ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3175 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3175 ************************************ 27 Oct 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked for help creating an authentic name for a 10th or early 11th century Welsh man, with a form of as your given name and a byname reflecting the fact that you are a priest and incorporating a reference to either the place Gwytherin or St. Gwenfrewy of Holywell. Here is what we have found. As we said in our original correspondence, is a rare Old English masculine name; we find it recorded once in 1066 in the Latinized form and in 1203 as (where the <'> most likely represents an elided ; is the possessive form of , and requires the following name to be in its possessive form). [1] While we have no evidence that this name was used in Wales, we have found other examples of Old English names being used by Welsh people in the Old Welsh period [2], and so we can recommend as a not impossible name for a Welsh man of your period. We have to stress, though, that if you are interested in a truly authentic name, you'll want to chose a given name which was known to be used by Welsh men during your period. You are right that a locative byname is not the best choice; during your period, we have found no examples of locative bynames which stand apart from a title or an occupation. However, among churchmen we find a wide variety of occupational and titular bynames, including the following Latin terms: [2] episcopus (bishop) magister (master, teacher) doctor (probably a teacher of some sort) presbiter (a religious functionary) scriptor (writer, scribe) lector (reader, lecturer) sacerdos (priest) abbas (abbot) archidiaconus (archdeacon) These titles were sometiems found in association with place names, e.g. , , . [2] In the first example, is the name of a church. In the second two examples, the Latinized given name of the dedicatory saint stands in for the church. This gives us two patterns from which we could construct a byname with the references you desire. Saint Gwenfrewy's name was recorded as in Latin [3,5], so 'priest of Wenefreda' is a suitable byname following the pattern of the second two examples. (The change from to is again a change to the possessive form of the name.) In a "lives of the saints" from the early 12th century, is recorded in Latin as [5], so based on this 'priest of Guytherin' is also a plausible byname. [4] We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Talan Gwynek, Aelfwynn Leoflaede dohtor, Ursula Georges, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, and Eleyne de Comnocke. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 27 October 2006 -- References: [1] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.n. Sauvain [2] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "The First Thousand Years of British Names", (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1998). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/tangwystyl/british1000/ [3] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Winifred. [4] We'd like to note that while we believe that these are authentic bynames, they may not be registerable with the SCA College of Arms, because "priest of St. Gwenfrewy" or "priest of Gwytherin" may be interpreted as a presumptuous claim. [5] Wade-Evans, A.W., _Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae_ (Cardif: University of Wales Press Board, 1944). The actual form in the manuscript is , but this appears to be an error.