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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture From: Jim Bugslag <[log in to unmask]> >Having recently done some research on the cult of St Eustace in northern France during the late 12th and early 13th centuries, my eye has been attuned to people named after him. Indeed, although there were not a lot of Eustace's, the name did crop up fairly often. What puzzles me is that so did a female equivalent, Eustachia, which, if anything, seems to outnumber the Eustace's. This strikes me as curious, considering that St Eustace was a military saint. i'll take a whack at this. clearly, choosing names for newby offspringings among the "nobility" was taken to be a very serious affair, directly associated with the on-going fortunes of The Family, at a time when The Family was *the* most important social institution going. naming was, as such, de facto, a very conservative practice, resistant (and therefore slow) to change over time. for the Chartrain (at least) in this period the custom of picking a name which was already in the family _namengut_ was very, very strong, especially for the firstborn male (and, perhaps, female) child. as i have said before, in the majority of cases this meant naming the firstborn after his paternal grandfather, the second after his father or, perhaps, after his maternal grandfather, etc. and it is the firstborn son who appears most often in the charters and other surviving sources (eg., necrologies). "Eustache" would have been an "invasion" into the namengut of virtually all families in the Chartrain. this would mean that it would take some kind of extraordinary circumstance for any "foreign" name to enter the namengut --eg., in the case of Eustache, as thanksgiving for a special intercession of the saint (say, in favor of the knightly father in battle). we saw that "extraordinary circumstance" coinsiding with a new entry into a family namengut come into play in the example i mentioned previously of the Ouraville family: the Lord of Ouarville, Raginald, returned from the second crusade with a precious relic which he had gotten fleeced for in the tourist traps of Constantinople ; he piously offered the relic to the church of St. John of Chartres (along with the church of the _villa_) ; then dedicated his third son --presumably born tomorrow ninemonth after his return-- to the church, naming him after Bishop Goslen, who also "held him at the font". "Goslen" then entered the _namengut_ of the Ouarvilles (for the first time that i was able to find), but in a rather limited way, since the future cleric Goslen would be without issue. however, i believe that there was another "Goslen of Ouarville", the nephew of the Goslen born around 1150, who was also destined for the Church, a younger son of that Goslen's older brother, who became a canon of Chartres like his uncle. we may speculate whether the elder Goslen was the godfather to his older brother's younger son, but clearly, for this family, at this time, "Goslen" was the name to be given to a child destined to represent the interests of The Family in EuropeanChruch, Inc. now, Jim, a significant question here might be what was the *status* of the Eustacheses you have found? were they firstborn sons --Lords of the Manor-- and, if so, were *their* sons (or grandsons) named Eustache? or were they members of the clergy? as i see it, except in extraordinary circumstances, there was a "lock" on the name which was to be given to the firstborn --and, probably, the second as well : Custom would dictate that that name would have to come out of the Family Naming Tradition. but, after that, when The Family had the luxury of a son to be given to the Church, other considerations could --and often did-- come into play. fwIw, i don't recall seeing an Eustache in the Chartres charters i've looked at. a quick look at the index to Molinier's edition of the necrologies of the Diocese of Chartres (and elsewhere) is the fastest way i know of to get an idea of how common a name might have been in a region --though one has to exercise some caution when generalising and remember that those necrologies contain entries over a very long period of time. so, if there are quite a few "Eustaches" in the index, upon closer examination one might discover that they all dated from after, say, 1200 and before 1300. the question then becomes, what accounted for the popularity of the name during this period --to the exclusion of the periods before and after? relics being brought back from the East, for example? (i have no idea what the chronological pattern for this particular name might be, i'm just tossing up an hypothetical example to use up a few spare electrons i've got on my machine.) > PS, I hope this isn't as silly as my last posting! probably is, but i don't recall your last, so post it again. best from here, Prosopographically Speaking, christopher "Lots of useless other data points just enlarge the consciousness of the agrieved showing how particular the pain is." --Burma Shave ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html