ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2371
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2371
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4 Nov 2001
From: (Josh Mittleman)
Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You asked us to suggest possible names for a new SCA branch, a college
within the Barony of Mons Tonitrus, at Cochise College in Sierra Vista,
Ariz. Here is what we have found.
Before we start, we want to say that we had a lot of fun answering this
question.
We approached the question in two ways:
* We looked for names suitable for a smaller habitation near a city known
as <Mons Tonitrus>, without worrying about whether those names were
suitable for a medieval college; and
* We looked for names for a medieval college located in or associated
with a barony called <Mons Tonitrus>.
Which of these approaches your group chooses depends on how you decide to
think about your branch as a historical re-creation. Some Society branches
take their official designation very seriously, e.g. attempting to
re-create a College because the seneschalate has put their branch in that
category. Others ignore the official label and re-create whatever medieval
model they like, e.g. a town or village, a manor house and its associated
settlement, etc. One can think of a Society barony, for example, as a
medieval barony consisting of the scattered land-holdings of a single
nobleman; or a city or some other large settlement.
Since you expressed no preference as to the language of your branch name,
we decided to stick to English. We'll be happy to look for possibilities
in another language if you like. It's worth noting that a place name in
one language cannot simply be translated into another language
element-by-element. Places weren't named in the same ways in all cultures;
to construct an authentic place name for a particular time and place, it is
necessary to study the names that were actually used there and deduce
patterns. Our suggestions here may have equivalents in some cultures, but
not in all.
Our first step in thinking about your question was to look closely at the
name of your barony, <Mons Tonitrus>, which is Latin for "Thunder Mountain"
or "Thunder Hill". Latin was commonly used as the language of writing
throughout the Middle Ages, and any English place name was undoubtedly
recorded in Latin. So we asked what English place names might have been
translated as <Mons Tonitrus>. It turns out that the word <Thunder>
appears in a number of English place names in Surrey, Essex, Hertfordshire,
Sussex, Wiltshire, and Hampshire [1, 2]:
Thunderfield: <{TH}unresfeld> c.880
Thundersley: <Thunreslea> 1086; in some case it became <Thursley>
Thundridge: <Tonrinch> 1086; a Domesday Boke spelling, many of which are
very eccentric
The symbol {TH} represents the letter thorn, written like a 'b'
superimposed on a 'p' so that they share one loop and one vertical stroke.
The element <Thunder> in these names derives from the Saxon god <{TH}unor>
[2], whose name is cognate with <thunder> and with the name of the Norse
god Thor. The example <Thundridge>, from "Thunor's ridge", suggests that a
compound meaning "Thunor's hill" could well have occurred.
We can build a place name meaning "Thunor's hill" from many Old English
words; three that were common in place names are [3]:
hlaw "burial mound or tumulus; hill"
beorg "hill, mound"
hyll "hill"
The resulting Old English compounds might have evolved around 1300 into
Middle English place names <Thunderlowe> or <Thunderlawe> [4],
<Thunderberg> [9], and <Thunderhull> or <Thunderhell> [10]. The first
element might also have reduced to <Thurs->, producing <Thurslowe>,
<Thursberg>, <Thurshull>, etc [11]. Any of these names could have been
recorded in Latin as <Mons Tonitrus> [12, 13]. In the rest of this
discussion, we'll assume that it represents <Thunderberg>, simply for
convenience. All the comments that follow apply equally well to any of the
other forms we've suggested.
Our next step was to ask what sorts of names might have been given to a
small settlement near the town of <Thunderberg>; or to a college associated
with either the town or the baron.
There are many examples of English villages with names like <Little
Thunderberg> or, using the Latin equivalent, <Parva Thunderberg> [5]:
Parva Maene 1202 (modern Little Mayne)
Little Bures 1208
parva Karletona 1209-19 (modern Little Carlton)
Parva Dene 1220 (modern Little Dean)
Parva Linstede 1254 (modern Linstead Parva)
Little Bampton 1317
Lyttelhampton 1482
The Latin <parva> is part of the modern names of some of these places; it
may originally have been a Latinization of <little> in the English place
name.
If Thunderberg is on the hill, then a place nearby might be described as
"nether", or using the Latin equivalent "inferior" [6]:
Nederavena c.1150
Butlisdon Inferior 1242 (modern Low Buston)
Netherhaddon 1276
Nitherbury 1285
Netherswell 1287 (modern Lower Swell)
Nithercerne 1291
Nethercote 1354
Netherbroughton 1394
As above, the use of <inferior> may have been a Latinization of <nether> in
the English name.
So if you simply want to say that you are a place near Thunderberg, you
could use the name <Little Thunderberg> or <Netherthunderberg>.
The colleges we examined for this report were societies "of scholars
incorporated within, or in connexion with, a University" [14]. The two
medieval English universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were multi-college
institutions with over a dozen colleges each by 1600, but the five Scottish
universities founded before 1600 were single-college institutions. Due to
this organizational difference, although there was more variety among
English college naming patterns, they were not called after the town where
they were located, while this was common for Scottish colleges.
In England, we find most colleges named in these ways [7]:
* a saint
Saint Edmund Hall, 1317-8
College of Saint Bernard, 1437
* God
God's House, c.1440
Christ's College, 1505
* the founder's surname
Balliol College, 1263
Stapledon Hall, 1314
* the rank of the founding or sponsoring king or queen
Hall of the Queen's Scolars, 1341
King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicolas, 1441
* the founder's or patron's title
Pembroke College, 1347, for the Countess of Pembroke
Lincoln College, 1427, for the Bishop of Lincoln
In Scotland, we find colleges named for [7]:
* the town where the college was located, the most common practice
College of Glasgow, 1578
* a saint
College of Saint Mary in the Nativity, 16th century
* the rank of the founding or sponsoring king
King's College, 16th century
* the founder's or patron's title
Marischal College, 1593, the Earl Marischal
Many Society Colleges have chosen names based on the names of saints, and
that would be a fine choice for you as well. If you prefer a name that
associates you with your barony, then <Thunderberg College> could be
construed to mean "the College in Thunderberg" or "the College
founded/supported by the Baron of Thunderberg" or "by the Bishop of
Thunderberg".
As far as we can tell, you could register a branch name based on
<Thunderberg>, <Thurslowe>, <Thunderhull>, etc., using any of the ideas
we've presented here.
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 Adelaide de Beaumont, Talan Gwynek,
Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Maridonna Benvenuti, Barak Raz, Aryanhwy merch
Catmael, Ursula Georges, and Juliana de Navarra.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
5 Nov 2001
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References
[1] Ekwall, Eilert, _The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names_,
4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), s.nn. Thunderfield,
Thundersley, Thundridge.
[2] Smith, A.H., _English Place-Name Elements_ (Cambridge: At the
University Press, 1956), s.n. {TH}unor.
[3] Smith, s.vv. beorg, hlaw, hyll.
[4] <Thunderlawe> is analogous to <Tappelaw> 1208, <Trillawe> 1254,
<Sherdelawe> 1240, <Schardelow> 1242, <Hordlawe> 1244, <Hordlowe> 1251.
See Ekwall s.nn. Taplow, Great Thurlow, Shardlow, Hurdlow. The change of
OE long <a> to <o>, which took place south of the Humber, occurred in the
12th c. [8]; as usual the orthography seems to have lagged behind the sound
change. For the area where <{TH}unor-> names are found, <-lowe> is a
reasonable spelling from the second half of the 13th c. on; before that we
would recommend <-lawe>.
[5] Ekwall, s.nn. Linstead, Bampton, Carleton, Dean, Mayne, Littlehampton,
Littleton, Bower.
[6] Ekwall, s.nn. Haddon, Broughton, Cerne, Avon, Netherbury,
Netherhampton, Peover, Buston, Swell.
[7] Krossa, Sharon L. (aka Effrick neyn Kenneoch), "Names of Colleges at
Ancient Universities" (WWW: self-published, 2001). Warning: This is a
rough draft, essentially just research notes.
http://www.MedievalScotland.org/gabriel/collegenames.shtml
[8] Barber, Charles. The English Language, A Historical Introduction
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p.138.
[9] <Thunderberg> "Thunor's hill" is exactly parallel to <Wodnesberg> 1242
"Woden's hill". See Ekwall s.n. Woodnesborough.
[10] Old English <hyll> was spelled <hull> in the Middle English spoken in
the West Midlands, as <Sulihull> 1242, 1291, <Solyhulle> 1315; <Thinghull>
1242, <Cowhull> 1445. In the southeast, especially Kent, we also find the
spelling <hell>, as in <Calehell> 1410 which was <Calhull> in 1327. In the
regions where the <{TH}unor-> names are found, the typical 13th and 14th
century spellings are <-hull> and <-hell>. The old dialect spellings with
<u> and <e> were eventually replaced by the <i> of the standard language.
For dated examples, see Ekwall s.nn. Solihull, Thinghill, Cowhill,
Calehill. For an discussion of the characteristics of dialects, see
Ferdinand Mosse/, _A Handbook of Middle English_, trans. James A. Walker
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968); p.23.
[11] The development of Old English genitive <{TH}unres> to <Thurs-> can
also be seen in the word <Thursday>. _The Compact Edition of the Oxford
English Dictionary_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973),
s.v. Thursday.
[12] Martin, Charles Trice. The Record Interpreter, 2nd ed. (London:
Stevens and Sons, Limited, 1910); p. 392. It lists a number of Latin forms
of English placee names in which an element meaning "hill" is translated as
<mont>, e.g. <Mont Arenosus> "sandy hill" for Sandon, Hertshire; <Mons
Grampius> for the Grampian Hills; <Mons Draconis> for Mount Drake, Devon.
[13] It is also worth noting the personal names <William Tonitrus> 1160,
whose byname was clearly 'thunder'; <Andrew Thunre> or <Tundur>, whose name
was either 'thunder' or from Old French <tondeur> 'shearer'; and <William
Thunder> 1332. Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English
Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995),
s.n. Thunder.
[14] _The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1973), s.v. college.