Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 013

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 013

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/013

This is one of the Academy's earliest reports. We are not confident that these early reports are accurate. Please use it with caution.

We were not able to document significant parts of your name. We didn't find any documentation for "Yse;" the closest we came was "Ysemay," documented to 1273, and "Ysabeau," is a well-attested name. We might have some luck checking your sources for "Yse;" where did you find the name?

We were able to document most of the other names you asked about. There are many surnames derived from "Poitou" and Poitevin": Poitevin, Poitou, Poitout, Pe'tavin ("e'" stands for "e" with an accent grave), Peytavi, Poittevin, Poitvin, etc. But none of our sources shows any surname derived from "Poitiers." On the other hand, "de Poitiers" is clearly correct, and in late period, the "de" was sometimes dropped to form a surname. "le Poitier" is not grammatically correct; the French did not use the article "le", which means "the", with place names. If you want to say "from Poitiers" it should be "de Poitiers". If you want to say "the woman of Poitiers", it would be "la Poitevinne" or simply "Poitevinne". We can also document "Saint-Clair" and "Sainclair," which gave rise to the English name Sinclair.

We couldn't find "Ardnamachty" in any of our references, but we don't have an exhaustive dictionary of Scottish place names. We're fairly sure that the name is plausible because we have found other Scottish names starting with "Ardna-," which comes from a Gaelic phrase meaning "Height of the..."

As we mentioned in the last letter, a long string of place names or surnames is not found in any period language we know of. After the development of inherited surnames in France and England in the 14th century, and Scotland in the 15th), people sometimes used both a surname and a locative byname, e.g. Isabeau Poitou de Saint-Clair. Earlier in our period, it would have been unlikely for someone to use two bynames derived from place names; a single byname would have been more likely, e.g. Ysemay of Ardnamachty. Therefore, we suggest that you consider shortening your name, and choosing one or two bynames, depending on what part of the period you want your name to match.

Regarding a boar's head jessant-de-lys: there is no example of anything other than a leopard's head being jessant-de-lys in period heraldry of any type. Even the leopard's head is found only in English heraldry, and is a fairly uncommon charge.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of St. Gabriel