medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I rather think that Robert Cook is on the right track in his "weak,
tentative suggestion" (which I would quote were the document containing
it not TOP SECRET).
That said, it is possible to overgeneralize about translations of
proper nouns being adaptations of their verbal form rather than
translations of their (perceived) semantic content. The names of Greek
saints in southern Italy and in Sicily were sometimes latinized
semantically, e.g. 'Paraskeve' as 'Venera' or 'Veneria' and 'Kyriaka'
as 'Dominica' (Ital. 'Domenica'). Closer to home for this inquiry,
Renaissance humanists often did precisely that when they latinized or
hellenized their surnames. As we're dealing with Danish phenomena, we
can skip such trite examples as 'Melanchthon' for 'Schwarzert' and
proceed directly to Rasmus Glad (1526-82), a.k.a. Erasmus Laetus.
Why would Robertson have so translated 'Bryde'? Perhaps merely because
it pleased him to do so and it did not occur to him (or it did, but he
repressed the thought) that Madsen might misunderstand. Too clever by
half, in any event.
Best,
John Dillon
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