"--From _Cathim_, came _Cahem_; and _Cahem_, in process of time,
was gradually softened into _Caen_. The elision that took place in the
first instance, is of a similar nature to that by which the Italian
words _padre_ and _madre_, have been converted into _pere_ and _mere_;
and the alteration in the latter case continued to be indicated by the
diaeresis, which, till lately, separated the two adjoining
vowels.--Towards the latter part of the eleventh century, Caen is
frequently mentioned by the monkish historians, in whose Latin, the town
is styled _Cadomus_ or _Cadomum_.--And here ingenious etymologists have
found a wide field for conjecture: Cadomus, says one, was undoubtedly
founded by Cadmus; another, who hesitates at a Phoenician antiquity,
grasps with greater eagerness at a Roman etymon, and maintains that
_Cadomus_ is a corruption from _Caii domus_, fully and sufficiently
proving that the town was built by Julius Caesar.
Robert Wace states, in his _Roman de Rou_, that, at the time
immediately previous to the conquest of England, Caen was an open
town.--
"Encore ert Caen sans Chatel,
N'y avoit mur, ny quesnel."--
And Wace is a competent witness; for he lived during the reign of Henry
Ist, to whom he dedicated his poem.
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