Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 043

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 043

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/043

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

Greetings,

Here's what we were able to find out about the name "Ragnell" (or something close...)

We didn't find "Ragnell" anywhere. However, "Ragn-" is a common first element in Norse names, and we were able to find a number of names which are fairly close.

The closest we came was "Ragenal," dated to the 11th century. In that same source, we found Ragenald (11th C.), Raganald (1050), Rainald (11th C.), and Raghanaldus (1155). This source consists of names from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, which were both dominated by the Danes, so these names are documented to the same local area as your persona. (1)

We also found Ragnar (11th C.) and Ragnvald (11th C.) (2). A third source contained Ragnulf (undated), p. 21, and Ragnvar (undated), p. 31, along with the second elements -kil, -lef, -logh, -lógh, which could be combined with Ragn- to form Ragnkil, Ragnlef, Ragnlogh and Ragnlógh ("o/" represents an "o" with a slash through it). (3) Yet another source (4) documented Randel (1430-1460), Ranell (c. 1350), and Regnold (c. 1300).

Hartmann Rogge, Arval D'Espas Nord, and Lindorm Eriksson assisted in researching your name.

If you would like to register this as an SCA name, you will need to choose a byname or surname as well.

Regarding your device: you said you were interested in using the "field division 'rompu.'" We have seen the term "rompu" (which means "broken") used to describe a treatment of a chevron. English heraldic writers apply the term 'rompu' to several forms of "broken" chevrons (shown below), but in the SCA the "chevron rompu" is always drawn as in the middle example.

          /\                  /\
         /  \                /  \
        /    \               |  |             /|  |\
       /  /\ /               |/\|            / |  | \
      /  /  V  .            /|  |\          /  |  |  \
     /  /     / \          / |  | \        /  /    \  \
    /  /      \  \        /  |  |  \      /  /      \  \
   /  /        \  \      /  /    \  \    /  /        \  \
  /  /          \  \    /  /      \  \  /  /          \  \

When you say the "field division rompu," we're not entirely sure what you mean. We have never seen an example of rompu, in any form, used to describe any arms used in period. A field divided by the line made by a "chevron rompu" would not be like any example of medieval heraldry we have.

If you're talking about some other field division, there may be some chance that we can find it in medieval heraldry under another name, although the chances of this are not high.

We hope this has been of assistance. If there's anything else we can help you with, please let us know.

In Service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of St. Gabriel

(1) Fellows Jensen, Gillian. Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Copenhagen, 1968.

(2) Jansson, SBF: 'Runinskrifter i Sverige', Varnamo 1985.

(3) Modeer, Ivar: 'Svenska Personnamn', Lund 1989.

(4) Kristiansen, Knutsen & Hornby (eds.) 'Danmarks Gamle Personnavne', vol. 1


Greetings,

We've got quite a lot of information, both from you and from the commenters, to sort through.

Norse names are constructed from two elements, as are names in all Germanic languages and many other Indo-European languages. There is a limited stock of first elements ("protothemes") and second elements ("deuterothemes.")

While the elements that make up names usually had some sort of 'meaning' originally, this was not necessarily a consideration in the construction or use of any particular name. Although many names can be traced back to words, it's fairly clear that they weren't generally given based on their meaning. So "Ragnhild" means "Ragnhild."

In the 10th century, second names were used when necessary to identify a given person. Some people became known by two names (Erik Bloodaxe and Aethelred Unraed are examples). Others were primarily known by one name (Alfred, Cnut), and others had a variety of descriptive or "by-names" (the discoverer of America is called as Leif Erikson and Leif hinn Heppni in different accounts). To register a name in the SCA you need to choose a specific byname, even though your persona might be called by no, or many, bynames in her life. Among the terms used for "of," in Old English, we found "aet," "de," "on," and "of." In Old Norse, the most common term is "i."

It's worth mentioning that "Ragnhild" is a Scandinavian name, but we have evidence that Scandinavian and Old English elements were combined in a single name in parts of the Danelaw. So we can still justify this as a reasonable name.

We also found information on the Runic form of the name "Ragnhild." For most of the Viking period, the runic alphabet only had 16 characters--thus, many letters were used to represent two or more sounds.

There were two commonly used runic alphabets. "Ragniltr" in each alphabet is as follows:

|\ | | | | |\ /|\ |\ | \ | / \ | / \ | | | \ / | \ | \ | > |/ \|/ \| | | \ | | >

| /   /|     /|\     |\   |  |       |    | /
|<   / |    / | \    | \  |  |       |    |<
| \    |      |      |    |  |       |    | \
|  \   |      |      |    |  |       |    |  \

|\     |      |      |    |  |\     /|    |\
| \    |      |      |    |  | \   / |    | \
|  >   |      |      |    |  |  \    |    |  >
| /   /|    --|--    |\   |  |       |    | /
|<   / |      |      | \  |  |       |    |<
| \    |      |      |    |  |       |    | \
|  \   |      |      |    |  |       |    |  \

R      A      G      N    I  L       T    R

another rune which could be used in place of the "g" rune is, in both hands: both hands:

The final "r" is a grammatical addition indicating that "Ragnhild" is the subject of the sentence and would be used when referring to yourself.

We're having problems envisioning your arms. I sent a letter to Husam asking him for more information, and haven't heard back from him. What we think you're talking about is this:


                |                                  |
                |                                  | red
                |                                  |
                |                                  |
                |                                  |
                |                                  |
                |                                  |
                -----------------------------------  white
                -----------------------------------
                |                                  |
                |                                  | red
                |                                  |
                -----------------------------------
                |                                  | white
                -----------------------------------
                |                                  |
                |                                  | red
                -----------------------------------
                |                                  |
                |                                  | white
                -----------------------------------
                |                                  | red
                -----------------------------------
                |                                  |
                |                                  | white
                |                                  |
                -----------------------------------  red
                -----------------------------------
                |                                  |
                |                                  | white
                |                                  |
                |                                  |
                |                                  |
                -----------------------------------

If this is what you have in mind, we can all say that we've never seen anything like it. We're also still having trouble envisioning the "per bend rompu" that you mentioned. If you could provide us with a bibliographic reference for these items, we could check them out and see what exactly we're talking about here.

Even if you document these, your arms still won't be quite in line with period practice. Late-period heraldry does have a lot of unusual practices, but it tends to use a limited number in a single coat. It's possible to document (for example) the "Per chevron inverted" line of division, but it's usually found in the context of arms that are otherwise very simple. Combining "Per chevron inverted" with another very unusual practice makes it highly unlikely that your arms would ever have been seen even in lateperiod heraldry.

One of our members has offered to send xeroxes of runic inscriptions that use the name "Ragnhiltr." If you'd like to get copies of them, please send us your postal address. If there's anything else we can do for you, we'd be happy to help.

Lindorm Eriksson, Arval D'Espas Nord, Hartmann Rogge, Tangwstyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Ivanor of Sighty Crag, Walraven van Nijmege, Elsbeth Anne Roth, and Marten Broeker have all worked on your name and arms.