medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Catherine Gunn <[log in to unmask]>
> If anybody has satisfactorily solved this problem, I’d be very grateful to
hear from them
me, too.
> I decided, for the sake of consistency in the book I am writing, to
anglicise names but is there any index of names for medieval writers known
variously by Latin/French/Italian names etc.?
not to my knowledge, and if there were one it would be, of necessity, so
subjectively based as to be worthless.
over 20 years of doing 11th-13th c. Prosopography and Genealogy from the
original sources has enmaddened me with the foolishness of some writers when
dealing with names and, while i don't pretend to have arrived at any Foolproof
method, i do have a few Basic Guidelines which i try to follow:
1) Wherever possible, if there is a *common* english name (for either a person
or a place) which *directly* corresponds to a middlevil one, use that,
preferably in the form which most directly corresponds to the important (and
significant) Latin name elements.
(differences in orthography can generally be ignored for this group of
names.)
_Willelmus/Guillelmus_ = William (*not* Guillaume) ;
_Stephanus_ = Stephen (*not* Etienne)
_Godfredus/Godefredus/Gotfredus/Goffredus_ = Godfrey [NOT Geoffry (much less
Jeffrey or the hapless French Geofroi), which are all too far removed from the
Latin elements] ;
_Gauterius/Galterius/Walterius_ = Walter (*not* Gautier) ;
_Garinus/Guarinus/Warinus_ = Garin ;
_Rotbertus/Robertus_ = Robert ;
_Iohannes_ = John ; etc.
------
b) in any case, if you are writing in English, do NOT use a name form which
corresponds to a modren name in the "nationality" of your source --i.e., i do
not use modren French names which may (or may not) be descended from the Latin
ones i find in my sources.
_Petrus_ does NOT become "Pierre" ;
_Fulcher_ does NOT become "Foucher" ;
_Hugo_ does NOT become "Hugues" ;
_Raginaldus_ does NOT become "Renaud" ;
_Albertus_ does NOT become "Aubert"
as a rule, the French secondary writers *always* "modernize" the names, and
that practice just Drives Me Up The Wall --among other things, it sometimes
makes it all but impossible to figure out what the hell the *original* name
looked like in the Latin source (and that is an essential bit of knowledge if
one wishes to, say, look the guy up in an index).
even more enmaddening is the French proclivity to "frankisize" a name which
exists in a Latin source but does *not* have a modren French equivalent.
_Ingelrannus_ becomes "Eguerran" ;
_Adelemus_ becomes "Aleaume" ;
_Ottranus_ becomes "Outran" ;
_Fledaldus_ becomes "Flahaut" ;
_Hildegardis_ becomes "Heudegarde" ;
_Hildiardis_ becomes "Heuillarde" ; etc.
------
iii) where there is no common English name corresponding to a Latin one,
"anglisize" the Latin, usually just by deciding on the most common orthography
and removing the inflected ending :
_Gauslinus/Gauscelinus/Goslinus/Gollinus[which is usually a transcription
error, mistaking a tall "s" for an "l"] ==> Gauslinus ;
_Godfredus/Godefredus/Gotfredus/_ = Godfrey [NOT Geoffry (much less Geofroi),
which is too far removed from the Latin] ;
_Evrardus/Ebrardus_ = Ebrard ;
sometimes i just use the Latin form more or less as-is, esp. if i just like
the sound of it:
_Guido/Wido/_ ==> Guido ;
_Herveus_ ==> Herveus ;
_Hugo_ ==> Hugo ;
-------------
Above All: CONSISTENCY is a *Must*.
anyway, that's how the Amateurs do it.
c
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