Dear Christopher,
Thank you very much indeed for your latest e-mail and for putting that
sample page from Morlet up on your web-site.
I've had a good look at the latter now and it looks very useful. I don't
know about protothemes and deuterothemes, but in terms of elements it does
as you say seem to index the first elements (leading elements?) but give
definitions of the second elements (trailing elements?) under the name in
which they first appear. Thus I see on your sample page that under GUB-
appears the name GUBALTARIUS (then gender, source, date of source, page or
section of source) after which it refers you to the name Adalharius
(presumably earlier in the index under ADAL- or some such) where may be
found the etymology of the second element -ARIUS.
I suspect the GONO- "prototheme"may be found, if anywhere, under CONO- or
CUNO- (as in Conomarus or Cunobelinos), as the concensus from Mansi to John
Morris ("Arthurian Sources", iii, "Persons") seem to think that the initial
G is for C (and the sample page from Morlet shows plenty of C for G
examples). I would be interested to know if Morlet agrees with this. As far
as I have been able to ascertain, "gono-" is an unattested element in
british or gaulish (and in this context is unlikely to be greek/latin
"gen-" or german "gund-"). TIERN- might appear in its own right as,
although the majority of examples seem to have this as the "deuterotheme"
(eg VORTIGURN), there are examples of it as a prototheme (ie TIERNMAL,
bishop of Dol), but it seems to be a well-understood element ("lord,
tyrant").
Thanks for the reference to Hodiernus in GC (what does "GC" stand for?), I
presume this is from whence came the episcopal list in Duchesne which he
dates to the time of bishop Hadebert (871-900). The edition of the Councils
I have been using is that of C. de Clercq "Concilia Galliae", 1963,
Turnhout. He lists eleven manuscript sources for 549 Orleans and five for
556x573 Paris. Four of the Orleans sources give _fredi(g)ernus_ (no sign of
"frodigerius"), the rest give _Gonotiernus_ . All the Paris sources give
_Gonothigernus_. Curiously, Jean Hardouin in his edition of the Councils
gave a form _Gunauthigernus_ which seems to have come from a Paris
manuscript, perhaps no longer extant. It is strange that the Orleans
_Gonotiernus_ is a more modern form than _Gonothigernus_ which must have
been antique even in the VI century, and the _tiern_ is bretonic.
The "linguistic gymnastics" therefore would seem to be (if we can accept
grapheme G = C) *Gonothigernos > Gonotiern (>*Gontiern) > Conthigirn
[Annales Cambriae] > Kyndeyrn [Bonedd y Saint]/ Kentegernus [Vita
Kentegerni] > Kentigern. Right name, right time, wrong place (ie Senlis,
not Wales or Scotland!). _Hodiernus_ is either a partial occultation of the
prototheme or is a scribal error, due to the more familiar IX century name.
Phew. While I hang on to the balloon and deal with the bees, will you stand
at the bottom of the tree and say "Hmm - looks like rain"?
Thanks again,
Henry.
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