Inverie

Inverie SMS KCQ S NO522014 1 5m

Inuerrin 1141 x 1150 David I Chrs. no. 133 [= May Recs. no. 4; grants to the church of May and the brothers there, Pittenweem (Petneweme) and Inverie (Inuerrin) ‘que fuit Averni (or Auerin)’ (see discussion)]
Inuerin 1153 x 1162 RRS i no. 168 [Malcolm IV confirms to May Priory David I’s grant of Pittenweem and Inverie ‘que fuit Auerin or Auerni’ (see discussion); also common pasture ‘in the shire of Ardross’ (in sire de Erdros)]
Inuerrin 1166 x 1171 RRS ii no. 8 [King William confirms gifts made by Kings David I and Malcolm IV to May Priory. These include Pittenweem (Petneweme) and ‘Inuerrin que fuit Auerin’]
Malkolm<us> de Inuerin c.1200 St A. Lib. 383 [present when boundary ditches were dug at Lingo CBE, along with his brother Gillechrìosd (Gillecrist)]
? Inuermer 1211 x 1242 St A. Lib 250 [a transcription error for Inuerin(er)? William earl of Buchan grants half a merk of silver from his ferme of Inverie (Inuermer in both text and rubric) to St Andrews Priory]
? Inuerine 1211 x 1242 St A. Lib. 252 [rubric]
? Inuerine 1211 x 1242 St A. Lib. 253 [Marjorie countess of Buchan grants half a merk silver from her ferme of Inuerine to St Andrews Priory]
? dimidia marca de firma de Inuerinhe 1244 x 1289 St A. Lib. 282 [rubric; ‘half a merk from the ferme of Inuerinhe’; confirmation of St A. Lib. 252-3]
firma de Inuerinhe 1244 x 1289 St A. Lib. 283 [confirmation of St A. Lib. 252-3]
Inwary c.1420 Chron. Wyntoun vol. 4, 179 [St Monan, one of Adrian’s companions, chose to live the rest of his live at Inverie (‘At Inwary Sancte Monane cheyssit hym sa nere the se to led his lif; thar endyt he’), when Adrian went to the Isle of May]
capella Sancti Monani de Invare 1446 ER v, 226 [see St Monans, below]
Invary 1452 x 1480 RMS ii no. 1444 [St Andrews Church land]
ecclesia Sancti Monani de Invery 1455 ER vi, 15 [20 merks for two chaplains ministering, from the customs of Cupar]
(the church of) Inneri 1471 RMS ii no.1047 [grant by James III to God and St Monanus and the church of Inneri and to a certain number of Dominicans; it is clear from this charter that the ‘church of Inverie’ refers to the present-day parish kirk of St Monans (at that time non-parochial, within KCQ)]
ecclesiam suam S<ancti> Monani de Inverry 1519 RMS iii no. 196
ecclesia ... S<ancti> Monani de Invery 1539 x 1546 St A. Formulare no. 468 [see St Monans, below]
Invere c.1550 Aberdeen Registrum i, lxxxv [the Martyrology of the church of Aberdeen, identifying the feast celebrated on 1st March: ‘Invere in Fyf – S Monanus’]
James Sandelandis of Inuery 1560 St A. Kirk Sess. 64 [Sandilands]
Sanct Monance nuncupata Inverye 1590 Retours (Fife) no. 1492 [William Sandilands (Sandelandis) of St Monans (Sanct Monance), half the lands of ‘St Monans called Inverie’ ... and the other half of the lands of Inverie (Inverye) called Wester St Monans (Wester Sanct Monance), with half its mill]
Inverie alias Sanct-Monanis 1593 RMS v no. 2273 [with fortalice and manor, mill, mill-lands and with the acres of Sanct-Monynns; St Andrews church lands]
Willemo Sandilandis de Sanct-Monanis 1596 RMS vi no. 461 [charter erecting St Monans into a free burgh; see SMS Introduction]
terras dimidietatis de Sanct-Monanis alias Invery 1608 RMS vii no. 49 [George archbishop of St Andrews to William Sandilands (Sandylandis) of St Monans (Sanct-Monanes) ‘the lands of half of St Monans alias Inverie ... and the other half of the said lands of Inverie alias Wester St Monans’ (et aliam dimidietatem dictarum terrarum de Invery alias Wester Sanct-Monanis)]
(the other half of the said lands of) Invery alias Wester Sanct-Monanis 1608 RMS vii no. 49 [see preceding]
lie Invirie 1649 RMS ix no. 2060 [see St Monans, below]
Invirie alias Sanct-Monance 1649 RMS ix no. 2060 [see St Monans, below]
All and Haill the lands of Inverie 1870 Elie Disposition fo 52r. [‘otherwise called Saint Monance, with tofts crofts houses mills multures fishings coals coal heughs and haill pertinents thereof ... all united in a Tenandry and Lordship called the Tenandry and Lordship of Newark or Saint Monance’]

G inbhir + ? G – in

‘Place at the burn-mouth’. The earliest forms strongly suggest that the final element is the common Scottish Gaelic locational ending –in, rather than a burn-name. Similar names occur at Inverie, Knoydart INV, Inverey, Braemar ABD, at the mouth of the Ey Burn (G Uisge Eidh), meaning uncertain (Watson and Allan 1984, 78), Inverey, Birse parish ABD (NO62 95) (not in Alexander 1952), and Invery by Banchory-Ternan (Strachan parish?) KCD (NO69 93). It is likely also that Inver (now Upper and Nether Inver), Monymusk, was formerly Inverie or similar: it is probably the Invery listed with other lands in 1539 as belonging to the archbishop of St Andrews in Monymusk parish and neighbouring Tough parish: Invery, Todlachie (Todloquhy), Tillyfourie (Tolloquhory) (Monymusk parish) and Edindurno (Eddurno) (Tough parish), all tenanted by William Forbes (St A. Rent. p. 90). These are the lands granted to St Andrews Priory by Earl Morgund of Mar, a grant confirmed by Alexander II in 1228 (‘half a carucate of land in the vill of Inver (Inuerine) having 80 acres, with a croft having 7 acres, and common pasture in the above-mentioned vill of Inver’ (St A. Lib. 235).[344] The eponymous inbhir is the nearby confluence of the Ton Burn with the Don.[345]

In Inverie, Knoydart, and probably Inverey, Braemar, it would seem that we are dealing with inbhir + the name of a water-course. In the case of Inverie, Knoydart it has been reinterpreted as the G ùidh/aoidh ‘ford, isthmus’ (itself a loan-word from ON eið ‘isthmus’), although, given that it lies in an area of Norse settlement and toponymy, it may well originally have been a river-name derived from ON á ‘river’. This cannot apply to any of the eastern examples. The pronunciation of Inverie SMS, with stress on the first syllable, also supports the derivation put forward here, that the final syllable is the locational suffix. However, it should be noted that, since the name survives only as a specific (i.e. qualifying another element, in this case burn in ‘Inverie Burn’ and street in ‘Inverie Street’), this would regularly cause the stress to shift to the first syllable (compare the pronunciation of ‘Abernethy’, with stress on third syllable, to that of ‘Abernethy Biscuit’, with stress on first).

Our earliest three references to Inverie are of ‘Inuerin que fuit Auerin (or Auerni)’. This is ambiguous. If we read Auerin, then we seem to be dealing with an earlier Pictish name, *Aberin, for which a Gaelic one, Inuerin, is now used.[346] This is conceivable, since G inbhir (> Inver) is exactly equivalent to Pictish *aber. But if we read Auerni in this charter, we would then be dealing with a personal name, and must read it: ‘Inverie, which belonged to Avernus.’[347] This ambiguity has long been noted: Lawrie, in his note to ESC no. 155 (now David I Chrs. no. 133), writes: ‘Formerly it was supposed that Averin was the old name of the place, which had been changed to Inverin, showing a change from the Pictish to the Celtic (sic) language; but a closer reading of the record showed that Avernus was the name of the former owner’ (ESC p. 388). While Avernus as a personal name is otherwise unknown,[348] the construction “place-name + the verb esse ‘to be’ (in this case, the third person singular perfect indicative, fuit ‘has been, was’) + the genitive of a name referring to a person” is a standard way of expressing land-holding or land-ownership at this time. Furthermore, it is very rare for alternative names to be given to places in the twelfth century, and when examples do start being seen, they are expressed much more explicitly, such as ‘the land which was once called villa Gospatric, which is now called *Cauldstanes’.[349] There is one document produced in east Fife at almost the same time as the David I charter concerning Inverie, which gives a series of alternative names for places throughout eastern Scotland: this is the longer Foundation Account of St Andrews (FAB), and here name-change is expressed in every instance with a verb such as dicere ‘to say, call’, vocare ‘to call’ or nuncupare ‘to call’ (as for example in ‘the place which was called Doldauha, but now called Kindrochit Alian’ (locum qui uocabatur Doldauha, nunc autem dictus Chendrohedalian) (see Appendix I for full details). So the ambiguity remains, and is reflected in Barrow’s note to David I Chrs. no. 133, p. 118.

As mentioned above, the name has survived in the Inverie Burn, which is the name given on more recent OS maps[350] for OS Pathf. St Monans Burn. There is also an Inverie Street in St Monans. The above NGR is supplied by the site of St Monans Kirk, which stands on the west side of the mouth of the Inverie Burn.

/ˈɪnvərɪ/[351]

This place-name appeared in printed volume 3