Chapter CCXIV: Section II: Command

The Gothic _bidyan_ has resulted in our verb _to bid_, the German _baten_, the Danish _byde_, besides _bote_, a messenger, and the _budstick_, bidding-stick, or summons to the muster.

All these were in the sense of command; but from the same root grew the race of entreating words, the Scandinavian _bede_, German _bitten_, and English _beg_. When these entreaties were devotional, the Germans made the verb _beten_, and our term for prayer, _bede_, passed on to the mechanical appliance for counting beads—the _beads_ of the rosary, while the pensioner bound to pray for his benefactor was his _bedesman_.

It is doubtful whether this, or the Welsh _bedaws_, life, gave his name to the Venerable Bæda, but no doubt to himself and his contemporaries it suggested the idea of prayer. There is no doubt, however, in the case of Baudhildur, or Bathilda (the commanding heroine), the daughter of king Nidudr, the lady whom Volundr carried off with him when he fled from her mother’s cruelty. After her was called Bathilda, an Anglo-Saxon slave, who was elevated to be the wife of the second Hluodwig, and lived so holy a life, and exerted herself so much to obtain the redemption of slaves, that she was canonized, and, as _la reine Bathilde_, was greatly venerated in the believing days of France. Denmark also used this name, having probably taken it from England. There ‘Dronning Bothild,’ the wife of king Ejegod, spread the name among the maidens, so that it passed to Norway as Bodild, Bodil, and even to the contraction Boel.

Of English birth, too, was the Commanding-wolf—Bedvuolf, or Bodvulf—who, with his brother, St. Adolf, went, about the end of the sixth century, to seek religious instruction in Gallia-Belgica. Adolf became bishop of Maestricht, and eponym to the Adolphuses. Bodvulf came home, and founded the monastery of Ikano, where he died in 655, and was canonized. The monastery was destroyed by the Danes, and the situation forgotten, but the saint’s relics were carried away by the fugitive monks, and dispersed into various quarters, giving title to four churches in London, besides St. Botolf’s bridge, commonly called Bottlebridge, in Huntingdonshire, and St. Botolf’s town, in Lincolnshire, usually known as Boston, whence was called its American cousin Boston, with little relation to the saint. The tower of the church of St. Botolf, looking forth over the Wash, was a valued landmark, and thence the saint was apparently viewed as a friend of travellers, and connected with the entrances to cities, much as St. Christopher is elsewhere. Camden even supposed him to be Boathulf, or boat helper, and his day, the 17th June, is a market day in Christiania, under the term of Botolsok, or Botsok. In Jutland there is a church of St. Botolv; and in the North the names of Botol and Bottel are kept up; while, in England, there only remain to us the surnames of Bottle and Biddulph. The Old German forms of the two names above-mentioned are Botzhild, Botzulf; and Botzo, or Boso, a Commander, was now and then used as a name with them, as in the instance of the troublesome duke of Burgundy, whom French historians generally call Boson, and who is apt to be translated by _böse_, wicked.

Boto, Botho, Poto, are also found in Germany, and the very earliest specimen of this class of name is to be found in Botheric, commanding king, the name of the governor whose murder in the hippodrome caused Theodosius to give his bitterly repented command for the massacre of Thessalonica. Now and then _bot_ occurs at the end of a word, as in the Spanish prince Sisebuto, the messenger of victory, or victorious commander.

These are not the same with some that look much like them, derived from the Northern _bød_, German _badu_, A.G.S. _beado_, war. Beadwig, in the Wodenic ancestry, is thus battle war, and the Gothic king of Italy, Totila, is probably made by the Romans from Bødvhar, battle pleader, a name still used in the North as Bødvar. Bødmod, Bødulf, and Bødhild, or Bødvild, have also been in use.[146]

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Footnote 146:

Munch; Michaelis; Pott; Sismondi; Butler; Camden; Le Beau; Kemble.