ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2750 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2750 ************************************ 14 Jul 2003 From: Ursula Whitcher Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether was an appropriate name for a woman living near the village of Marbury in Cheshire, England, during the first half of the fourteenth century. You also inquired about appropriate arms using estoiles, a wyvern sejant, argent, and purpure, and you asked what the mostly likely combinations of tinctures were in your period. We'll discuss your name first, and then your arms. We found several forms of the name in your period. However, most of these forms had a double vowel: for example, we found in 1281, in 1361, and the Latinized form in 1306, 1346, and 1483. [1] We did find a in 1375 and an in a Latin document in 1274, so the form is not impossible in your period. [1, 2] However, the available evidence suggests that in your period the name was generally pronounced something like \ELL-y@-nor\, usually spelled or . (Here \@\ represents the sound of in and ; this sound is called schwa.) The placename comes from the Old English phrase or 'dragon's mound'. The early forms of this name retained the 'a' in the last syllable; for example, we found the form in 1175. [4] The vowel could have shifted to 'o' by the end of your period; we found a in 1397. [3] We believe that either or would be appropriate for your period, though is more likely in the late fourteenth century; we did not find the exact spelling . would have been pronounced \DRAH-k@-low-@\ or possibly \DRAH-k@-low\, with \ow\ as in ; would have been pronounced \DRAH-k@-loe-@\ or \DRAH-k@-loe\, with \oe\ as in . As we noted in earlier correspondence, a wyvern appears in the Parliamentary Roll, an English collection of arms, around 1312. [5] We believe that a wyvern sejant is an appropriate charge for your period. Estoiles also appear in the heraldry of your period. For example, Thomas Chaunterel used the seal 'A chevron between three estoiles' in 1331, the 1332 seal of William de Henebrok bore 'A chevron between two estoiles and a fleur-de-lis', and a 1334 roll of arms assigns Renaud de Cobham the coat 'Gules, on a chevron or three estoiles sable'. [9] A tincture called purpure was used in English arms by the thirteenth century; for example, Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, bore 'Or a lion rampant purpure'. [6] However, during your period "purpure" represented a grayish-brown color, rather than purple. Thus, though the tincture "purpure" is appropriate for your period, the color purple is not. [7] The following table, taken from an analysis of the British coats described in twenty-seven armorials from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, shows the relative frequencies of different combinations of tinctures [8]: argent/gules: 26% or/gules: 20% argent/azure: 15% or/azure: 12% argent/sable: 11% or/sable: 6% ermine/gules: 4% vair/gules: 3% or/vert: 1% argent/vert: 1% other: 1% As you can see, purpure was an extremely rare tincture; the colors gules (red) and azure (blue), paired with the metals argent and or, were most common. Based on this information, we believe the following coats of arms would be appropriate: Argent, a wyvern sejant between three estoiles azure Argent, a wyvern sejant and in chief three estoiles azure Argent, estoily and a wyvern sejant azure. We believe you could register any of the above designs with the SCA College of Heralds. We hope that this letter has been useful. Please write to 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, Talan Gwynek, Maridonna Benvenuti, Blaise de Cormeilles, Evan da Collaureo, Eirik Halfdanarson, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael. For the Academy, Ursula Georges 14 July 2003 References: [1] Talan Gwynek, "Feminine Given Names in _A Dictionary of English Surnames_" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1997). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/reaney/ [2] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995) s.n. Ellenor. [3] Reaney and Wilson, s.n. Drakeley, Drakely. [4] Ekwall, Eilert, _The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names_, 4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), s.n. Drakelow, DB. [5] Dennys, Rodney, _The Heraldic Imagination_ (New York: Clarkson and Potter Inc., 1975), p. 191. [6] Humphrey-Smith, Cecil R., _Anglo-Norman Armory Two_ (Canterbury: Institute for Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, 1984). [7] Pastoureau, Michel. Traite/ d'He/raldique, 2nd ed. (Paris: grands manuels Picard, 1993), pp. 101-2. [8] Pastoureau, Table IV, pp.118-9. [9] Chesshyre, Hubert & Woodcock, Thomas, _Dictionary of British Arms: Medieval Ordinary_, (London: The Society of Antiquaries of London, 1992), II:335-6, 433.