medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Tuesday, August 3, 2010, at 12:36 pm, christopher crockett wrote:
> From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > On Tuesday, August 3, 2010, at 8:56 am, christopher crockett wrote:
>
> >> From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
>
> >>> 5) Betharius of Chartres (d. early 7th cent.)....(also
> Boetharius; in
> French, Béthaire or Bohaire)
>
> >> the illustrious Canon Yves Delaporte of Chartres calls him "Bertharius"
>
> >> http://ariadne.org/cc/bishops/bishops.html
>
> >> assuming that someone did not make a typo.
>
<SNIP>
> and yet:
>
> > In general terms, the standard form of the saint's name when borne
> by other
> people is Bertharius (as in, e.g., the cases of king Bertharius, the
> father of
> St. Radegund, or St. Bertharius the martyred abbot of Montecassino).
> That
> being so, it seems much more plausible to suppose that Canon Delaporte
> was
> normalizing B.'s name form,
>
> what the hell does "normalizing" mean in this context?
Cf. the OED, s.v. _normalise_, v.:
" 1. a. trans. To make normal; to bring or return to a normal or standard condition or state.
1865 Pall Mall Gaz. No. 175. 1/1 To normalize an abnormal condition. 1880 R. G. WHITE Every-day Eng. 72 A scheme for simplifying and normalizing orthography. 1928 Mod. Lang. Notes 43 544 The author..has taken the acc. pl. of verr to be the inf. of the verb vera, which he normalizes vesa. 1954 Shakespeare Q. 5 199 Both Dorothea Tieck (in her almost canonical German version) and Gundolf normalize the verse..."
In other words, to change the appearance of a statistical outlier to make it conform to majority-based expectations of how it should appear. As the examples show, this occurs in textual editing both in matters of spelling and in matters of metrical or rhythmical form. As a user of edited texts, I'm very familiar with editors' statements to the effect that they have normalized some spellings (in whatever ways). Proper names in particular come medievally in a variety of forms and are consequently frequently normalized, both by editors of texts and by others (e.g. writers of history) who think that the use of non-standard forms a distraction to the reader.
>
> >either on general principles or because the later Chartrian documents
> with
> which he was familiar had already so normalized it.
>
> my memory is that he was working from (among others) an ancient list
> of the
> Bishops of Chartres --i cannot remember how old that list was, but certainly
> post-Merovingian.
>
> the "later Chartrian documents" could have been anything at all.
As it happens, the Vita is also post-Merovingian (seemingly by about three generations). That list of bishops of Chartres could have been roughly contemporary with it. If it called B. Bertharius, that might have been reason enough for an ecclesiastical historian of Chartres to go with this standard spelling of the name (i.e. one encountered frequently with other persons) rather than with the non-standard one given in the Vita (which latter, after all, isn't direct evidence for how St. Betharius/Beotharius/Bertharius actually sounded his name).
By "later documents" I was thinking of calendars and of liturgical texts arising from B.'s cult.
>
> > For another instance of such normalization with regard to this B.,
> see T.
> Scott Holmes, _The Origin & Development of the Christian Church in
> Gaul During
> the First Six Centuries of the Christian Era (London: Macmillan,
> 1911), p.
> 554, n. 2, where the author after calling B. "Bertharius, bishop of Chartres"
> immediately cites the MGH edition of the Vita (which, as noted above,
> spells
> B.'s name as Betharius):
> > http://tinyurl.com/2a5y2k2
>
> yes, now you've got me totally confused.
>
> how does adding an "r" "normalize" the name?
>
By making it conform to expectations (derived from the comparative frequency of Bertharius as an attested name form) of how the name should properly be spelled.
Best again,
John Dillon
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