ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1857 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1857 ************************************ 4 Jan 2000 From: Alan Terlep Greetings, Here's the information we found about the name , which you wanted to use as the name of a Jewish woman living in Poland between 1200 and 1350. Poland's Jewish community was going through a major transition during this period of time. The first Jewish community in Poland was established in the 800s. Very little information about this community has survived, but its members spoke a Slavic language that was also spoken by the gentiles in the area. Starting in the late 1000s, Ashkenazi Jews from Germany, who probably spoke an early form of Yiddish, began migrating to Poland and gradually assimilated the older communities. (1) Your husband said that you were interested in a name for a woman whose family arrived in Poland in the 1100s. Since most of these people emigrated from Germany, we have focused our research on the culture and naming practices of these German Jewish immigrants rather than the older Slavic Jewish community. By your period, the German Jewish culture was definitely dominant. There are still signs of a Slavic Jewish community in 1200, but tombstones and name records from the mid-1200s and 1300s show that the names used by Polish Jews were almost identical to the ones used by German Jews. (2) Krakow is a likely home for a German Jewish family in Poland. It was an important city from the mid-1100s, and it had a large Jewish community during the period you're interested in--the Jewish quarter is mentioned as early as 1304, which indicates that there must have been a significant Jewish presence in Krakow at least since the late 1200s, and possibly longer. (3) It is most likely that a woman from this community would speak Old Yiddish. We have very little information about Yiddish from your period, since only a few short texts survive. We do know that Yiddish dates back to at least the 1000s in Germany, (4) but the evidence for it in Poland is less clear. However, the members of a family that emigrated from Germany would be particularly likely to speak Yiddish as a first language. Unfortunately, we have almost no information about Old Yiddish women's names in Poland or any other part of Europe. We found four examples from your period: (5) (German), 1300s in Worms, 1200s. d. 1308, location not clear Poland, 1300s. This is a pet-form of . We found other names from a Jewish chronicle of the First Crusade. These are all names of German Jewish women that date to the 1090s, somewhat before your period: (6) Minna Bella Matrona (2) Scholaster Guta Sarit Rebecca Zipporah Rachel (2) Unfortunately the translator of the chronicle (which was written in Hebrew) put the last three names in their modern English forms. We don't know how they were recorded in the original source. The only period reference to a Jewish woman named that we found is from Italy around 1600, where there was a noted poet named . (7) We have found no evidence that was used by medieval Jews anywhere in Europe. The best scholarly survey of the subject that we've found says that the selection of Old Testament names used by medieval Jews was quirky. It also says that women were much less likely to use biblical names than men (8). So while seems to fit into the same category as other Old Testament names that we know were used by Jews in your period, we don't feel that we know enough about the subject to speculate about which names medieval Jews _might_ have used. Therefore, we can't recommend choosing a name that is not explicitly documented. As always, a documented name would be better re-creation. Since we don't have any evidence that was used in Poland, we can't tell you what form of would have been used in your period. Yiddish names were recorded in the Hebrew alphabet, and we don't know how would have been spelled here. If you write your name in the Latin alphabet, you could use . This spelling was used by a Polish Catholic abbess whose name was recorded in 1306. (9) In your period in Poland, family names were not particularly common. Most people had non-inherited "bynames" that referred to their individual characteristics. We don't know anything at all about Yiddish bynames, but we do have some information on Polish bynames. Specifically, we found and , both dated to 1390. We found the even older form dated to 1369, and a Latin form of this name dated to 1265. (10) It is likely that , , and were used as bynames in Poland during your period, although it is not at all certain that they were used by Jews. All these names mean "Moravian." Moravia is a region in Central Europe (it is today the eastern part of the Czech Republic). It is not likely that a woman with the background you described would have had arms. Heraldic arms were invented in northwestern France in the mid- 1100s. They spread fairly quickly through France, England, and Germany, but caught on more slowly in the rest of Europe. A family in Poland would probably not have used arms unless they had adopted a coat of arms in Germany--and since the family you described emigrated in the early 1100s, before heraldry was used in Germany, they probably would not have brought heraldry into Poland. Poland did have a system of identifying family marks that were similar to heraldry and which were eventually adopted into Polish heraldry; however, they would not be appropriate for your persona. If you are interested in finding out more about them, we can provide you with more information. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use arms in the Society: Many Societyfolk use arms even though their personas would not have done so. Whether you use arms or not depends on how you think about authenticity and your persona. You can find a few thoughts on this issue in an article we've posted on the web: What Do I Use for Arms if my Persona Wouldn't Have Used Arms? http://www.s-gabriel.org/faq/nonheraldic.html Raquel Buenaventura, Walraven van Nijmegen, Rouland Carre, Pedro de Alcazar, Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, Aleksander Traveller, Amant le Marinier, Barak Raz, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter. We hope that this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Your servant, Alan Fairfax Academy of S. Gabriel January 4, 2000 (1) Gieysztor, A. "The beginnings of Jewish settlement in the Polish lands," in _The Jews of Poland_ (London: Basil Blackwell, 1986). (2) Weintryb, B. _A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100 to 1800_, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1972), 28. (3) "Cracow," _Universal Jewish Encyclopedia_. (New York: The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Inc. c1939-43). (4) "West Germanic languages" Encyclopdia Britannica Online. Accessed November 2, 1999. [URL: http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=118111&sctn=15] (5) Henry, S. and Taitz, E. _Written Out of History: Jewish Foremothers_ (Sunnyside, NY: Biblio Press, 1990), passim. (6) Chazan, R. _European Jewry and the First Crusade_. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), passim. (7)'Learned Women of Israel: From The Jewish Messenger, March 21, 1861' (WWW: L. M. Berkowitz, 1999) Accessed December 13, 1999. [URL: http://www.jewish-history.com/women.html] (8) Shatzmiller, Joseph, "Le Monde Juif", pp.87-96 in Bourin, Monique, Jean-Marie-Martin, and Francois Menant, eds., _L'Anthroponymie: Document de l'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Me/diterrane/ens Me/die/vaux_, Collection de l'E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 226 (Rome: E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 1996). (9) Taszycki, Witold (ed.), _S{l/}ownik Staropolskich Nazw Osobowych_, vols. I-VII (Wroc{l/}aw: Zak{l/}ad Narodowy Imienia Ossoli{n'}skich, Polska Akademia Nauk, 1965-1987), s.n. Debora (10) ibid., s.n. Morawiec