Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: As is not unusual in matters philological it is necessary at the outset to discard some preconceptions,1 to get rid of the idea that peel meant from the first what it means now, and to be prepared to find that in the course of some six centuries the signification has altered. Was our peel always a tower of stone, as all previous writers on the subject have assumed ? If not, what was it? Whence comes it—from Latin Phala, an oval tower;2 from Latin pila, a pile;3 from Celtic peel or /;'//, an earthen mound or castle: or from any of them ? Before offering an answer I submit my evidence. I.—Peels Of Edward I. The oldest proper examples of the word known to me occur in the accounts of the costs of the Scottish wars of Edward I. The first peel on record is that of Lochmaben : the next is at Dumfries. Others soon follow at Linlith- gow and Selkirk. 1. Lochmaben: Edward retiring from Scotland after the battle of Falkirk in 1298, had taken possession of the castle of the Bruces at Lochmaben, referred to as a castrum and as a chastel.6 That winter a considerable addition was made to its defensive strength, as appears from payments? made to English labourers, sawyers and carpenters (ad faciendum pelum ibidem) for making a peel there. The entry as regards the sawyers is (ad sarranda ligna pro con- struclione peli) for sawing wood for the making of the peel. This leaves little doubt that the peel was essentially a wooden structure. Its character is further illustrated by an order8 issued in November, 1299, to provide for the 1 I begin with some of my own contained in Annandale under the Bruces, pp. 28-9. Jamieson's Dictionary. 3 Professor Skeat in bis Supplement to bis Dictionary, But see note p. 33 infra. 4 I think I have beard this derivation eloquently maintained by Pr... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.