ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1604 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1604 ************************************ 18 Apr 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a woman living between 1300 and 1600 who had a Norman father and a French mother. You also asked whether your design for your arms matches your persona. Here is what we have found. was the patron saint of Paris. This spelling appears in the 1292 census of Paris and is still in use in French, so it is likely that it was used throughout your period [1, 2]. We believe that the name was always most common in and around Paris. You wrote that you found mentioned in the 13th century Whitby Cartulary; we found the same citation [3]. The name is of Norse origin, and was used in England as late as the 13th century, but it dropped out of use later. The name was also introduced into Normandy, where it took the form . It appears to have been common there until late in our period [2]. The preposition was occasionally used to form a patronymic byname, though it was not the most common method. That is to say, would have been understood to mean , but the same woman would likely also have been known as . The Normans carried the same practice to England where we have found examples as late as 1332, and we are confident that it existed in Normandy in that period as well [6]. We can't recommend it much later, though, so if you want to use , we suggest you place your persona no later than the mid 14th century. The arms you described could be blazoned "Azure, three compass-stars Or and on a chief argent two axes crossed in saltire sable, all within a bordure gules." Unfortunately, this design is not consistent with the style of heraldry used before 1600. We'll explain in detail and suggest some alternatives that fit your period better; but in general, your design is too complex. Heraldry of your period -- and especially of the period when your name is most appropriate -- was much simpler. The compass-star is a modern invention; it was not used in period heraldry [7]. The "mullet of eight points", a star with eight equal-length rays, was used in some period heraldry, but the normal French form of the charge had six points [4, 5]. The combination of a chief and a bordure is almost unknown in period heraldry, and the red bordure does not have sufficient contrast against the blue field. In the language of heraldry, it is "color-on-color". The hrealdic hues are divided into two classes: metals, which are the light tinctures silver/white and gold/yellow, and colors, which are the dark tinctures red, blue, black, green, and very occasionally purple. One of the basic design principles of period heraldry was that metal charges were placed on color fields and vice versa, but color was not placed on color nor metal on metal. There were occasional exceptions, but they were rare; this so-called Rule of Tinctures describes the overwhelming majority of period arms. As it happens, late-period French heraldry does include some examples of red bordures on blue fields, but these are borne by members of the royal family and are not a good model for Society re-creation. The SCA College of Arms definitely will not register this combination. The pair of crossed axes doesn't fit very well on the chief. A pair of crossed charges properly crosses at a right angle. When it's placed on a chief, it leaves the ends of the chief empty and forces the axes to be quite small. It's much more common for a chief to be charged with three identical, squarish charges. In re-designing your arms, we recommend that you drop the bordure and choose either the mullets or the axes. This will allow you to reduce the number of different tinctures in your design, too. A couple interesting possibilities are: Gules, three mullets of six points and a chief Or. Azure, three axes argent. As far as we can tell, you could register either of these designs with the SCA College of Arms. We 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, Naitan de Yerdeburc, Zenobia Naphtali, Teceangl Bach, Walraven van Nijmegen, and Blaise de Cormeilles. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 18 Apr 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html [2] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987). [3] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Asketil. [4] Jequier, Leon, ed., "Armorial Bellenville", _Cahiers d'Heraldique V_ (Paris: Le Le/opard d'Or, 1983). [5] Stodart, R. R., _Armorial de Berry_. [6] Selten, Bo, _The Anglo-Saxon Heritage in Middle English Personal Names_, 2 vols. (Lund, Sweden: Royal Society of Letters at Lund, 1979), I:51. [7] Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme and Akagawa Yoshio, _A Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry as Used in the Society for Creative Anachronism_, (privately published, 1988), s.v. mullet.