Simon Roffey (Oxford: Oxbow, 2016), pp. 172–211

External links

Academia.edu page

Researchgate page

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Probert, Duncan Alumni of the University of Birmingham 1961 births 2016 deaths Academics of King's College London English non-fiction writers Toponymists Anglo-Saxon studies scholars