Talk:Clan Riddell

Normans, Gascony etc..

I will not dispute the info about the origins of the RIDdELL (and variants) Clan name, however i think the authors of this article jump to conclusions.

• a) the Viking descend of the name referring to the Valley of the Rye, Rydale etc is a valid possibility, entirely in its own right, and may account for the pronunciation of the name in accordance with "rye"
• b) the french origine of Ridel/Riddell would be found in the pronunciation of Riddell as "reedelle". The Riddell coming to Britain with William the conquerer opens a larger number of possibilities :
  • b-1) the name is of Norman origin, the Norman population was a mixture of Viking invaders and frankish population from the 2nd half of the first millenium, The Frankish tribes migrqted into Gallo-roman France from north of the Rhine from the end of the 4th and 5th century , and the Vikings raided the coasts from the late 8th century creating settlements like they did in Britain. that allows for 3 origins
    • b-1-1 the name is a mixture of Norman origine (Viking and Frankish)
    • b-1-2 the name is a of Viking origine
    • b-1-3 the name is of Frankish origine ( mixed with Gallo-romans)
  • b-2 The name is from Gascony, ( Medieval Gascony covered and area from Brittany in the north west to the Rhone valley in the east and Basque country in the south) When William the conquerer recruted his army his soldiers came from way beyond Normandy, from the north Flanders, from the south east Gascony. Those areas were before 1st century BCe inhabited by Celtic tribes, when they were invaded by the romans the population around cities, garrisons and roman roads became gallo roman, but al lot of celtic areas remained untouched by the roman invasion, remember the Frankish migrated from the end of the 4th and 5th century. It is known that Gascony maintained its largely Celtic culture, so did Catalunya and Gallicia in Spain, that allows for another 2 origins
    • b-2-1 the name is of Gallo-roman origin
    • b-2-2 the name is of Celtic origin : as Celts they would have found common (cultural) ground with the Celtic population in Scotland

Note that the gallo-roman tradition and literature depicts the invasion of the nordsea coasts as violent raids by savage warriors that go about raping, slaughtering the population, pillaging and burning villages. Note too that such is not the case in Scotland neither on the east or the west coast en certainly not on the islands, also in Frankish territory that "invasion" seems more like colonisation and the establishement of trading posts, admitted with sometimes violent skirmishes, but that kind of violence was common for more then a millennium. The Celtic and Viking warriors have similar war cultures, and also similar slavery traditions, other aspects of their cultures might be similar to each other too, but differ form Roman and Gallo-roman culture.

c) Last but not least the fact that Ridelś participated in the conquest of William (probably with group of warriors) and that the Ridels were then given land (in North Humberland) and noble titles ( which the might have had already in France) may have crossed their paths with the Vikings in Ryedale and later both groups that might be sharing similar names and perhaps even had similar (recognizable) cultural heritage (traditions) may have moved north in Scotland where they established themselves together.

IMHO its too easy jumping to conclusions as in many texts that The Riddells are linked to RYE they are Viking, and their name is Viking, or becasue the came with Willian the conquerer they are Norman, or they are "french" from Gascony (france barely existed, so what does french mean) ... I think the text shoudl reflect that complex origin of "Riddell" --DerekvG (talk) 16:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Feel free to make changes to the article but you will need reliable sources to back up the information that you add/change. In order to keep the article to a good standard any new information must be properly sourced.QuintusPetillius (talk) 17:21, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the Info I will prepare in my sandbox references and citations for what I said above, --DerekvG (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2020 (UTC)