medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Henk 't Jong <[log in to unmask]>
> Hi Chris,
> You wrote:
>>well, a cognomen is a kind of nickname.
> Yes, but more in a positive way, isn't it? Not so much a degrading one.
my "study" of them is certainly ad hoc and quite spotty but, in my universe,
"nickname" means:
"A (usually familiar or humorous) name which is given to a person, place,
etc., as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper
name. [<[f. EKE n. + NAME; cf. ON. aukanafn.] An additional name, a nickname.
Now superseded by the corrupt form NICKNAME: a nekename (Promp. Parv.) for an
ekename.] --OED
the distinction between a cognomen and a "nickname" is not always clear or
distinct, i suppose.
for instance, the "name" _Paganus_ appears not infrequently in the 11th-12th
c. charters.
at the beginning of the last century of the last millennium Joseph Depoin
established (in his edition of the St. Martin des Champs documents) that this
"name" was applied to children (Paganus for boys, Comtesse for girls) who, for
some reason had been baptised late.
tempting to see that as translatable by "the little pagan X" --but a common
form of its appearance (when speaking of grown men, "signing" formal charters)
might be "Arnulphus qui et Paganus de Mantarvilla." but sometimes they guy is
just called "Paganus de Mantarvilla."
o.k., so is _Paganus_ a cognomen, or is it a "nickname"?
answering that crucial question is well beyond my Pay Grade.
cognomenaes definitely include toponymics (becoming much more common in my
period and difusing downward through the "aristocracy") and patronymics
(though not yet "Xson", rather "X filius W"), which latter are not yet,
strictly speaking, cognomens, to my ear.
any more than professionalnymics are --tolenarius, carpentarius, caementarius,
aurifaber, etc.
others are strictly physically descriptive --which, obviously, are only useful
for as long as a trait is inheritable through the gene pool-- or
psychologically/behaviorially descriptive (X qui non bibit aqua; Y qui
verberat ad panum) --and these are ocassionally passed on from generation to
generation.
sometimes these are, indeed, "degrading" or humorous --the only way i can
interpret "who talks to bread" or "who doesn't drink water."
the _caput ferri_ instance is visible over at least three generations (if my
memory is right) --did the first of them (c. 1090) have a really, really nice
Iron Helmet or were these guys just (genetically) Hard Headed?
i can't say.
but testing for the latter would seem to be a somewhat counterproductive
operation, Darwinially Speaking.
>>except that _chenardus/canardus_ doesn't mean "duck" in the 12th c.
> Ah, bummer. I stand corrected.
happens all the time, to me.
actually, i did find somewhere (Latham??) a single instance of _canard_ being
used for a kind of boat; but, Plien Beauce being rather landlocked, i
dismissed this obscure reference out of hand.
>>well, we don't really have to establish that "chenard" was used as an
heraldic emblem, do we?
>>only that it was a plant --it being well known that all sorts of plants
were put to that purpose by the middlevils.
> There is, sadly, no indication that the hemp leaf has ever been used in
heraldry until the early 1970's.
i'd say mid-60s, but i'm not an heraldist with only 35 years experience.
in any case "surviving examples" is operative, here.
in the case of the Chenards of Louville, i don't know whether any device
survives from the family from c. 13 or later --which may or may not (if it
exists) be reflective of the 11th-12th c. situation.
>In fact: the only plants/flowers that are used in early heraldry, by which I
mean 12-13th c, are the cinquefoil (later refined into a rose) and the fleur
de lis (but this is a rather late term for this charge; the symbol might have
meant something altogether different originally). For instance: while the
(Anglo-)Norman family of the counts of Anjou called Plantagenet has been
nicknamed (or cog-named?) after the broomplant, it was never used on a
heraldic shield.
"surviving" is operative (and lacking) in the above hallucinatory rant.
as i implied before, if you've got a family with the moniker "malesherbes"
it's hard to see how they did *not* use that as their emblem during battle.
>>so, clearly, we are in the presence of a bunch of ill-tempered, dope
smoking guys who walk [and talk] like a duck.
> Well, you must agree it's a tempting image.
i never met them personally, but they seemed like nice enough guys, when
viewed through the near-opaque lens of the charters.
i was able to trace a good half dozen of them, partly because Abbot Udo had
them entered into his monastery's Book of Life, in at least one instance of
what i termed a "cluster obituary" --two or three different people
mysteriously being celebrated on the same day-- which i figgered was for the
convenience of the (rural-based) family, so that they only had to come into
town for their kinsmen/women's anniversary mass once or twice a year.
but, that was just ad hoc speculation, and if anyone actually knows anything
about "cluster obituaries" i'd be glad to hear of it.
esp. if anyone knows what the "real" name for them is.
c
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