ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2839 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2839 ************************************ From: Roberd mac Cormaic 29 May 2004 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked if the name or would be authentic for an Anglo-Norman woman in England between 1150-1200. We have assumed that the second name you asked about contains a typo, and should be ; if this is incorrect, please let us know. Here's what we have found. is one of the many forms of the name we recognize today as . This particular form is found twice in documents dated to 1182-1272 [1], and so would be fine for your period. You should be aware, however, that is a documentary (written) form, and the <-a> on the end is probably an artifact of the Latinization. From this we can infer a vernacular form , and we have another, <{AE}lienor>, from the late 12th century. [2] (Here {AE} stands for the A-E-ligature, an and an joined so that they share a single upright.) The place-name appeared in the locative byname in 1188. [3] This is a Latinized form of a kind that is typical of the documents of that period, but it doesn't exactly reflect the everyday spoken (vernacular) forms or typical early Middle English spellings. For vernacular forms, the range of spellings is fairly broad; we can recommend any combination of or <{AE}il-> with <-beri> or <-buri>, with <{AE}il-> probably increasingly likely as you move back towards the early 12th century: {AE}ilesberi {AE}ilesburi Ailesberi Ailesburi [4] The Middle English prepositions most often used in locative bynames are <{ae}t>, , and . [5] Eventually displaced the other two, and we suspect that it was already the most common of the three by the end of the 12th century. Based on the preceding, we think and <{AE}lienora de {AE}ilesberia> would make good choices for documentary forms, with matching vernacular forms being and <{AE}lienor of {AE}ilesberi>. I 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 Maridonna Benvenuti, Talan Gwynek, Ursula Georges, Arval Benicoeur, Juliana de Luna and Aryanhwy merch Catmael. For the Academy, -Robert mac Cormaic 29 May 2004 _____________________ [1] Nicolaa de Bracton, "A Statistical Survey of Given Names in Essex Co., England, 1182-1272", Known World Heraldic Symposium Proceedings 1995 (SCA Inc.; WWW: privately published, 1997). http://members.tripod.com/nicolaa5/articles/names.html [2] Mosse/, Ferdinand, _A Handbook of Middle English_, trans. James A. Walker (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968), p. 153. [3] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.n. Aylesbury. [4] The reconstructions listed are expected forms based on information gleaned from several sources. The modern <-bury> is most likely from <-byrig>, the dative singular of OE ; this is the case used after locative prepositions like <{ae}t>. Smith, A.H., _English Place-Name Elements_ (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1956) s.v. discusses ME dialect variation, and leads us to expect that the forms that today end in <-bury> would have ended in <-biri>, <-beri> or <-buri> depending on the region and the specific point in time. Ekwall, Eilert, _The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names_, 4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) has several citations showing modern place-names that follow this pattern: Lathbury: 1163 Westbury: ca.1160 Eastbury: 1165, 1208 Risbury : 1212 Furthermore, Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995) s.n. has in 1211, so there is ample evidence for a spelling ending in <-bVri>, where the "V" is one of the vowels , or . On the whole both and appear to be reasonable for the second half of the 12th c., with perhaps having a slight edge. [5] Tengvik, Goesta, _Old English Bynames_ (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri-A.-B., 1938).