ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3005 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3005 ************************************ 16 Apr 2005 From: Gunnvor Silfraharr (no address) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether and are appropriate names for an English woman ca. 1100-1250, and also asked about a byname such as meaning "the midwife". Here is what we found. As you noted in your letter, we found instances of in England c.1130, in 1203-04, and 1248 [1]. Most forms of this name end in <-ild> such as (1208) or (1198, 1219), or even lack the final <-d> as in (1192), (1327), or (1220) [1]. Thus, most likely represents a Latinized form that would normally be found in writing; the vernacular or spoken form of this name would be , pronounced roughly \RAH-g@n-ild\, where \@\ represents the sound of in and , and the name is pronounced with secondary stress on the last syllable. The variation in spelling suggests that the pronunciation varied; other possible pronunciations include \RAHG-n@ld\, \RAHG-n@l\, and \RAH-g@-n@l\. You also asked about the name . Like , this name is from France and is of Continental Germanic origin, but we have not found any evidence of in England. From the Continent, we found several documentary forms of this name, reflecting spellings that would appear in writing rather than spoken forms, in the 9th and early 10th centuries, somewhat earlier than your desired period [2]: Ragemfrida (ca. 9th c.) Ragemfreda (ca. 9th c.) Rainfrida (ca. 9th c.) Rainfreda (913) Given the lack of evidence that was used in England or even in France after the 10th century, we recommend you avoid it. is the better choice: it is fine name for an English woman ca. 1100-1250. You also asked about a byname meaning "midwife". Our research has shown that bynames meaning "midwife" were extremely uncommon. The term for "woman assisting; woman who is 'with' the mother at birth" does not appear to have developed until 1300 or so [3, 4]. We have found the following English examples dating from that time and later: mide-wyues (ca. 1300) [3] mydwyffe (ca. 1303 [before 1400]) [3] Johanna Mydwyff (1381) [5] Mydwyfe (before 1400) [3] medwif (before 1425) [3] mydwife (before 1475) [3] medwif (1486) [3] mede wif (1502) [3] Midwife (1597) [3] If you wish to use a byname related to the modern word , then we recommend that you move your persona to the 14th century, and select a personal name from that period to match it [6]. We have only the one example, , showing the word in use as a byname. We found no other words for "midwife" in early Middle English, the language of your period. We did find a few Old English terms used to translate Latin "midwife' (e.g., in Genesis 38:28 and Exodus 1:15-21) [7]. However, it is not clear whether these words were in everyday use or pressed into service to meet the needs of the translators. In this connection, it is perhaps significant that the word used by the translator of Exodus is actually a general term for a female servant, attendant, or handmaiden. We don't even know whether there were women in Anglo-Saxon society who were specifically identified as midwives. One scholar notes that the only place where an Old English term for "midwife" appears is in translations of the Bible and Latin texts - the stories of saint's births describe the women who are consulting about or in attendance at births as "women." Occasionally someone's "nurse" (the woman who raised her) is consulted [8]. In any case, there is no evidence to suggest that any of these terms survived into the 12th and 13th centuries. In data from England at the end of your period, about half of the women are identified by a given name plus their relationship to a man, usually their father, husband, or deceased husband. [9]. In speech, patronymic bynames, indicating the name of the woman's father, were unmarked, consisting only of the father's name; for example, a woman named whose father was named might have been known as . In documents the given name was usually Latinized; the patronymic byname might be left unchanged, as in , or it might also be Latinized using the standard Latin construction meaning 'daughter of', as in . Women were also very often identified as wives or widows. Ragenild, the wife of Willelm Cotterel, might have been identified in a document as or . Widows were often indicated simply by the descriptive Latin byname "widow", as in . This could also be followed by the late husband's given name, byname, or full name. When the given name was used, it was Latinized and put into the genitive (possessive) case, e.g., , ; when only the husband's byname was used, it was generally left alone, as in . In all of these forms that include the husband's name, the Latin word "relict, widow" was often used instead of [9, 10, 11]. If you would like to select a name for your father or husband, we can help you form a byname based on one of these relationships. You can find masculine names from your period in the following article: Talan Gwynek. "Men's Given Names from Early 13th Century England". http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/eng13/eng13m.html Of the remaining women, about a third are identified by given name and a locative byname describing the place where the woman lived or the land she held. For example, in written records a woman who lived in the village of Wareham in Dorset might appear as , or a woman who lived near a corner might be recorded with the Latin byname in a written record, or in speech might be called by a name such as , "at the corner" [9]. Another third of the women whose names we examined were identified by their given name and a descriptive nickname, for example [9]: Buissel "bushel" la Champahene Coterel "cottar" Crowe "crow" Cuppe "cup"? Dogebarbe "dog-beard"? la Drye "dry, withered" (or possibly "enduring, patient; doughty, fierce; slow, tedious") Farrweder = Fairweder "fair-weather" Fothot' "quickly, suddenly" ("foot-hot") franceys "Frenchman" la Franceyse "the Frenchwoman" Freysel "lace, ribbon" Gaypas "one who walks with gay steps" Gode "good" la Got "goat" Goto ("go to") Ioavant (perhaps a phrase name containing Old French "in front, before"; possibilities for the first element include "I" and "cheek".) Iuvenis "young" Paumer "palmer" Pinel "little pine tree", for a tall, slender person Savage "wild" Tuppe "a ram" la Venteresse (Probably a nickname, "the venturous".) One option that you might consider for your name would be to look at descriptive bynames describing personal characteristics that you associate with the occupation of midwife. Some possibilities include [12]: Godhierte (1221, "good-heart") Godhand (ca.1095, "good-hand") Godnese (1251, "goodness") Wisdom (1198) Wise (1176) la Sage (1206, French "the sage, the wise") Occupational bynames were uncommon. A few we found include [9]: la Braceresse "brewster" la Fugelere "fowler" lavandere "washerwoman" Marescalla "farrier; horse-leech" Troteman "trotter, messenger" la Vachere "cowherd" Note that descriptive and occupational bynames could also be derived from the husband's byname rather than applying directly to the woman herself. Finally, a significant number of women were identified by given name alone. In such cases the name was almost always Latinized in your period; , for instance, would normally appear as . In summary, we believe that would be a fine name for an English woman between 1100 and 1250. We were unable to find a byname meaning "midwife" in your period and we recommend that you do not use it. If you would like our help in constructing a different type of byname, please write us and we will assist you. 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 Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Maridonna Benvenuti, Juliana de Luna, Adelaide de Beaumont, Ursula Georges, Kolozsvari Arpadne Julia, Juetta Copin, and Walraven van Nijmegen. For the Academy, Gunnvor Silfraharr 16 April 2005 ----------------------------------------------------- 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/reaney.cgi?Ragenild [2] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972). I:184a. [3] Oxford English Dictionary Online. (WWW: Oxford University, 2005). http://www.oed.com/ S.v. . [4] Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary. (WWW: 2001). S.v. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=midwife [5] Fenwick, Carolyn C., ed., _The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1381. Part 1, Bedfordshire - Leicestershire_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 284. [6] If you want to use a form of , you might consider moving your period later, to the 15th c. Though Chaucer did not name her, the heroine of the Wife of Bath's Tale (the ugly woman who becomes beautiful when granted sovereignty by her lord) became popularly known as . A poem, "The Weddynge of Sr Gawen and Dame Ragnell" appears in manuscript (Rawlinson MS., C 86, Bodleian Library) dated ca. 1500. The name may have been picked to sound old-fashioned and in keeping with an Arthurian legend, but it was not unknown, at least in a literary context. The work also appears in: Sands, Donald B. Ed. Middle English Verse Romances. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1966. A 15th c. English name such as is at least possible. [7] Bosworth, Joseph and T. Northcote Toller. _An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary_. Oxford: Clarendon. 1898. S.vv. , , , <{th}i:gnen(n)>. In these words, the {th} represents the character "thorn", which resembles a lower-case p overlapping a lower-case b, so that they share a single loop. The {dh} is the character edh, which resembles a backward <6> with a crossbar on the riser. A colon after a vowel is used to represent a macron over the preceding letter. http://beowulf.engl.uky.edu/~kiernan/BT/Bosworth-Toller.htm Clark Hall, John R. and Herbert D. Meritt. _A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary_. 4th reprint edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1984. S.v. . [8] Wright, Michael J. "Anglo-Saxon Midwives," American Notes and Queries 11 (1998): pp. 3-5. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3219/is_199801/ai_n7896604 [9] Chibnall, Marjorie. _Select Documents of the English Lands of the Abbey of Bec_. Camden Third Series LXXIII. London: Royal Historical Society, 1951. The data presented here is extracted from the custumals, the various versions of which can be dated between ca. 1230 and ca. 1247. [10] Harris, Karen (Karen Larsdatter). Bynames Found in the 1296 Lay Subsidy Rolls for Rutland, England. http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/Rutland/ [11] Stacy, N.E., ed. Surveys of the Estates of Glastonbury Abbey, c. 1135-1201. The British Academy: Records of Social and Economic History, New Series 33. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). [12] Reaney, P.H., & R.M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995). S.nn. , , , , , .