ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2482 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2482 ************************************ 7 Apr 2002 From: "Brian M. Scott" Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked for information on the masculine name , which you found in the Catholic Encyclopedia as the name of a monk who lived at Ellwangen around the year 845. You asked in particular for information about the meaning of the name and its authenticity for the period 800-950 CE. is an Old and Middle High German form of a very old Germanic personal name. One of the earliest known bearers of the name was a fourth-century Ostrogothic king who ruled much of what is now Ukraine; his name, which appears in Latinized form as and in the most sources, can be reconstructed in Gothic as . [1] In the area that is now France and the neighboring parts of Germany the name appears in a variety of Latinized forms during the early Middle Ages [2]: Ermenricus 653, 871, 889, 914 Ermenrihus 720 Aermanrichus 730-39 Ermenrigus 997-1031, 1048 Most of these citations are from the east and south of France, from Alsace down to Marseille. In the 13th century the name is found in the vicinity of Basel in what is now Switzerland. It occurs both as a given name, , and as a patronymic byname, i.e., a second name identifying the bearer's father. An example of this type is 1282; this Hug was probably the son of a man named . [3] The monk Ermenrich who became Abbot of Ellwangen and later Bishop of Passau (866-874) was a member of the Swabian nobility, so he came from southwestern Germany. [4] It seems clear that the name was in use throughout your period in what is now southwestern Germany, southeastern France, and the neighboring part of Switzerland. The most common form in Latin documents seems to have been . The most usual vernacular spelling was probably , though at least at the beginning of your period the earlier Old High German spelling would not be at all surprising. [5] The name was pronounced approximately \AIR-men-reekh\, with secondary stress on the last syllable. (Here \kh\ stands for the guttural, slightly rasping sound of in Scottish and German .) , like a great many Germanic personal names, is a compound of two name elements, and <-rich>. is a fairly common first element, and <-rich> is a very common second element. The ancient Germanic roots from which these elements are derived were originally meaningful. is from a root meaning something like 'universal, immense', and <-rich> is from one that meant 'ruler'. [6, 7] By your period, however, the name was simply a name. [8] It seems likely that the relationship between the element <-rich> or <-rih> and Old High German 'mighty, powerful' was recognizable. [9] , however, was probably etymologically opaque (i.e., not relatable to anything familiar), since the underlying root survived only in a small handful of compound words and not as an independent word. [7] It is therefore a bit misleading to talk about the meaning of the name itself. Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Falk von Weserbogen also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has answered your questions. If anything remains unclear, or if you have further questions, please don't hesitate to write again. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 7 April 2002 ===== References and Notes: [1] The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., 1983; Micropaedia s.n. . [2] Morlet, Marie-The/re\se. Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Sie\cle. Three volumes (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1968, 1972, 1985); I:83a. (The slash and backslash stand respectively for acute and grave accents over the preceding letter.) [3] Socin, Adolf. Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch nach Oberrheinischen Quellen des Zwoelften und Dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966); p. 567. [4] Genealogie Mittelalter http://www.genealogie-mittelalter.de/ citing the Lexikon des Mittelalters, Band III, Spalte 2157. Follow the links 'Bischo"fe', 'Passau', and 'Ermenrich', in that order. (Here stands for o-umlaut.) [5] von Kienle, Richard. Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Deutschen (Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1969); p. 114. [6] Morlet, op. cit., I:82ff. [7] Stro"m, Hilmer. Old English Personal Names in Bede's History: An Etymological-Phonological Investigation. Lund Studies in English 8 (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1939); pp. 26f, 32f. [8] This was true of the vast majority of given names, and it can be convincingly demonstrated for two-element Germanic names like (see, e.g., Stro"m, op. cit., pp. XXXIV-XXXVII). Well before your period the custom had arisen of combining name elements without regard to their original meaning, often to preserve an element of the father's or mother's name. This custom led to contradictory combinations like , whose elements originally meant 'battle' and 'peace', respectively, and to redundant compounds like , whose elements both originally meant 'battle' (Morlet, op. cit., I:129b & I:49a). [9] Wright, Joseph. Grammar of the Gothic Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924); Glossary s.v. .