ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2371 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2371 ************************************ 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 , 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 . 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, , 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 . It turns out that the word appears in a number of English place names in Surrey, Essex, Hertfordshire, Sussex, Wiltshire, and Hampshire [1, 2]: Thunderfield: <{TH}unresfeld> c.880 Thundersley: 1086; in some case it became Thundridge: 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 in these names derives from the Saxon god <{TH}unor> [2], whose name is cognate with and with the name of the Norse god Thor. The example , 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 or [4], [9], and or [10]. The first element might also have reduced to , producing , , , etc [11]. Any of these names could have been recorded in Latin as [12, 13]. In the rest of this discussion, we'll assume that it represents , 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 ; or to a college associated with either the town or the baron. There are many examples of English villages with names like or, using the Latin equivalent, [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 is part of the modern names of some of these places; it may originally have been a Latinization of 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 may have been a Latinization of in the English name. So if you simply want to say that you are a place near Thunderberg, you could use the name or . 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 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 , , , 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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] is analogous to 1208, 1254, 1240, 1242, 1244, 1251. See Ekwall s.nn. Taplow, Great Thurlow, Shardlow, Hurdlow. The change of OE long to , 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] "Thunor's hill" is exactly parallel to 1242 "Woden's hill". See Ekwall s.n. Woodnesborough. [10] Old English was spelled in the Middle English spoken in the West Midlands, as 1242, 1291, 1315; 1242, 1445. In the southeast, especially Kent, we also find the spelling , as in 1410 which was 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 and were eventually replaced by the 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 can also be seen in the word . _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 , e.g. "sandy hill" for Sandon, Hertshire; for the Grampian Hills; for Mount Drake, Devon. [13] It is also worth noting the personal names 1160, whose byname was clearly 'thunder'; or , whose name was either 'thunder' or from Old French 'shearer'; and 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.