| Sara L Uckelman on Mon, 7 Mar 2005 22:09:27 -0600 (CST) |
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| [HS] Lesson 2: Late-period French feminine names |
One of my recent research projects has been going through a three-volume set of records of tax records from late-period northern France. [1,2] The three volumes cover: Volume 1: Paris; Senlis; Clermont-en-Beauvaisis; and Valois Volume 2: Amboise & Blois; Chartres, Dreux, & Châteauneuf-en- Thymerais; Clermont-en-Beauvaisis; �tampes & Dourdan; Mantes & Meulan; Melun; Montargis; Montfort-L'Amaury, Nemours & Château- Landon; Orléans; Paris; Senlis; and Valois. Volume 3: Berry; Bourbonnais; Champagne & Brie; Normandie; Picardie, Vermandois, & Ponthieu; Sens; and Touraine. This map from 1453 shows where these regions and cities are: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/france_1453_shepherd.jpg The records are from the late 14th century to the early 17th, with most of them falling in the 616th century. The sources contain hundreds of names. I focused on the feminine names because too many of the men were mentioned more than once, making it difficult to do any sort of statistical compilations. Also, feminine names are in general harder to find examples of than masculine names, so I figured there'd be more of a draw for the feminine names. The source has the depressing "feature" in that it modernized all of the given names (I'll say a bit more later on how I was able to tell this despite not being able to read French and hence not being able to read the introduction, where the editors generally say what their policy on handling names is). However, by the 14th century, most of the modern forms of names were already in use in most of northern France; there are just a few exceptions. So it has been possible to match up the modern forms with the most likely spelling that would have been used in period. The names are names of royalty, nobility, and gentry; they are the names of children and adults. A few useful things can be said about the constructions of the names. By the end of the 14th century, inherited surnames (like modern day surnames) were pretty much the norm throughout northern France. However, I found no evidence that women _ever_ took the byname of their husband. That they didn't do this is clear in many of the entries, where a woman is listed as a man's wife and as the inheritor of her parents's property or money. All situations were like this X Surname1, wife of Y Surname2, daughter of Father Surname1 and Mother Surname3. Most of the surnames were ones based on locations. I do not know how much this fact was influenced by the high standing of these women; in generally, locative bynames are less common among the lower classes. There are, however, quite a few surnames that were originally descriptives. A small class of the surnames were used literally, and these are ones of the form <X Y, dite Z>, where 'dite' is the feminine word for 'called'. I found four examples in this data: Anne Le Clerc, dite Coictier, 1582 Marie de La Baume, dite Le Blanc, 1581 Nicole Girard dite Gaschon, 1582 Catherine Gorguin dite de Chevyeres, 1538 One other example is found in a difference source, from Paris, in 1421: <dite de Ruit>. [3] In each of these cases, what follows <dite> is a second surname. The reason that I classify these as literal, instead of inherited, is that I saw no evidence of both a father and a daughter using the same <dit X> (masculine) or <dite X> (surname). The second reason is that if these weren't literal, there would be no need for <dite> to match the gender of the bearer (witness <Anne Le Clerc>. <Le> is the masculine word for 'the', and if this phrase literally described <Anne>, it would have used <la>, the feminine word.) Double give names came into use in France during the last century of our period, but they were never common. In this data set of 1953 women, I found two examples of women with two given names, and two examples of women with compound given names. The first was recorded in 1573, 1577, and 1585 each time with a slightly different name (remember, all of these spellings have been modernized): Béatrice du Moustier Catherine Béatrix du Moustier Catherine-Béatrice du Moustier The other example of two given names is: Henriette Catherine de Balsac, 1612 And the examples of compound given names are: Jeanne-Baptiste de Rippe, 1609 Esther-Chrétienne, 1572 The first is clearly identifiable as referring to John the Baptist. The second has me somewhat baffled. One possibility is that this is the name of a converted Jew, but I have nothing beyond a hunch to back this up. So, the practice of using more than one given name or having a compound given name was _extremely_ rare for a woman, even at the end of our period. On to the names themselves. First a bit about the modernization. The use of the acute accent in written French came into use in the last two centuries of our period, but it wasn't used uniformly. Any time that you see names that uniformly use the acute accent, it is likely that the source has normalized the names to some extent. The grave accent was even less common, so if it shows up consistently, that's another clue that the names have been modernized to some extent. In these cases, the easiest way to determine the likely period spelling of the name is to simply drop the accents. This doesn't work 100% of the time, but it's a good start. The circumflex accent, and the way it replaces an <s> following a vowel, on the other hand, is strictly modern. There were three other clues that I had that the names had been modernized, and this was in the presence of names in their modern form where I have found _no_ evidence for the modern forms before 1600: modern <Jeanne>, <Etienne> (masculine), and <Chrétienne>. All of the evidence that I have ever seen shows these as <Jehanne>, <Estienne>, and <Chréstienne> before 1600. The top 10 most popular feminine names are pretty unremarkable: _Modern_ _Medieval_ _Number_ Jeanne Jehanne 298 Marie Marie 237 Marguerite Marguerite 148 Catherine Catherine 136 Katherine Anne Anne 123 Françoise Françoise 105 Louise Louise 83 Madeleine Madeleine 80 Charlotte Charlotte 50 Jacqueline Jacqueline 50 A few things to note: Note the overwhelming popularity of <Jehanne>. Masculine and feminine forms of <John> are without question the most popular medieval names in any culture and in pretty much ANY time (after about the 11th century or so). In many cases, it's not unsurprising to see it be 2 to 3 times more popular than the next given name (in fact here, the popularity of <Marie> with respect to <Jehanne> is somewhat surprising). Forms of <Margaret> and <Catherine> are also common throughout most of Europe in most periods; these were the names of two highly revered saints. <Anne> was less common until the 15th century, but in the 16th quickly began to hold its own among other names in France and England. The last five are rather specific to France; forms of <Madeleine> and <Jacqueline> are rare outside of France (you see them some in Germany and the Low Countries), and feminine forms of <Frances> and <Charles> were more common in France than other places. Now, on to the more unusual names found in this source (when I give only one form, it is both the medieval and modern spelling): Claude, 34 examples. This name is found with almost equal popularity between men and women, used in the same form for both. Nicole, 16 examples, is the same; this spelling is used for both men and women. Gabrielle, 16 examples. This was one of those names which, up until I had worked with this source, had always been "Well, it's extremely likely that <Gabriel> was feminized in France by the end of our period, but we just haven't found any explicit examples of it yet". So it was rather pleasant to find them, and find so many. Philippe, 12 examples. This is generally found as a masculine name, but there were 12 instances of it being used by women. Elisabeth, 6 examples. French forms of Elizabeth until the 16th century were uniformly along the lines of <Ysabeau>, <Isabelle>, <Isabeau>, etc. These 6 examples from the early 17th century perhaps show influence of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Avoye, 3 examples, Avoie, 2 examples. I note this name merely because it is completely unidentifiable to me. Ide, 2 examples. The bearers of these names were grandmother and granddaughter; the granddaughter was the inheritor of the grandmother. I do not know if this had any influence on the choice of name of the grandchild, but it might have. Angélique (modern), Angelique (probable period form), 1 example. This name of a saint is one that has tormented the College of Arms for many years - there have been no clear examples of this name before the end of our period. This solves that problem definitively. Arthuze, 1 example. Another baffling name. Perhaps related to <Arthur>, which was Latinized <Arthus>? Colaye, 1 example, Collaye, 1 example. Yet another name which I cannot identify. Fleur de Lys, 2 examples, Fleur de Lis, 1 example. "Flower of the lily", also the name of a heraldic charge. I'd love to see someone use this given name with a badge using a fleur-de-lys. (While there isn't examples of people using charges in their arms that reflect their given names, there IS an example of someone having a badge that reflected their given name, a Princess Marguerite who had a daisy for a badge). Eucharistie, 1 example. Clearly based on the word <eucharist>. There are other names which follow this sourt of pattern, namely forms of <Tiphaine> (English <Tiffany>) based on <theophany>, i.e., epiphany) and <Natalia> (the precursor to <Noelle>), but this is the only instance of <Eucharistie> that I have ever seen, and the only name based on a religious occurrence that isn't a holiday. Fleurance, 1 example, Florance, 1 example. Clearly variants of the same name, related to French <fleur>, Latin <flora> 'flower' Florentine, 1 example. I cannot say whether this is related to <Florance> above or to <Florence> the city in Italy (which also takes it's name from Latin <flora>). George, 1 example. Yup, a woman named <George>. Lyse, 1 example. Perhaps the feminization of an unattested <Lys>, but more likely a variant of <Lis>, <Lys> 'lily'. Olarye, 1 example. Probably the same name as <Eulalia>/<Hilaria> (for which see Academy of S. Gabriel Report #2909 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2909 for a fascinating discussion of this name). Souveraine, 1 example. This is a feminine form of French <souverain> 'sovereign', being used as a given name. Other examples of titles being used as given names include <Dauphine>, (feminine of <dauphin>, the title for the heir to the throne of France) 4 examples, and <Marquise>, feminine of <Marquis>, 1 example. Vandeline, 1 example, Vaudeline, 1 example. The same woman was recorded by both these names. Pretty clearly one is a scribal mistake for the other, <n> and <u> being hard to distinguish in some scripts. However, I don't recognize either so I can't say which is the "real" name and which is the mistake. One last discussion before wrapping this up, and that is on feminizations of masculine names. Many many many feminine names are feminized forms of masculine names. Men's names were feminized in two ways in French: One is to simply add <e>, and the other is to double the final consonant and add <e>. I have yet to see a clear pattern of when to go one way and when to go the other, and suspect that in many cases, it simply doesn't matter. We have: _Feminine form_ _Masculine form_ Adrienne Adrien Aimée Aimé Alphonsine Alphonsin Andrée André Annette Annet Antoinette Antoinet Aymée Aymé Bastienne Bastien Bernarde Bernard Berraude Berraud Berthaude Berthaud Bertrande Bertrand Béraude Béraud Charlotte Charlot Chrestienne Chrestien Christiane Christian Colette Colet Denise Denis Edmée Edmé Emée Emé Estiennette Estiennet Françoise François Gabrielle Gabriel Germaine Germain Geuffrine Geuffrin Gilberte Gilbert Gilette Gilet Gillette Gillet Giraude Giraud Guillemette Guillemet Guillemine Guillemin Guyonne Guyon Géraude Géraud Henriette Henriet Huguette Huguet Jacquette Jacquet Jamette Jamet Jehanette Jehanet Jehanne Jehan Joachine Joachim (this is the one exception) Julienne Julien Juliette Juliet Louise Louis Léonarde Léonard Martine Martin Mathurine Mathurin Michelle Michel Nicolette Nicolet Odette Odet Perette Peret Perrette Perret Perrine Perrin Philiberte Philibert Pierrette Pierret Pérette Perette Raymonde Raymond Regnaude Regnaud Renée René Richarde Richard Roberte Roberte Robine Robin Robinette Robinet Simone Simon Simonne Simon Thierrie Thierri Thomasse Thomas Urbane Urban Valentine Valentin Victoire Victoir Vincente Vincent One of the fun parts about working through this data is that I found so many feminized forms of masculine names that I had never seen before. Many names which are very common among men - <Robin>, <Richard>, <Raymond>, even <Joachim> - I'd comment to myself that I'd never seen feminine forms of, and then no more than two pages later, I'd _find_ one. It was like a gold mine. :) That covers pretty much everything I have to say right now about late- period French feminine names. Any questions? No assignment for this lesson - not yet, I've got one planned for the future. :) -Aryanhwy -- References: [1] Archives nationales (France), _Hommages rendus à la Chambre de France: Chambre des comptes de Paris, série P, XIVe-XVIe siècles: inventaire analytique_ (Paris: Les Archives: Diffusé par la Documentation française, 1982-1985.), volumes 1-3 [2] Uckelman, Sara L. "Late Period French Feminine Names" (WWW: Self- published, 2005) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/latefrench.html [3] Friedemann, Sara L. "French Names from Paris, 1421, 1423, & 1438" (WWW: Self-published 2002-2003) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/paris1423.html -- vita sine literis mors est http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/ _______________________________________________ heraldry-school mailing list heraldry-school@xxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/heraldry-school