Saint Patrick & Names along the Antonine wall

[Nathan Ross]

I suggest it's related to the Welsh medi (to reap)

It seems to be a Scots word, meaning crumbly soil. But it doesn't matter - it's got nothing to do with the perfectly good and common Latin word Medio, which means 'middle'.

it would be natural to refer to Dumbarton Rock when explaining where Nemthur was.

But the scholiast is saying that Nemthur is Dumbarton Rock, not that it's somewhere near there.

we are told there were 7 ON THE WALL and NEMETON is the 7th.

The Historia Brittonum (your source for this, I think) says there were seven - but it also contains fantasy stories about dragons and men turning into foxes. We know very well that there were more than seven forts on the wall.

the Clota... Alt Chluaidh... earliest post Roman form Dunberton

What's the earliest date we have for the name 'Dunberton'?

Getting three good name matches, IN THE RIGHT PLACE, backed by historic evidence

I still don't think they are good name matches, and they're only in the right places because you've put them there!

I still don't see any historical evidence (other than the garbled names themselves) that would place any of this prior to the medieval period.

you can't support your assertion that there was only one source.

It's not really an assertion - there is only one source, that we know of.

It's possible that the even later sources (all two of them) that mention Strathclyde are drawing on some mysteriously vanished additional source - but that would be speculation etc etc.

you're the one arguing that he can't be from Strathclyde because of his language.

I'm arguing that it seems very unlikely he was from Strathclyde. Latin was still in use within the old Roman province, and I don't see any reason why Patrick should not have been from there. It certainly seems the most logical assumption, and doesn't involve having to invent communities of fugitives north of the wall and so on.

St.Alban's martyrdom is dated around 396AD... How long does blood sit around?... forced to flee the empire AFTER IT BECAME CHRISTIAN.

it's also feasible that the early community in Strathclyde was created by the original persecutions around 305AD

... another good reason a priest and his wife might flee.

Back to this again! St Alban was probably invented in the late 4th century, so we dont have to worry about his miraculous blood. Pelagius is usually dated to around the same time as Patrick, so the Pelagian heresy would not have caused his family to go anywhere.

The 'early community in Strathclyde' is your own invention, so any reasons you invent for them to be there are as good as any others.

Christians were not persecuted to any degree in Britain in AD303-5, so none of them would flee, and certainly not to pagan Strathclyde! They did not even flee the empire in places where persecution did happen.

Priests continued to marry and have kids into the middle ages. We know Patricks father and grandfather were clergymen; deciding that this is why they were in Strathclyde is very circular reasoning.