Note: New entry.

Note: MP: 'Pontisscen' and 'pontische' in Vsp.D.Hom. 88/36 and Creed (Blickling) p.138 may be considered forms of an adj. in -ish, meaning 'of or pertaining to Pontus [or Pontia],' and not as forms of the name 'Pontius.' MP: "Pilate is often referred to in ME as 'Pilate of Pounce' or 'Pounce Pilate' [WB(1) and (2) Mt. 27.2, Lk.3.1; Creed (Hrl 2343); Creed (Dc); Yk.Pl. (see Beadle ed., glossary of names)], and several works tell how he got this appellation from his military exploits in Pounce or Pontus [SLChrist 6509-28; Mirk Fest. pp. 120-1; Trev. Higd. 4.319-21]. In the Vsp.D.Hom. and Creed (Blickling) instances, the presence of the definite article casts a good deal of doubt on the possibility that those are forms of a name. While the def. art. does occasionally appear before names in ME, 'than' and 'thane' at least occur only when the person has been previously mentioned and thus have the sense of a demonstrative. In neither of these instances has Pilate been mentioned previously. In OE, more than 2/3 of the occurrences of 'pontisc pilate' found in the Concordance have the article preceding them, while there is never an article with 'Pilate' alone. BT Suppl. has an entry Pontisc which merely says 'translates 'Pontius' in the name 'Pontius Pilatus.' The fact that Pontisc is inflected in Vsp. D.Hom. and some of the OE instances also strongly suggests that Pontisc is not a name, though this by itself would not be decisive. The identity of the 'Pontus' with which Pilate is associated is not clear, and may vary with knowledge of classical geography. Trev. Higd. 4.321 points not to Pontus in Asia Minor, but to the district of Pontus on the western coast of the Black Sea to which Ovid was exiled, since 4.377, which refers to Ovid's exile, is apparently the only other instance in Higden's Polychonricon of "þe ilond Pontus" (On Ovid's Pontus, see Anthon, A Classical Dictionary, p. 949). The index in vol. 9 of Trev. Higd. distinguishes 'Pontus, regio Asiae Minoris' and 'Pontus, insula.' This identification of 'þe ilond Pontus' assumes that 'insula' and 'ile' and 'ilond' here mean either 'region' or 'coastland,' which are possible though not terribly frequent senses. If they mean 'island,' either there is an error in geography (quite possible) or confusion with Pontia, an island famous as a place of exile (see Anthon, ibid.). The SLChrist passage also calls Pontus an 'ile'; Mirk Fest. calls it a 'contre.'"