ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2581 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2581 ************************************ 17 Oct 2002 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for information about the French name . This letter is a brief answer to your question. In our period, several langauges were spoken in France. The most significant were French, spoken in the northern half of what is now France; and Occitan or Provencal, spoken in the southern third [6]. French and Occitan were different languages, not just dialects of one language. Occitan is another Romance language, more closely related to Catalan. In between these two regions was a wedge-shaped region which spoke an intermediate family of dialets called Franco-Provencal. Many names were used in all these areas, but the form of a name often differed significantly from one to another. We have not found an example of in our period, so we can't recommend it as the best re-creation. We did find other feminine forms of , all of which were fairly rare [1, 2, 3]: French forms: Michiele (Paris, 1292) Miqueline (Vitry, 1300) * Occitan forms: Michaela (Marseille, 13th C) Michelona (Manosque, 1296) * Micael (Manosque, 1319) * Michaela (Forez, 14th C) Michall (Perpignan, 1401) * Franco-Provencal form: Michalon (Savoy, 1398) * The starred examples were Jewish women [4]. While Jews often used names that their Christian neighbors would not have used, that probably doesn't apply to these names: It is fairly common to find Jewish women bearing names found in the local Christian population, and we do have some evidence of this name used by Christian women. However, it does appear that feminine forms of were quite rare in our period. The suffix <-ine> was commonly used to feminize common masculine names in some parts of France, e.g. Paris in the late 13th century, Picardy in the 13th-15th centuries [1, 5]. The masculine names , were used in Paris at this time, too [1], so it is therefore plausible that the name might have been constructed. We should stress, though, that we have found no evidence that the name was used. Because these names vary so much from one part of France to another, we recommend that once you choose a name, you place your persona close to the place where it was recorded. We will be happy to tell you the correct pronunciation of any of these names. Note that the final <-e> in some of the names in our list was pronounced until the 16th century. We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Julie Stampnitzky, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 17 Oct 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html [2] Seror, Simon, _Les Noms des Juifs de France au Moyen Age_ (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1989), s.n. Micheline. [3] Bourin, Monique and Pascal Chareille, eds., _Genese medievale de l'anthroponymie moderne_ T.II-2 (Tours : Universite/ de Tours, 1992), p.240. [4] It is possible, but not likely, that some of the Jewish examples represent the unrelated Old Testament name rather than a feminine form of . However, we have found no other evidence that medieval Jews used the name , and the \kh\ sound in this name is unlikely to have been spelled in French or Occitan. Since Jewish use of Old Testament names were very conservative, we think it is safe to treat these example as variants. [5] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Etude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, XIVe, XVe siecles_ (Amiens, Musee de Picardie, 1967). [6] There is a map of the Occitan-speaking region on the web at http://membres.lycos.fr/simorre/oc/geodom.htm