ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1770
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1770
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21 Jul 1999
From:  (Josh Mittleman)


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether <Juan Balthazar Tigrerro> is an appropriate name for a
15th or 16th century Spanish man.  You also asked if your design for your
arms fits that period: "Azure, two tygres combattant Or and a cross <of
some type> argent within a bordure rayonny Or".  Here is what we have
found.

<Juan> is of course a fine name for your period; it was a common name
throughout your period, and the most common man's name in one survey of
16th century Spanish names [1].  

<Balthazar> is also a good choice for your period, though not in that
spelling.  We found a few 16th century examples of <Baltasar>; we recommend
you use that spelling [1].  

We cannot justify <Tigrerro> as a Spanish surname, but we can suggest
<Tigre> "tiger" as an alternative.  We found one example of that surname in
1539 [3].  The Spanish suffix <-ero> means roughly the same thing as the
English <-er>, i.e. "someone who does something".  <Guerrero> "warrior" is
constructed from <guerra> "war".  Your <-erro> could be a spelling variant
of <-ero>, but <tigrero> doesn't make sense.

In your name, <Baltasar> could be understood either as a second given name
or as a surname.  It would more often have been a surname in your period:
Double given names were quite rare, while two-element surnames were not
unusual, especially among the upper classes.  Double given names were a bit
more common among the nobility, but still rare [2].  Therefore, we
recommend that you treat <Juan> as your given name and <Baltasar Tigre> as
your surname.  With that understanding, your name is a fine choice for your
period.  Construed as two given names and a surname, it is still plausible,
but quite atypical of your culture.


Your design for your arms, "Azure, two tygres combattant Or and a cross <of
some type> argent within a bordure rayonny Or", contains several elements
that are not typical of period Spanish heraldry.  We have found no example
of a tygre in period Spanish heraldry.  Iberian arms rarely use monsters
other than the griffin.  The heraldic tygre is a rare charge everywhere in
period Europe, but it seems to be especially inappropriate for Iberia.

The bordure rayonny is also unlikely to have been used in the armory of
your culture.  "Rayonny" is extremely rare in period [4], and we have found
no example in Iberian heraldry.  We have observed that Iberian heraldic
designers generally tended to avoid complex lines of division, so "rayonny"
is doubly unlikely.

If you would like our help designing arms more typical of late-period
Spain, please write us again and let us know which elements of your arms
are most important to you.  We believe it would help you to look at some
examples of period Spanish arms, to get an idea of what sorts of designs
they did use.  Unfortunately, the only sources we can suggest are fairly
difficult to obtain.  If you can get hold of any of these books, you will
find them useful.

  Riquier, Marti/n de, _Heraldica castellana en tiempos de los reyes
  catolicos_, Ediciones dels Quederns Crema, Barcelona, 1986. (Spanish
  Heraldry in the time of the Catholic Kings, i.e. the last quarter of the
  15th century)

  Riquier, Marti/n de, _Heraldica Catalana des de l'any 1150 al 1550_,
  Ediciones dels Quederns Crema, Barcelona, 1983.  (Catalan Heraldry from
  the year 1150 to 1550 - Catalonia is northeastern Spain, centered around
  Barcelona).

  _Libro de Armeria del Reino de Navarra_, ed. Faustino Menendez Pidal de
  Navascues (Bilbao: Editorial La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca, 1974, ISBN
  84-248-0119-9).

You might be able to find some useful pictures in books of late-period
Spanish art, especially in collections of portraits, which often contained
the subjects' arms.

There are several sites on the World Wide Web that depict Spanish heraldry.
We cannot recommend them, though, because they mix period and later
heraldry with no indication of when the arms were created.  One site that
shows various royal Spanish arms that were used in period is:

  http://members.xoom.com/chema/index.html


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 Elsbeth Anne Roth, Pedro de Alcazar,
Rouland Carre, Zenobia Naphtali, Juliana de Luna, Antonio Miguel Santos de
Borja. 

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  21 Jul 1999

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References

[1] Elsbeth Anne Roth, _16th-century Spanish Men's Names_ (WWW:
Self-published, 1998). 
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kvs/mnames.html

[2] In one study of the titled nobility in the 16th century, less than 3%
of the people had double given names.  In most lists of names, less than 1%
of people have double given names (Juliana de Luna, publication pending).
The study mentioned found more two element surnames than one element
surnames.  In a more representative sample, we would expect 5-8% of
surnames to have two elements.

[3] Romera Iruela, Luis, and Ma. del Carmen Galbis Di/ez, _Catalogo de
Pasajeros a Indias, Siglos XVI, XVII, y XVIII_ (Sevilla: Archivo General de
Indias, 1980), v.III.

[4] We found one example in Italy, the arms of the Sienese family Ruffaldi,
who bore "Per bend rayonny Or and gules" as early as 1340.  "Rayonny" also
shows up in in a late 16th century English heraldic text, but these are
very likely only hypothetical examples.  Borgia, L., et. al., eds., _Le
Biccherne : tavole dipinte delle magistrature senesi (secoli XIII-XVIII)_
(Roma : Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, 1984).  Bossewell,
John, _Works of Armorie (London, 1572; facsimile reprint Amsterdam and New
York: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd. and Da Capo Press, 1969), folio 28.