ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2475 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2475 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 6 Mar 2002 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to known if is an appropriate name for a woman born in Lyons, living in 16th century France. You also wanted to know whether feminine creatures, specifically lionesses, were used in heraldry in your period. Here is the information we have found. is a French feminine given name which dates back to at least the 11th century [1]. As you found yourself, the spelling appears in the 1292 census of Paris, also and [2]. We have not found any form of in 16th century France, though our sources are limited. We found a man listed in 1438 as ; based on this byname example we believe that this spelling of the given name is plausible at least through the 15th century [3]. The modern form of the surname is , so though some form of the name continued in use in France, it may have changed over time [4, 5]. You specified that you wanted a name for a woman born in Lyons. France today is a unified country with a common language. That was not true in our period: It was a collection of dialects, some quite similar, some quite different. The most significant division was between the langue d'oil, or French, spoken in the north, and the langue d'oc, also called Occitan or Provencal, spoken in the south. These were different languages, not just dialects of the same language, and names in them were quite different. Lyons sat on the edge of the French and Occitan regions; the dialect of Lyons is classified as a Franco-Provenc,al language, which means it is not exactly like either French or Provenc,al. Since our only evidence for comes from a French-speaking region we believe it is especially unlikely that a woman born in Lyons would have any form of the name. It's possible that the name was used there, but it likely would have taken a different form, and we don't have enough evidence to say what that form might have been. By the 16th century, most surnames in France were inherited; we would not expect a woman to be known as because she came from Lyons. We do have a 16th century record of a woman known as , which is the Occitan form of the French ; however, it comes from a list of prostitutes, and we don't know whether their bynames are good models for typical French women [6]. Your surname would likely be inherited from either your father or your mother. There is a modern surname which was originally a descriptive for a person from Lyons, but which later became inherited [4]. We believe it is appropriate for your period, but it would not indicate that you were necessarily from Lyons. We are not certain whether your inherited surname would be altered to reflect gender in your period or whether its form would be fixed, but we believe either situation is possible; accordingly we believe either the masculine or the feminine is appropriate for you. We also find feminine forms as inherited surnames, so you might have inherited [7]. In short, we think that either or is a plausible 16th century French name. You asked about using a lioness in your arms. Although females of certain types of animals, such as deer, are routinely used in heraldry, lionesses are not. We have record of only one example of arms explicitly blazoned as a lioness: The family of Coing, in Lorraine, bears "Azure, a lioness statant Or" [8]. We hesitate to recommend a charge based on a single example, especially since we do not know if these arms are pre-1600; however, since this example is French, and you are recreating French armory specifically, we cannot say that using a lioness is impossible. You might be interested in a further possibility: we find the surname in use around 1300 in northern France; is the French word for 'lioness' [9]. If you chose this surname, it would make it somewhat more plausible to use a lioness in your arms: Many unusual charges were motivated by this sort of pictorial reference to a family name. This practice is called "canting". We would be less surprised to find a lioness in the arms of a 16th century woman named . 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 Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Julie Stampnitzky, Talan Gwynek, Ursula Georges, and Will Dekne. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 6 March 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References: [1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Millicent. [2] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Pa ris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html [3] Favier, Jean. Les Contribuables parisiens a la fin de la guerre de Cent Ans, les roles d'impot de 1421, 1423 et 1438. (Geneve, Paris, Droz, 1970.) [4] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987), s.nn. Milcent, Lyon. [5] Bardsley, Charles, _A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames_ (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1980), s.nn. Millicent, Milson. A similar variety of forms existed in your period in England; examples of given names dated near 1600 include (1583), (1577, 1584) and (1601). The name was introduced into England from France around 1200; by your period, the English forms and the French forms would have been quite different. [6] Talan Gwynek, "Late Period Feminine Names from the South of France" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/latefrenchfem/ This list includes women who are known by descriptives and locatives much later than we expect to see them in the general population. It's possible that prostitutes and other marginal members of society were the most likely not to have had (or at least not to have been known by) inherited surnames, though we cannot say for certain. [7] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Dictionnaire E/tymologique des Noms de Famille_ (Librairie Acade/mique Perrin, 1997), s.n. Lyon, Angevin. Examples are included of both the masculine forms and , and the feminine forms and . [8] Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles, _The Wordsworth Complete Guide to Heraldry_, (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1996), p. 188. [9] Bougard, Pierre, and Maurits Gysseling, _L'Impot Royal en Artois (1295-1302): Ro^les du 100e et du 50e pre/sente/s et publie/s avec une table anthroponymique, Me/moires de la Commission Royale de Toponymie et de Dialectologie #13 (Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste, B.P. 41, 1970), p.234. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, Arval, 22 Apr 2003: Some of the footnotes were incorrectly numbered.