KATHLEEN M. O'BRIEN
11282 TAYLOR DRAPER LN APT 313
AUSTIN TX 78759-3956
USA
Email: [email protected] [delete the section "NOSPAM" to send email to me]
Unto Mistress Jaelle of Armida Laurel Queen of Arms, Dame Sionyn Muirgen ni Dhomnall Pelican Queen of Arms, and the College of Arms does Lady Mari Elspeth nic Bryan give greetings.
This letter begins my tenure as Bordure Herald. Involved with the transfer of this office is also a change of the software program that we are using to create it. I look forward to comments anyone might have to improve the format, readability, etc. of this letter.
I would like to take a moment to thank Master Daniel de Lincolnia for his help in the transfer of this office. It has been invaluable.
LoI Notes:
1) If a header name is not listed for a book that has headers, assume that the header name is for the spelling cited.
2) "Talan Gwynek:" indicated that he wrote the rest of the paragraph. My editing is noted by "[...]".
And on to the letter!
It is the intention of the Ansteorran College of Heralds to register the following names and armory:
1) Alexander Peregrine device.
Argent, on a pile gules in chief a fleur-de-lys argent, overall a chevron counterchanged.
New device. Name submitted on Ansteorran LoI postmarked 30 September 1998.
2) Beorhtlic Folcwines sunu name and device.
Per pale azure and argent, three cubit arms conjoined in pall each sustaining a smith's hammer and a bordure counterchanged
New name, new device. No major changes. The sound and spelling of the given name are most important, and the name is intended to be 9th c. Saxon or Old English. The desired gender is male. Submitted as Beorhtlic Folcwineson. We have adjusted the grammar of the patronymic to conform to Old English practice, but we have left any decision about the validity of the given name as an OE adjectival name to Laurel.
Beorhtlic: Intended to be Old English masculine given name. Searle, p. xvi, lists Beorht- as an OE protheme and, on pp. 90-91, gives examples of its use dated from 670-1053. He lists - lic as an OE deuterotheme on p. xvii and, on pp. 431-432, gives examples using it dated 699-730.
Talan Gwynek: Searle is very hard to use without some expert knowledge. Here he's simply wrong: there is no Old English (OE) deuterotheme -lic. [...] Beorht was indeed an OE name theme, common both as prototheme and as deuterotheme (Ström, Old English Personal Names in Bede's History, 8); -lic, however, is not a theme at all, but rather a mere grammatical element used to create adjectives. [...] Because the adjectival suffix -lic was extremely common, there were a great many adverbs in -lic-e, and as a result this compound suffix was reinterpreted as a single adverbial suffix; see Lass, 207.) The names ending in -lic are therefore not dithematic at all but rather simple adjectives. At -lic, for instance, Searle lists a name Tunlic; this is simply tunlic 'rustic'. Searle also mentions the feminine Cwoemlicu, which as usual he's normalized; Boehler (Die altenglische Frauennamen, 12) gives the actual citation as Cuoemlicu and notes that this is an adjectival name from the Old English adjective ge-cwemlic 'suitable, pleasant, nice'. (The hyphen is not part of the word; rather, it indicates that the word is found both with and without the prefix ge-.) The submitter found Stronglic and Stranglic; these are the adjective stranglic (and its dialect variant stronglic) 'strong, stout, robust; severe'. [...] the question is (1) whether there is an OE adjective beorhtlic, and (2) whether it is a reasonable hypothetical OE name. The answer to (1) is easy: there is indeed an adjective ge-beorhtlic 'brilliant, clear, shining, splendid'. In purely structural terms Beorhtlic is formed from ge-beorhtlic essentially just as Cuoemlicu is formed from ge-cwemlic. However, this doesn't settle (2) because the examples are not really parallel. Cwem-, unlike Beorht-, is not a genuine name theme; so far as I can discover, it occurs in personal names only in the adjectival name Cuoemlicu. (Tun and strang are also not genuine OE name themes.) Beorht, on the other hand, was a very common name theme and a common adjective meaning 'bright, shining, brilliant, light, clear'. The adjective complex ge- beorhtlic is essentially a doublet of the simplex beorht, covering pretty much the same semantic territory. Thus, the hypothetical name Beorhtlic would have occupied the same niche as the well- attested name Beorht. Obviously we don't know everything about OE personal naming. We do know, however, that dithematic names are much the most common sort in the record, with adjectival names very much in the minority. Among these it appears from the paucity of examples that names in -lic were especially rare. Finally, we have no example of the use as a personal name in its own right of a purely adjectival derivative of an already adjectival name theme. In view of these considerations, case for a personal name Beorhtlic is weak to non- existent.
Folcwine sunu: Old English patronymic from given name Folcwine, dated 762-1080 on p. 243 of Searle. Talan Gwynek: it's conceivable that in the early 9th c. the submitter could be the son of an OE Folcwine, and it's further conceivable that he could be the son of a Folcuuin(us) from the Continent, so the basic idea behind the patronymic isn't unworkable. The form is a little off, however. The classic OE masculine patronymic is a two-word phrase consisting of the father's name in the genitive case modifying OE sunu 'son'. The genitive of Folcwine is Folcwines, so the grammatically correct OE patronymic is Folcwines sunu. Word spacing was by modern standards quite erratic, but it appears that in general such a patronymic really was written as a two-word phrase.
3) Brian Aaron Cameron name and device.
Per bend sinister rayonny vert and ermine, in dexter chief a sheaf of arrows inverted argent.
New name, new device. Any changes.
Brian: English masculine given name dated to 1273 on p. 53 of Withycombe (3rd ed).
Aaron: English masculine given name dated to 1199 on p. 1 of Withycombe (3rd ed).
Cameron: Scottish surname. Spelling de Cameron dated to 1421 on p. 81 of Reaney & Wilson. Spelling Cameron dated to 1434 on p. 128 of Black.
Device: We plan to instruct the submitter to draw the arrow and the rayons larger in the future and to use fewer ermine spots and rayons.
4) Ceinwen ferch Rhueldevice.
Sable, a fess argent fretty azure between three swans naiant argent.
New device. Name submitted on Ansteorran LoI postmarked 30 September 1998.
5) Eleanor d'Eresby name.
New name. No major changes.
Eleanor: English feminine given name dated to 1122 on p. 96 of Withycombe (3rd ed).
d'Eresby: English locative byname constructed using the placename Eresby found on p. 340d of John Morris, ed., Domesday Book vol. 31: Lincolnshire (Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1986).
Talan Gwynek: According to Ekwall, Eresby is the modern name of a place in Lincolnshire whose name is in record as Iresbi in Domesday Book, Eresbi 12th c., and Eresby 1238, 1254.
6) Emilie Penrose Blackwell name.
New name. No major changes. Submitted as Emily Penrose Blackwell. Prefers the spelling Emily but will accept changes. We have changed the spelling of the given name to the French form which seems to be the closest documented form to what the submitter wants. Emilie: French feminine given name. Withycombe (3rd ed), p. 103 under Emily, lists spelling Emelye as appearing in Chaucer and dates spelling Emulea to 1316. Joseph L. Weidenhan, Baptismal Names (Baltimore: Kenmore Publications, 1968), p. 266, gives Emily as the name of a holy woman of Neocaesarea. Emilie is listed in Dauzat Noms et prenoms p. 234. Dauzat says it's a feminine baptismal name.
Penrose: English surname found on p. 241 of C. L'Estrange Ewen, A History of Surnames of the British Isles (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co, 1968). Also dated to 1611 on p. 597 of Bardsley.
Blackwell: English surname found on p. 47 of Reaney & Wilson. Spelling atte Blakewell dated to 1296. Spelling change from Blake to Black demonstrated in period under the entry for Blackledge, also on p. 47. Spelling del Blakelache dated to 1332, spelling Blacklach dated to 1473. Under Blackwell, Bardsley has Blakewell 1379, Blackwall 1599, Blackwell 1615
7) Fergus Stout name.
Name Change from Gwydion ap Dafydd. Previous name registered 1/91. No major changes.
Fergus: Scottish/English masculine given name dated to 1188 as a given name on p. 166 of Reaney & Wilson.
Stout: English surname dated to 1373 on p. 430 of Reaney & Wilson.
8) Faoiltighearna MacEanruig name and device.
Azure, on a plate a wolf's face sable, a bordure rayonny argent. New name, new device. No major changes. The meaning of the name is most important. Submitted as Faoiltigearna MacEanruig, we have corrected the spelling of the given name to Faoiltighearna. The submitter has provided evidence that she is the legal wife of Gerard MacEanruig and wishes to invoke the grandfather clause to register his surname. While we are unsure as to whether or not this is a valid use of the grandfather clause, we are following the submitter's wishes and turning the matter over to Laurel.
Faoiltighearna: Irish feminine given name found on p. 210 of Woulfe who says that Faoiltighearna was the name of an Irish virgin saint.
MacEanruig: Scottish surname found on p. 118 of Bain, Robert, The Clans and Tartans of Scotland (1953). MacEanruig is found under Henderson on p. 353 of Black, dating the given name Eanruig to 700, and the surname MacEanruig to the 14th century. The submitter's mundane husband registered the name Gerard MacEanruig in 10/82.
9) Fridemunt von Kostenz name and device.
Barry wavy argent and vert, a cow couchant guardant Or and a chief sable.
New name, new device. No major changes. Submitted as Fredamund von Kostenz. With the submitter's permission, we have changed the spelling of the given name to match that of the byname.
Fridemunt: Germanic feminine given name. Masculine given names found on p. 93 of Morlet: Fredemundus (dated 614), Frimundus, Fridumundus (dated 989). Freda- occasionally found as protheme as in Fredalaus (dated to 893). Deuterotheme -mund appears in both masculine and feminine names with Latinized form -mundus for masculine and -mundis for feminine (see Engelmundis and Angelmundus on p. 37 of Morlet).
Talan Gwynek: [...] the prototheme is actually Frid(u)-; the lowering of the vowel from i to e is a Gallo-Romance phenomenon, not a Germanic one. In Mulch (Arnsburger Personennamen) and Socin (Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch) such names consistently appear with Frid(e)- [...] Secondly, in that Upper German dialect the deuterotheme, when not Latinized, is -munt (as may be seen from some examples in Socin, e.g., Reimunt 1274 = Reymundus 1300 on p.32). A reasonable form of the name in the appropriate German orthography is therefore Fridemunt. (Orthography was sufficiently variable that Fridemund wouldn't be impossible, but it's definitely much less likely, and given that feminine names in this deuterotheme seem to be vanishingly rare in German sources anyway, -munt seems much the better choice.)
von Kostenz: German locative byname using the place name Kostenz. Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, p. 569, dates Kostanz to 1414-18.
Talan Gwynek: Brechenmacher s.n. Konstanzer derives this surname from the place- name Konstanz, citing the Latin byname de Constantia 1290 and the German der Costenzer 1342 'the man from Costenz'. S.n. Kost he mentions that Konstanz gave rise to the forms Kostinz and Kostenz; there are no dates, but the context implies that this would have happened by the mid- 14th c., as indeed we see in the 1342 citation just given. [...] Socin (314) has von Costenze 1297. [...] Despite modern German usage, the initial C noticeably predominates at any time when the forename is at all plausible, but there are enough forms with initial K to justify Kostenz(e) as well as Costenz(e).
10) Gerold von Drachenhöle. name and device
Per bend azure and sable, a dragon segreant Or and a wolf rampant contourné argent.
New name, new device. No major changes and no holding name. Submitted as Gerrold Von Drachenhöle, we changed the given name to match the documented form.
Gerold: German masculine given name. Spelling Geroldus dated to 1248 and Garrelt to 1396 on p. 167 of Bahlow (Eng. trans.) under Gerold.
von Drachenhöle: German locative byname using the name of a cave in the side of the mountain Drachenfels made famous in the legend of Siegfried. Drachenhöhle is found on p. 1329 of Clarence L. Barnhart, The New Century Cyclopedia of Names, vol. I (New York: Appelton- Century-Crofts, Inc., n.d.) under Drachenfels.
11) Johann von Sternberg device.
Sable, semy of compass stars elongated palewise, a chevron Or
Resubmitted device. Name reg. 12/94. Previous submission returned at Laurel was: "Per fess indented azure and argent, in chief a compass star elongated to base argent" - returned by Laurel in 9/93 for multiple conflicts.
Device: We plan to instruct the submitter to draw the stars larger in the future.
12) Katarzyna Szare Oczy name and device.
Per pale purpure and argent, in pale a chevronel couped counterchnaged and two Catherine's wheels Or
New name, new device. Any changes. If changes must be made, the meaning, Katherine the Grey-eyed, and language, Polish, are most important. Desired gender is female. Submitted as Katarzyna Szarooka. We have substituted a period version of the byname as suggested by Talan Gwynek.
Katarzyna: Polish feminine given name. Spelling Katarzyna found on p. 36 of Alexander M. Schenker, Beginning Polish, vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973). English form Katherine found on p. 186 of Withycombe (3rd ed) who dates the spelling Katerine to the 15th c. and says that the spelling using th came into use in the 16th c. Talan Gwynek: The standard modern spelling Katarzyna is actually cited from 1385 in Witold Taszycki, ed., S{l/}ownik Staropolskich Nazw Osobowych, vols. I-VII (Wroc{l/}aw: Zak{l/}ad Narodowy Imienia Ossoli{n'}skich, Polska Akademia Nauk, 1965-87).
Szare Oczy: Talan Gwynek: Szarooka does indeed appear to be a correctly-constructed feminine adjective meaning 'grey-eyed', but for two reasons that doesn't guarantee that it's a reasonable period byname. First, it needs to be shown that the compound would have been formed the same way in our period. Secondly, it needs to be shown that among the descriptive bynames attested for Polish are simple adjectives.
Fortunately, I've been able to find a parallel historical example. There is a modern adjective kosooki (feminine kosooka) 'with slanting eyes; with scowling eyes; cross-eyed', from kosy 'slanting' and oko 'eye'. Taszycki has a set of entries that are spelling variants of a single byname, of which Kose Oko, Kose oczy, and Kosioko are probably the most important. Kose oko is the nominative singular phrase 'slant eye'; kosioko appears to be a spelling variant of the same phrase, run together as one word; and kose oczy is the nominative plural 'slant eyes'. The different versions seem to be largely interchangeable, as several are found referring to a single person. I saw no clearly adjectival form. Given this historical evidence I recommend writing the byname as Szare Oczy 'grey eyes' or Szare Oko 'grey eye'.
Device: While the arrangement of charges is unusual, we believe it to be only one weirdness and respect the submitter's attempt to produce Polish-looking armory using Western European charges. In addition, the arrangement of charges is quite similar to those in the registered arms of the submitter's mundane father Jan w Orzeldom, "Per pale gules and argent, in pale a chevronel couped per pale and two crosses patty counterchanged."
13) Krzysztof Kopernik name.
New name. No major changes. If changes must be made, the sound is most important. The desired gender is male.
Krzysztof: Polish masculine given name. According to an e-mail from Talan Gwynek, "SSNO has it under the usual Polish spelling,
Kopernik: Polish surname found on p. 300 of William f. Huffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings, 2nd ed (Chicago: Polish Genealogical Society of America, 1997) under Kop[e]r. Dated to 1367 on p. 156 of Kazimierz Rymut, (Wroclaw: Zaklad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1991) under Koper.
14) Lissette de Meyeners device. Argent, in fess two annulets interlaced and on a chief gules a quill-pen bendwise sinister argent.
New device. Name registered 4/98.
15) Marcus Blackwell name.
New name. No changes.
Marcus: English masculine given name dated to 1273 on p. 206 of Withycombe (3rd ed).
Blackwell: English surname found on p. 47 of Reaney & Wilson. Spelling "atte Blakewell" dated to 1296. Spelling change from Blake to Black demonstrated in period under the entry for Blackledge, also on p. 47. Spelling del Blakelache dated to 1332, spelling Blacklach dated to 1473.
16) Morgan MacAlpin name
New name. Any changes. Desired gender is male.
Morgan: Scottish given name dated to the 12th century in Peadar Morgan, Aimean Chloinne: Scottish Gaelic Names for Children. Black p. 611 under Morgan dates the name Morgund to 1204 as a given name MacAlpin: Scottish surname. Patronymic mac Alpin dated to 843 under Ailpin in Morgan. Reaney & Wilson, p. 290 (under Macalpin), date MacAlpyne to 1260. Black, p. 451 dates Macalpin to 1260
17) Niklas Vasilevich name and device.
Sable, a double-headed eagle within a bordure engrailed Or.
New name, new device. Drop a part if necessary to register name.
Niklas: Russian masculine given name dated to 1501 on p. 126 of Paul Wickenden of Thanet, A Dictionary of Period Russian Names, Version 1.3 (Mountain View, CA: Free Trumpet Press West, 1994).
Vasilevich: Russian patronymic byname dated to 1554 on p. 195 of Wickenden under Vasilii.
18) Suzanne de la Ferté device.
Argent, three artist's brushes in pale and a pair of launches azure each charged with a quill pen argent.
New device. Name registered 2/98.
There were 24 paid items and 1 free submission for a total of 25 items.
A check for $ 96.00 will be sent separately.
Yours, in service to the Society,