*CANTIA

Nom énigmatique, sans qu'on sache très bien ce qu'il désigne.

Pour Rivet & Smith, après une longue discussion étymologique, pensent à un site quelque part dans le sud-ouest de la G. Bretagne. Ne pas confondre donc avec le Kent / Cantium, qui est dans le sud-est.

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* Cantia : site non identifié du sud-ouest de la (G)Bretagne romaine. Pour la discussion, voir A.L.F RIVET & C. SMITH : Place-names of Roman Britain, pages 297-98-99.

SOURCE

- Ravenna 10611 (= R&C 27) : CANZA 

The proper form is established by comparison with other names in Ravenna in which the compiler represented original /tj'/ when assibilated in Vulgar Latin as z (see AQUAE ARNEMETIAE). Dillemann (66) thinks that Kent is here referred to; he notes that the prcvious name in Ravenna is Lindinis, which he (like Pinder & Parthey) takes to be for Londinis, London, and thinks that Canza could have arisen from an over-zealous scribe who added to it the gloss in Cantiu 'in Kent'. But there is no reason to believe that in this section the Cosmographer has moved outside south-west England, and there is no trace of other interpolations or glosses of this kind elsewhere in the British section; moreover, Lindinis (q.v.) is a good distinct name, and in none of our numerous records of London does it figure in plural form.
DERIVATION. There are exact parallels to *Cantia in the names of Gaulish rivers and others. *Cantia (perhaps earlier *Quantia) > Cance, a tributary of the Rhône; > Chanza, a tributary of the Guadiana (Spain) ; and > Kinz, near Aachen (RIO xxv (1973), 205). To these Ellis Evans (see below) adds other Canche, Cance rivers of France. In Britain Cantium belongs with these. Williams mentions Ynys Gaint near theMenai Bridge. It is not certain how many other Continental names are relevant here. One notes particularly Cantilia (Ravenna 77,30) > Chantelle (Allier, France), Canta Insula in Illyria (DAG 143), and a Cabricantium on or near the Spanish coast (Ravenna 79,43) for which a sense 'goat-cliff' would be fitting (Spanish acantilado ' cliff') ; possibly also Cantabria 'pays des falaises', though a variety of other suggestions are made about this. Many other names and nouns are assembled by Holder I. 737, Whatmough DAG 143 and Ellis Evans.
An admirable treatment of the etymological problem is that of Jackson in JRS, XXXVIII (1948), 55, in studying Cantium. He begins by dismissing a supposed Celtic *canto- 'white', lovingly applied by older authorities (and some not so old) to the 'white land' of the Kentish clifFs. No such word existed. Jackson lists three possible roots :
(1) *canto- 'rim, border, circumference, circle, tyre' (Pokorny 526 : *kantho-, with many derivatives).
(2) Middle Welsh cant 'host, party', probably to be seen also in Old Irish céte '(place of) assembly'; from *cantia.
(3) *canto- 'a hundred' (Welsh cant, Irish cet).
Hence, for Cantium, Jackson suggests a variety of possible meanings : 'encircled (seagirt) land'; 'land on the periphery', 'borderland'; or 'land of hosts'; or perhaps 'land of hundreds'. Of these, as we argue under Cantium, Jackson's first meaning, 'corner land, land on the edge', or similar, seems the most natural. Jackson, however, further thinks that in any case Cantium derives from an ethnic name (see CANTIACI), in which case his second sense 'armies, hosts' is the best. He cites the Penmachno tombstone of Cantiorix (about A.D. 500), for whose name a sense 'king of hosts' is obviously proper. However, against Jackson's view is the fact that 'Cantii', though long accepted, is probably a ghost which has arisen from an erroneous form in Ptolemy; there may have been no unity among the peoples of Kent until the Romans formed them into a canton of the Cantiaci, and if this is so, Cantium is the prime form and is not (because so ancient) dependent upon any prior ethnie name.
Jackson's study is supplemented by D. Ellis Evans, 'SomeCeltic Forms in cant-', BBCS, xxvii (1977), 235-45, which provides a great deal of information about Jackson's three main etyma and a good deal else besides. It was not, of course, Ellis Evans's intention to resolve the problem of the name of Kent as such, and he expresses no preference about this.

An important recent study by P. Quentel, 'Le nom celtique du canton en Gaule et en Grande-Bretagne', RIO, xxv (1973), 197-223, with further notes by G. Néel in RIO, xxviii (1976), 118-25, helps to link several of the apparently disparate senses of names in cant-. Citing Gaulish *cant-, Welsh cant, Breton can, kant (= Irish cet), Quentel identifies in widespread place-names the senses '100', 'circle' and 'edge', together with an adjective 'bright', and a pre-Indo-European base meaning 'stone'. Eventually discarding these last two as unrelated to the Celtic word in question, Quentel concludes (pp. 212 ff.) of the other senses that they can be seen as originating in a Celtic *kn-to from Indo-European *km-to. 'La notion de "cercle" est liée à celle de "territoire", car le territoire est conçu comme un "cercle" [Quental had discussed this earlier : cf. German Kreis, French arrondissement] . . . Ceci explique le sens général de kant "cercle", d'où dérive celui de "bornage", éventuellement de pierre. 'Quentel goes on to explain as derived or related ternis German Kante 'corner, edge', Dutch Kant 'edge', English cant, Spanish canto 'edge; corner', also 'stone, pebble'. The sense '100' is part of this series, the numeral deriving from the custom of organising territories on the basis of 100 hearths and the soldiers these provided (Welsh cant tref). As for modem canton, it is Gaulish *cant- with -on suffix, well-known in many names and words.
It is clear from the above that a sense 'corner land, land on the edge' still seems the likeliest for Cantium. For Cantia it is hard to make suggestions, especially if — as in the numerous Continental *Cantia names — it is really a river-name which was adopted for a settlement, as often, or was a river-name misread from a map as though it referred to a settlement, as is also frequent in Ravenna. R&C concluded that 'corner stream' was intended; perhaps 'river at the edge' (of a tribal area?) is possible too, but there can be no certainty.
no certainty.

IDENTIFICATION. Unknown, but apparently in south-west Britain.

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Voir Encyclopédie, lieux, lettre C.

http://marikavel.org/lieux/lieux-c.htm

JCE