ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2717 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2717 ************************************ 5 Apr 2003 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a 12th century woman living in southern England. Here is what we've found. Your name is English -- which means Old English at the beginning of the 12th century and an early form of Middle English by the end. The spoken form of your name, therefore, should be in that language. Names tended to be written in forms appropriate to the language being used -- Latin throughout the Middle Ages, Old English early in your period, Middle English later -- and scribes working in each language wrote names according to the spelling and grammar rules of that language. We will consider the forms your name took in various contexts and at various times. is a 14th century form of the Old English feminine name , which appears in the form in an early 11th century Old English document [1, 2]. It appears in Latin documents in various grammatical contexts as before 1068, 1186-88, , and all in 1198, 1209, and 1199 [3]. The symbol {ae} represents the letter aesc, written as an 'a' and an 'e' squashed together so that they share a vertical stroke. The apostrophe in the last example indicates that some letter was omitted. The endings <-a>, <-{ae}>, and <-e> are artifacts of Latin grammar. We can learn more about the evolution of this name by looking at examples of the fairly common masculine name : It appears in 11th and 12th century Latin documents most often as [4, 5]. Many common names had fairly standardized Latin forms which often did not reflect the pronunciation of the name very well; and the feminine , , etc. seem to play this role. Based on these examples, we can recommend as an English spelling of your name for the early 12th century and for the late 12th century. In Latin, we suggest for the entire century. We doubt the Middle English came into use until the late 13th century. is a Middle English byname that didn't develop until after your period. The earliest example we've found is from 1243 [6, 7]. Earlier, we find it in Latin as "at the wood" between c.1230 and c.1247 [8] and in Anglo-Norman as 1201 [9]. In early 12th century Old English, we'd expect the name to be written in a conservative form, <{ae}t {th}{ae}m wuda> -- southern writers tended to be fairly conservative. By the end of the century, it might have been [10]. The symbol {th} represents the letter thorn, written as a 'b' with the vertical limb extending down as far as it goes up. Thus, we recommend several written forms for your name, depending on which language you are using and what period you want to re-create: 12th C Old English: 12th C Latin: or Late 13th or 14th C Middle English: In the 12th century, in the south of England excluding Kent, we believe your name was pronounced \LO"-w@n at-th@n WOOD-@\ or perhaps \LO"(v)-w@n at-th@n WOOD-@\. \O"\ here represents the pronunciation of the o-umlaut in the German "a cave" or the in French "female singer". \@\ stands for the sound of the in and , \a\ for the sound of the in , (v) for a lightly voiced \v\ sound, and \WOOD\ for the sound of the word . If you prefer to use the late 13th or 14th century form , then the appropriate pronunciation is \LAY-w@n aht-t@ WOAD-@\. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, and Maridonna Benvenuti. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 5 Apr 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Talan Gwynek, "Feminine Given Names in _A Dictionary of English Surnames_" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/reaney/ [2] Boehler, Maria, _Die altenglischen Frauenamen_ (Nendlem, Liechtenstein: Krauss Reprint, 1967 [1930]), 147f. [3] Selte/n, Bo, _The Anglo-Saxon Heritage in Middle English Personal Names_, Volumes 1 & 2. (Lund, Sweden: Royal Society of Letters at Lund, 1979), II:119. [4] Von Feilitzen, Olof. 'The Personal Names and Bynames of the Winton Domesday', in Martin Biddle, ed., _Winchester in the Early Middle Ages_, Winchester Studies 1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1976). [5] Clark, Cecily, "Battle c.1110: An Anthroponymist Looks at an Anglo-Norman New Town" in Cecily Clark, _Words, Names and History: Selected Papers_, ed. Peter Jackson (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995, Appendix, Nrs. 64, 76. [6] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.n. Attwood. [7] Carlsson, Stig, _Studies on Middle English Local Bynames in East Anglia_ (Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1989), s.n. Wode. The author presents examples of in various spellings from the 1270s to the 1390s, all in Norfolk and Suffolk. [8] _Select Documents of the English Lands of the Abbey of Bec_, edited for the Royal Historical Society by Marjorie Chibnall, Ph.D., Camden Third Series, Volume LXXIII, London, Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1951. Examples from a manor in Wiltshire include , . [9] Reaney and Wilson s.n. Boyes. [10] The Old English spellings are standard; see any textbook. The early Southern Middle English form is based on forms found in Layamon's 'Brut': for Old english <{ae}t> is found twice in line 3; <{th}an> for OE <{th}{ae}m> occurs in line 10; and 'son' in line 13999, showing preserved rather than newer even next to the minim letter . In addition, words containing an element cognate with are spelled with : the masc. name (in the genitive) in line 3, 'dearest' in line 14018, etc. Ferdinand Mosse/, _A Handbook of Middle English_, trans. James A. Walker (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968), 152ff.