Bantuscall
Bantuscall # KTT S NO297068 2
Pettuscall 1590 RMS v no. 1775 [‘the church lands of the vicarage of the parish church of Lathrisk called Bantuscall’ (terras ecclesiasticas vicarie ecclesie parochialis de Lawthrisk nuncupatas Pettuscall) with boundaries specified, for which see discussion]
Bantuscall 1594 RMS vi no. 94 [‘the church-lands of the vicarage Lathrisk called Bantuscall’ (terras ecclesiasticas vicarie de Lauthrisk nuncupatas Bantuscall)]
Bantuscall 1602 Retours (Fife) no. 113 [the church-lands of the vicarage of Lathrisk (Lawthrisk) called Bantuscall]
Bantuscall 1616 RMS vii no. 1392 [the church-lands of the vicarage of Lathrisk (Lawthrisk) called Bantuscall]
Bantuscall 1648 RMS ix no. 1939
Bantuscall 1664 Retours (Fife) no. 968
G pett and G baile + G an + G soisgeal
‘Pett or baile of the Gospel’ (an t-soisgeil), with Gospel probably being used here in a symbolic way to represent the institution of the Church. For this and other possible interpretations, see Pitliver DFL PNF 1; compare also Pitlour SLO PNF 4. There are at least two other place-names in Scotand containing these elements, and all three are discussed by W. J. Watson (1926, 268). Bantaskin by Falkirk STL shows the same generic element variation between pett and baile; while Pentaskill, Farnell ANG (which appears on OS 6 inch 1st edn as Pintassle Burn) is recorded only with the generic pett, from its earliest occurrence in 1410 as Pettintoscall (Brech. Reg., quoted by Watson loc. cit.).
In several of the above entries the lands of Bantuscall are described as ‘the kirklands of the vicarage of the parish kirk’ (terras ecclesiasticas vicarie ecclesie parochialis) of Lathrisk. For the variation between Pit- and Bal-, which probably goes back to the Gaelic-speaking period, see Taylor 1997. As there are especially dense clusters of Pit-(from pett)-place-names around the early church centres of Abernethy PER and Dunfermline, it is possible that the use of pett as a generic here underlines the antiquity of the church of Lathrisk.
However, these lands did not lie beside the church. In the printed version of RMS v no. 1775 Pettuscall is immediately followed by the words in brackets ‘inter limites specificatos’ (‘between specified boundaries’), signalling that the details of the boundaries have been omitted by the editors. These details from the original of this document (NAS C2/37/2 no. 447) are as follows: Bantuscall (Pettuscall) is surrounded by the lands of Orkie (Orkie) KTT on the north and west, the lands of Holekettle (Holkettill) KTT on the east, and the lands of Forthar (Forthir) and Holekettle (Holkettill) on the south. This allows us to locate Bantuscall fairly accurately around NO297068, c.2.5 km south-east of the church of Lathrisk. It is in fact much closer to the site of the chapel of Kettle, which lies c.1 km to the east, so it might originally have been associated with an early church there.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 2