Timber is an Anglo-Saxon word for a house, said Helena Hamerow on last night’s Essay on Radio 3, bringing me up short. How come I had never heard of that before?
Well the OED has no record of it being used in that simple sense since 1330.
But how it suddenly changes my view of the world. Before the 'English forests sailed the oceans of the world & found new lands full of wildernesses & more forests waiting to be cut down' (Kate Atkinson: Human Croquet) they were just home.
Links
Professor Helena Hamerow
Early Medieval Settlements
Radio 3: The Essay: Anglo-Saxon Peasant Farmers
