ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2034 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2034 ************************************ 6 Apr 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a 13th or early 14th century French woman. Here is what we have found. Unfortunately, we have found no direct evidence that was used as a name by real people in medieval France. The example you found, from Ramon lo Montalbes' article "French/Occitan Names from the XII and XIII Century", is the modern French translation of the Provencal word , and it is used in the chanson as the name of a relic of Jesus, not a person [1]. (Provencal is the language spoken in much of southern France in our period. It was related to French, but not the same language.) It is not impossible that the name was also used by people in medieval Provence: It was used in central Italy from the 13th century to the 15th and in eastern Germany in the 14th century [2, 3, 4]. However, without evidence that it was used in France or Provence, we can't recommend it as good re-creation. If you'd like to consider other names from your period, you can find some lists on the web in the French section of the Medieval Names Archive, http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names. If you'd like us to review your choices, please write us again. Your byname is Provencal, referring to the place known in modern French as . The book you mentioned is the source of Talan Gwynek's article "Late Period Feminine Names from the South of France"; he notes that this name was recorded in 1528 [5]. You asked about a period two hundred years earlier, and we don't know if the same name would have been used then. It's a plausible choice for your period, but not the best re-creation. Your other byname, , is grammatically incorrect; the correct modern French phrase meaning "the (male) wolf" is . The feminine form is "the (female) wolf". However, this is modern French, not medieval French or Provencal. The Old Provencal equivalent is [6]. In general, names from your period tended to be very simple. It is entirely reasonable that a woman from medieval Provence could sometimes have been identified by the place where she lived and other times by a descriptive nickname like "the Wolf". We don't think it's likely she'd have been identified by both bynames at the same time, though. 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. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 6 Apr 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Ramons lo Montalbes, "French/Occitan Names From The XII And XIII Century" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/ramon/occitan/ [2] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/catasto [3] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from Thirteenth Century Perugia" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/perugia/ [4] Talan Gwynek, "Medieval German Given Names from Silesia" (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1998). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/bahlow_v.htm [5] Talan Gwynek, "Late Period Feminine Names from the South of France" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1999). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/latefrenchfem/ [6] Chambers, Frank M., _Proper Names in the Lyrics of the Troubadours_ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971), s.n. Loba.