ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1055 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1055 ************************************ 30 Jun 1998 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for information about the name or in 13th century French or Occitan, and about your design for your arms. Here is what we have found. and its diminutive were southern French names in your period [1]. A troubadour poem refers to a historical , eldest son of Dragonet lord of Mondragon in Vaucluse. The elder Dragonet lived 1176-1227; the poem refers to his son c.1200 [2]. Perhaps you found the name in the list of 12th and 13th century French and Occitan names in our library on the web [3]. The name seems perfect for a resident of Provence or the Langue d'Oc in your period. In your period, Old French nouns had two grammatical cases: nominative and oblique. The nominative case was used when the noun was the subject of a sentence or was used in direct address: "Dragonet has beer." "Hey, Dragonet, get me a beer!". The oblique was used in all other circumstances: "I got my beer from Dragonet." "Make sure you thank Dragonet!" is the oblique form of your name; the nominative is or [4]. In many cases, the oblique form (which was used more often) survived to become the modern form; and we believe that the web page on French/Occitan names lists modern French forms alongside the Occitan forms. In order to have a complete name for your persona, you'll need to add some kind of surname. Surnames in your period were descriptive and were not fixed: People didn't have permanent, inherited family names the way we do today. Instead, they were described in various ways by people around them. You might have been identified as your father's son or by the place where you were born or where you lived. If you'd like some help choosing a surname, write us again and let us know what you have in mind. You can find some examples in the article on Occitan names that we mentioned before [3]. The arms you have in mind would be blazoned in the Society as "Azure, a lion passant guardant and on a chief Or, three fleurs-de-lys gules." You are quite correct that "a leopard" is shorthand for "a lion passant guardant", but the SCA College of Arms chooses not to use that term in order to avoid confusion with a natural leopard. This design would be quite appropriate for a much later-period persona, but it is rather more complex than the armory used in 13th century France. In your period, it is very unusual to find designs with a charge on the field as well as a charged chief. We recommend that you simplify your design, perhaps by removing the chief and putting all the charges directly on the field. Fleurs-de-lys were very common charges in France in your period (and in Italy, England, and most places where heraldry was used). If you are using the fleurs to say "I am French", then you may want to consider another charge: They had no such meaning in period. In modern insignia, it is routine to use a fleur-de-lys to represent the French or a thistle for the Scottish. In period, this sort of nationalist symbology didn't really exist. (The thistle doesn't appear in Scottish arms except as a royal augmentation until the 1700s [5].) In particular, the fleur-de-lys was used in all nations and carried no implication of "Frenchness". In re-designing your arms, you may want to be careful to avoid two possible conflicts. Gold fleurs-de-lys on a blue field were strongly associated with the French royal family in period, and in France usually indicted a close relationship to royalty. In the Society, the College of Arms will not register arms containing several gold fleurs-de-lys on a blue background. You may also want to take care to avoid similarity to the arms of Aquitaine and of the Dukes of Guyenne "Gules, a lion passant guardant Or". We're not sure which way you'll want to go, so we aren't going to make any specific suggestions. If you'd like us to make some suggestions, please write us again and give us some feedback on which parts of your design are most important to you: the colors, the lion, the fleurs-de-lys, etc. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek, Zenobia Naphtali, Walraven van Nijmegen, Rouland Carre, and Giles. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 30 Jun 1998 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987). [2] Chambers, Frank M., _Proper Names in the Lyrics of the Troubadours_ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971). [3] Ramons lo Montalbes, "French/Occitan Names From The XII And XIII Century" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/ramon/occitan/ [4] Einhorn, E., _Old French: A Concise Handbook_ (London & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974). [5] Burnett, C. J., "The Thistle as a Symbol", pps 45-52 of _Emblems of Scotland_ (Heraldry Society of Scotland, 1997). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -