"From the journals": Corbett on Barry and Sully (CNS Trans. vol. XXXVI, 1903, pp.116-117)

Date: 2026-10-30. Read by eye from the NLW scan (no text layer, no OCR used), PDF AWJBW005012, Reports and Transactions of the Cardiff Naturalists' Society vol. XXXVI (the volume with T. H. Thomas's 1903 folklore article, so 1903). This closes the lead left open since the county-journal finder run.

What the article is

J. S. Corbett, "Some reasons for believing that Barry and Sully gave names to their lords' families rather than the lords to the places". It's a two-page note, an argument, not a record. Use it as a "who named whom" story card. Never present it as a finding.

The argument, with page cites

• p.116: Giraldus Cambrensis was "born about the middle of the twelfth century, not more than 60 or 70 years after the conquest of Glamorgan, and was himself of the de Barri family".
• p.116: Corbett quotes the Itinerarium Cambriae (in English): a small island on the Severn shore "which the neighbouring people call Barri, so called from the name of Saint Baroc", whose remains lie in an ivy-covered chapel there. The nobles who rule the island and the lands nearby take their name from it, "first the agnomen, then the cognomen of de Barri, from Barri". This was transcribed by eye. Check the exact wording against the scan before quoting it in public.
• p.116 footnote: "Whether this was really the origin of the name of the island is not so clear." Use this as the honest caveat line.
• p.117: Corbett explains the terms. The agnomen is the first lord's own byname, and the cognomen is the family surname his descendants carried on.
• p.117: Walter Mapes, "a contemporary of Giraldus", is quoted from the Cambriae Epitome: an island near Cardiff "called of old time Barri". Corbett: "This does not look as if he thought it had lately acquired that name from the Lords."
• p.117, Sully: a de Sully family connected with the Scilly Isles took its name from Scilly. Leland spells our Sully that way, and "it is so pronounced by the Welsh". Camden: the place "tooke the name, as is thought, of Robert Sully ... if you would not rather have him to take his name of it". Camden's map has "Sylye". Corbett's conclusion is that the place came first and the family took its name from it.

Fit and traps

• Two-Llandoughs check: not needed. The article names Barry, Sully and Cardiff and never mentions Llandough.
• Barry and Sully are neighbouring parishes, not ours. Use it as context only: the de Sully name links to Walter de Sully, who paid the 20-mark fine over the king's mill at Leckwith in 1207 (see leckwith-1207-mill-1281-manor-accounts-cards.md).
• Corbett's case is an argument made in 1903. Present it as "an old argument". Banned public words apply, so write "Corbett argued" or "Corbett's reading". "assertions" is banned.
• Don't use the Bute dates, insignia or family holdings anywhere near it.

Card (draft, for a person to post; Tuesday "From the journals" slot)

Title: Did the place name the family, or the family name the place? Body: In 1903 J. S. Corbett argued in the Cardiff Naturalists' Transactions that Barry and Sully named their Norman lords, not the other way round. His evidence was Gerald of Wales, himself a de Barri, writing that the family took "first the agnomen, then the cognomen of de Barri, from Barri". Corbett's own footnote admits the island's name origin "is not so clear". Source line: J. S. Corbett, Trans. Cardiff Naturalists' Soc. XXXVI (1903), pp.116-117. Link: internal Cedwyn page only, no outbound links.

How we apply it to Cedwyn

1. Add one row to the "From the journals" no-repeat ledger (Paterson skill) with id AWJBW005012, pp.116-117, "used: card 1".
2. Use the card on a Tuesday after the Paterson cards have run, and pair it with the Leckwith 1207 card, since both feature the de Sully name.
3. Fold one sentence into the place-names material (Pierce field-names skill) as an example of how a name moves between place and family.
4. Before posting, re-read the p.116 Giraldus passage at 110 dpi and quote it exactly.

Sources

• datasyllwr.llgc.org.uk (3-page PDF: NLW cover plus pp.116-117)
• iiif.llyfrgell.cymru (Cardiff Naturalists' collection)

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