ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3179 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3179 ************************************ 22 Nov 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an authentic name for a Spanish woman living in the late 13th or early 14th century, and also whether we could recommend armorial designs from this place and period using either white and purple or white and red. Here is what we've found. During your period, different dialects were spoken in different parts of Iberia. You can see a map of the distribution of these dialects around the turn of the 14th century here: http://www.orbilat.com/Maps/Iberia/Iberia_1300.gif The spellings of names, as well as the pool of names available, vary to some degree from dialect to dialect, so where your persona lives affects which spellings are appropriate. Seville is in the southern part of Spain, in Andalusia, and falls in the Castilian dialect. [3] The example of that you found was from the city Narayola. Narayola lies between Galicia and Leon, and reflects the dialectal influences of the area. This particular spelling, with the , is not typical and appears to be influenced by Galician. We therefore don't recommend this spelling outside of the far north-west of Spain where Galician was spoken. However, if you are interested in placing your persona in this part of Spain, then is a fine choice for your name, as we've found examples of in the same records where is found. [1] In Castilian, the more typical spelling is the most common. [2] In particular, we found a numer of examples of in a census from around 1352: [2] Teresa Alfonso Teresa Gomez Teresa Ruyz Teresa de Villalobos Teresa Rodrigues Teresa Rodrigues de Nogales teresa de padilla Teresa Fernandes Teresa gutierres As you can see, in most of these examples the woman used just one byname, and it was a patronymic. These examples are in accord with other examples of other Castilian feminine names that we have from this period. Based on this, we believe that a most typical name would have used just one byname, but that the use of two bynames did occur on occasion. We'll turn now to Castilian forms of the byname. In assorted documents from the mid 13th to early 14th century Leon, including some specifically from Seville, we find a number of variants, including the following (in this list, represents an n-tilde, which as used to indicate ): [2] Yanes 126 examples Yan~es 98 examples Yannes 33 examples Yan~ez 20 examples Yanez 9 examples Yannez 5 examples We're not sure how much these differences in frequency reflect true differences in the spelling patterns of Castilian as opposed to different practices of individual scribes. On the whole, we believe that any of the spellings is suitable. In particular, we found one who has property in Andalusia, most likely in Seville, as we have a property record in which King Alfonso is granting land to the council of Seville. [2] In this same document, the city is recorded as , so is also a reasonable byname. We can therefore recommend as an authentic name for a woman living in Galicia or northern Leon and as a fine choice for one living in Andalusia during your period. In 13th to 15th century Spanish armory, combinations of argent and gules make up 27% of the armory, making this an excellent choice for typical Spanish armory. The only use of purpure in Iberia that we found is in Portugal in the 16th century, so we do recommend you do not use purpure in your arms. [4] There are a number of charges which were common in Iberian armory and less typical in armory of other countries, including the following: [4] Cauldrons Crescents Letters and words Mullets of six and eight points Charged bordures A design such as "Gules, three cauldrons argent and a bordure argent semy of crescents gules" would be excellent armory for your place and period. 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 if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Leonor Martin, Juliana de Luna, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 22 November 2006 -- References: [1] Friedemann, Sara L., "Leonese Names from the First Half of the 14th Century" (WWW: Self-published, 2003) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/spanish/leonfarmer.html [2] Real Academia Espan~ola, _Corpus Diacro/nico del Espan~ol_ (WWW: RAE) http://corpus.rae.es/cordenet.html [3] In fact, Seville was (re)conquered in 1248, and integrated into Castille. [4] Zenobia Naphtali, "Regional Style" in Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium, 1996, Montgomery, Alabama (SCA, Inc., 1996).