This article is about the King of Kent. For other uses, seeOISC.
Oisc (early Old English[øːsk] or[øːʃ]), or, in a later spelling,Ēsc ([eːʃ]) was, if he existed, an earlyking ofKent and, according toBede, the eponymous founder of the tribe known asOiscingas (early Old English['øːʃiŋgas].
Most scholars agree that, like many names in the Germanic languages, theroot of the nameOisc is an Old English wordōs, meaning '(non-Christian) god',cognate withOld NorseÁss (deriving fromProto-Germanic*ansuz).[1] The etymology of the name has been studied most thoroughly by John Insley, who concluded that cognate forms of the nameOisc are found inOld Saxon (Ōsic, alongside the correspondingweak nounŌsica),[1] to which later scholarship possibly adds the runic inscription on a shield boss dating from between 150 and 220 CE found onThorsberg moor inSchleswig-Holstein which in 2015 Lisbeth M. Imer interpreted as a Roman-influenced maker's mark readingaṇsgz h.[2][3]: 79–80
In Insley's interpretation, inOisc theōs element is combined with a suffix which in Proto-Germanic took the form **ika, which in this context had adiminutive function. The name was thus ahypocoristic (nickname) form of longerGermanic dithematic names beginning inŌs- such asŌswald andŌsrīc.[1] In this reading, the phonetic development of the name from Proto-Germanic to early Old English was *[ans-ika-] => *[oːs-ika-] (by theIngvaeonic nasal spirant law) =>[øːs-ika-] (byi-mutation) =>[øːsk] (byhigh vowel loss and apocope). This form was represented graphically in early Old English asOisc andOesc.[1][4]: 115 Later in Old English, the vowel[øː] developed to[eː], giving the spellingĒsc.
Bernard Mees, however, has suggested thatOisc and its cognates come from the Germanic root*an found in, for example, the Old Norse verbanda ('to breathe'), combined with the suffix*sk; other adjectives formed with this suffix generally mean something like 'quick, lively, brave'.[3]: 80
The name is also found in a couple ofWest Saxon sources asÆsc (along with the tribal nameÆscingas). Insley interprets these spellings as etymologically incorrect attempts by later Old English-speakers to update the then unfamiliar wordOisc into their variety of the language, influenced by the familiar name-elementÆsc-. An early modern transcription of the early medieval manuscript London, British Library, Cotton Otho B. xi byLaurence Nowell gives not the nameOeric andOisc as found in Bede, butósric andoese, but Insley concluded that these are merely inaccurate transcriptions.[1]
Little is known about Oisc, and the information that does survive regarding his life is often vague and suspect.
Anglo-Saxon king-lists generally present Oisc as the son or the grandson ofHengest, who according to other sources led the initialAnglo-Saxon conquest and settlement of Kent.[4]: 111–15
According toBede'sEcclesiastical History of the English People, Oisc's given name was Oeric. Bede indicates that he was the son of Hengest and travelled toBritain with him, with the permission of theBritish kingVortigern. He was the father ofOcta, who succeeded him. His descendants called themselves "Oiscingas" after him.[5][4]: 111–15
TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, which in its present form was compiled by people who knew Bede's account, portrays Oisc as ruling 488–512CE.[6][4]: 111–15
Oisc has been widely viewed the same person as one Ansehis, who is described as a leader of the Saxon invaders of Britain in theRavenna Cosmography.[7] This says that "in oceano vero occidentale est insula quae dicitur Britania, ubi olim gens Saxonum veniens ab antiqua Saxonia cum principe suo nomine Ansehis modo habitare videtur" (indeed in the western ocean is an island which is calledBritania, which the people of the Saxons, coming from Old Saxony under their chief, namedAnsehis, seem now to inhabit".[8]Ansehis (or, as some manuscripts have it,Ansehys) is plausibly an error forAnschis, which would be a plausible archaic or Continental Germanic form of Oisc's name.[9]: 22 However, Insley has argued that an older idea, thatAnschis would also be a plausible attempt to represent proto-Old English *Hangista-, is more plausible, and that it is Hengest whom theRavenna Cosmography represents.[1]
^abcdefJ. Insley, 'Oiscingas', inReallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, ed. by Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich and Heiko Steuer, 2nd edn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2002), XXII 33–38ISBN978-3-11-017351-2.
^Lisbeth M. Imer, 'The Inscriptions from Thorsberg — Germanic Inscriptionmaking as a Reflection of Roman Writing', inArchäologie und Runen. Fallstudien zu Inschriften im älteren Futhark,, ed. by Alexandra Pesch and Oliver Grimm, Schriften des Archäologischen Landesmuseums Ergänzungsreihe, 11 (Kiel: Wachholtz, 2015), pp. 109–15 (pp. 111–12).
^abBernard Mees,The English Language Before England: An Epigraphic Account (New York: Routledge, 2022);ISBN9781032214177.
^abcdSeiichi Suzuki,The Quoit Brooch Style and Anglo-Saxon Settlement: A Casting and Recasting of Cultural Identity Symbols (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2000);ISBN9780851157498.
^Stenton, Frank (2001).Anglo-Saxon England. OUP Oxford. p. 16.ISBN9780192801395.
^H.M. Chadwick,The Origin of the English Nation, Cambridge 1907, pp. 44-47.
^Itineraria Romana II, ed. by Joseph Schnetz (Leipzig, 1940), p. 105 (quoted from Patrick Sims-Williams, 'The Settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle',Anglo-Saxon England, 12 (1983), 1–41 (p. 22 n. 93).
^Patrick Sims-Williams, 'The Settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle',Anglo-Saxon England, 12 (1983), 1–41.
^Keynes, Simon (2014). "Appendix I: Rulers of the English, c.450–1066". InLapidge, Michael (ed.).The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.ISBN978-0-470-65632-7.
^Kirby, D. P.The Earliest English Kings. London and New York: Routledge.ISBN978-0-4152-4211-0.
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