ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2696 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2696 ************************************ 28 Jun 2003 From: "Brian M. Scott" Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked whether is a suitable name for a 13th century Scandinavian woman, preferably Norwegian or Icelandic. You also asked for information on charges and tinctures that were common in Scandinavian armory in your period and specifically on a coat 'consisting of an iceberg in silver on a split backgroud of blue and black'. We'll discuss the name first and then the armory. The name was a relative latecomer to Scandinavia. (Here we're using generically to cover all forms and spellings of the name.) The earliest known bearer of the name in Scandinavia was the Russian-born wife of King Harald Hardraade of Norway in the mid-11th century. Her name was actually , a Russian form of , but her Swedish mother modified it to to give it a more familiar sound in Norse ears. [1] The next known bearer of the name in Scandinavia was a Swedish nun in the late 12th century; her name is recorded in Latin as . [2] In the late 13th century the name occurs a few times in Sweden, but only in Latin documents, where it appears as , , , , (for a woman who appears elsewhere as ), and a Latinized version of . At about the same time in Denmark it appears as , , , and , and a little earlier, in the 1260s, as and . [2, 3] In the West Norse area there is one Icelandic instance of from the 13th century, but after Harald Hardraade's wife the name is not found again in Norway until 1352. [4, 5] Finally, an or is also mentioned in the Icelandic Annals for the years 1230, 1231, 1234, and 1235, but since the Annals include foreign events of importance, and we have not seen the actual entries, we cannot be sure that she was even Scandinavian. [4] It is not unlikely that these entries refer to St. Elizabeth of Hungary (also known as St. Elizabeth of Thuringia), who died in 1231 and was canonized in 1235; her popularity as patroness of the poor is thought to have been largely responsible for increasing European use of the name from the late 13th century on. [6, 3, 7, 8] In short, the name (in various forms) was just barely coming into use in Scandinavia in the late 13th century, and with one Icelandic exception all of the known 13th century Scandinavian examples are from Sweden and Denmark. Given the complete absence of Norwegian examples for another half-century after the end of your period, we cannot recommend the name as good historical re-creation in a Norwegian context though of course it's entirely possible that there were a few Norwegian bearers of the name who simply didn't make it into the surviving records. It is reasonable historical re-creation for the very end of your period in a Swedish or Danish context, though, and perhaps also in an Icelandic context, and it only remains to determine what forms the name is likely to have taken. Until relatively late the -like forms are found only in Latin contexts. In Sweden, for instance, they are not found in non-Latin contexts until 1412. [2] In contrast, the vernacular forms already appear in Latin contexts in the late 13th century, sometimes unchanged, as in 1303 'Elisif daughter of Johan de Nubyli', and sometimes superficially Latinized by the addition of grammatical endings, as in '(to) Elisiv' 1298. [2] This is very strong evidence that in the 13th century the normal Scandinavian forms were , , and the like, and that and the other -like spellings were strictly documentary Latin forms that were probably not used in the spoken language. We think, therefore, that a Scandinavian 'Elizabeth' in your period would actually have been known in Sweden and Denmark as or and in Iceland as , though she could certainly have been recorded as in a Latin document. The masculine Old Norse name is a borrowing of Old Danish , , etc. [9] (Here <{ae}> stands for the letter aesc, the a-e-ligature formed by squashing together an and an so that they share a common upright.) There are a few scattered instances of it in Norway between the 11th and the early 15th century, including one in the mid-13th century, but there is no trace of it in Iceland. [10] Our Danish examples from the late 12th, 13th, and early 14th centuries are all Latinized; typical forms are , , and , probably reflecting a vernacular ; forms with in the first syllable do not seem to have been used in Denmark. Such forms are common in Old Swedish, however, where the name is found as , , and . [11] The comprehensive study of medieval Swedish given names hasn't yet reached the R's, so we don't know how common the name was in 13th century Sweden; on the Danish and Norwegian evidence it seems likely that the name was in use but not very common. Thanks to the relatively complete Latinization of early records, we don't have much information on 13th century spellings of the 'daughter' element in Swedish and Danish names. Fortunately, however, there was a feminine given name of identical origin that does appear a few times in early Swedish records. The normal 12th century spelling of this name is , which is also the most common 13th century spelling, though and also occur, and we also found 1291. [12] We have no parallel evidence for Danish, but at in the late 13th century we would not expect much difference between them in this respect. To sum up, in your period a name meaning 'Elizabeth daughter of Ragnar' is unlikely in Iceland and Norway. In late 13th century Sweden and Denmark, on the other hand, it would merely have been a little unusual. It only remains to establish the likeliest forms of the name. In a Swedish setting the name might have appeared in a Latin-language record as , but the underlying Old Swedish name would have been or . These are pronounced roughly \EL-@-seef\ (or \EL-seef\) \RAGH-n@rs DOAT-t@r\, where \@\ stands for the sound of in and , and \GH\ stands for the voiced version of the sound of in Scottish and German . In a Danish setting a likelier Latin-language version is . (Here, as also in the Swedish Latin-language version, may be replaced by any of the other -like forms cited earlier in this letter.) Similarly, the underlying Old Danish name would have been or , pronounced roughly \EL-@-seef\ (or \EL-seef\) \RAY-n@rs DOAT-t@r\. As we mentioned in an earlier letter, armory was invented around the middle of the 12th century. It developed most rapidly in Anglo-Norman England and in the region between the Loire and the Rhine rivers, but it had reached Scandinavia by the late 13th century. [13, 14] The earliest evidence for it is from seals; of course these don't tell us what tinctures were used, but they do give a good picture of the charges and designs. For tincture preferences we can look to an extensive survey of European armorials from the 13th - 15th centuries. [15] This survey shows the frequency of the different tinctures and pairs of tinctures in armory from different parts of Europe; it also gives average figures for the entire collection. Here are the figures for usage of individual tinctures in Scandinavian and, for the sake of comparison, in all European armory surveyed; the numbers are the percentage of coats using a given tincture. For instance, almost two-thirds of the Scandinavian coats use argent, compared with only 48% of all of the coats surveyed. Tincture Scand. Europe -------------------------------- Argent (white): 66 48 Gules (red): 43 61 Azure (blue): 34 23 Or (gold): 32 42 Sable (black): 25 28 Vert (green): 2 2 Furs: 1 5 Barring minor details like lion's claws, most early coats use only two tinctures, a metal (argent, or) and a color (gules, azure, sable, vert). Here is a similar comparison of Scandinavian and general European preferences: Tinctures Scand. Europe -------------------------------- argent & gu: 35 27 argent & az: 18 10 or & azure: 15 10 argent & sable: 14 13 or & sable: 9 11 or & gules: 8 20 argent & vert: 1 1 other: - 8 As you can see, argent (white) is much the most common tincture in Scandinavian armory; it is usually combined with gules (red), though combinations with azure (blue) or sable (black) are also quite common. Or and azure (gold and blue) is also quite common. Some charges found in early Scandinavian armory include: fleurs-de-lis: roses with five or six petals; ships and boats; towers and castles; axes; swords, often held by human arms; mullets (stars), often with six points but sometimes with five or eight; birds, especially eagles; arrowheads; and various animals and parts of animals. The fleur-de-lis is especially common, though it's often reduced to just the left or right half of a fleur-de-lis that's been sliced vertically down the middle; this kind of demi-fleur-de-lis is very characteristic of Scandinavian armory and very unusual elsewhere. We found nothing like an iceberg, however. It's much harder to make non-trivial generalizations about armorial design. We can say that in a large majority of coats the field was painted a single color and not divided into two parts. In the earliest Scandinavia armory available to us there are more examples of fields divided 'per pale' (vertically down the centre of the shield) than of fields divided 'per fess' (horizontally across the centre of the shield), but there are very few of either type. In hopes of giving some more general idea of early Scandinavian armory, we've included blazons of the 21 Norwegian seals in [14] that are dated no later than 1300, and for good measure of another ten from the very early 14th century. [16] These descriptions will unfortunately be rather cryptic if you're not familiar with the technical language used by heralds to describe armory, but they should be interpretable by anyone familiar with that language, and we'll be happy to try to answer questions about them. Arval Benicoeur and Adelaide de Beaumont also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been useful and that you'll not hesitate to get in touch again if you have any further questions. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 28 June 2003 ==== Notes and References: [1] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed. Norsk personnamnleksikon. 2nd ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995); s.n. . The Norse were already familiar with as a name element, as it was the name of Thor's wife. [2] Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn. Vol. 1- (Uppsala: 1967-. bd. 1, h. 5: ISBN: 91-7402-136-2; Bloms Boktryckeri AB: Lund 1981); s.n. . [3] Knudsen, Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby. Danmarks Gamle Personnavne. Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48); s.n. . [4] Lind, E.H. Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931); s.nn. , . (Here stands for a-umlaut, and stands for an with a small circle directly above it.) [5] Kruken, op. cit., s.n. . [6] Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988): s.n. . [7] Drosdowski, Guenther. Duden Lexikon der Vornamen, 2nd ed. (Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1974); s.n. . [8] Withycombe, E.G. The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); s.n. . [9] Kruken, op. cit., s.n. . [10] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [11] Knudsen et al., op. cit., s.n. . [12] Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn, bd.1, h. 4, cols. 602, 538. [13] Pastoureau, Michel. Traite/ d'He/raldique, 2nd ed. (Paris: grands manuels Picard, 1993); p. 300. (The slashes stand for acute accents over the preceding letters.) [14] Huitfeldt-Kaas, H.J. Norske Sigiller fra Middelalderen. 3rd and 4th parts (Kristiana: Aktie-Bogtrykkeriet, 1902); pp. 1-4, Pls. 1-2. [15] Pastoureau, op. cit., Tables III and IV, pp. 117-9. [16] Seals from [14] dated 1300 or earlier: * A bear rampant. * A griffin segreant contourny holding a bird in its forefoot. * In pale a helm ensigned with a cross and sustained by a pair of arms issuing from the corners of the shield and a 'plantezirat'. (The 'plantezirat' looks like an unusually stylized fleur-de-lis.) * In chief between two axes in saltire a fleur-de-lis. * A bend within a bordure engrailed. * In pale a crown and a fleur-de-lis. * Issuing from a heart a cross. * In pall a rose between three castles triple-towered. (This is a single group of four charges of equal weight.) * Rising behind a dragon-prowed ship sailing on waves of the sea a tower. * Per pale a dexter demi-fleur-de-lis issuant from the line of division and a rose. (The seal has deteriorated to much to tell whether it has 5 or 6 petals.) * An arm issuant from sinister sustaining a sword piercing a boat, its tip between two six-petalled roses. * On a chevron throughout between a dexter demi-fleur-de-lis bendwise sinister and a sinister demi-fleur-de-lis bendwise each issuant therefrom seven asterisks and in base a fleur-de-lis. (The asterisks probably represent mullets of 8 points, but they may be flowers of some kind.) * A stalk with leaves issuant from base between two birds close regardant addorsed. * A sword between two roses slipped and leaved. * A six-petalled rose. * A single-masted ship with a high stem. * A fleur-de-lis dimidiating an bird and in dexter chief a rose. (The bird is probably an eagle.) * A fleur-de-lis within a chevron inverted throughout issuant from the corners. * A winged broadarrow head fesswise point to sinister. * A stag's massacre. * A ram's head cabossed. Some early 14th century seals from [14]: * Per pale, paly of four mullety and a sinister demi-fleur-de-lis issuant from the line of division. * An eagle dimidiating bendy alternately charged with roses and fleurs-de-lis palewise. * Gyronny arrondy. * On a fess a fleur-de-lis between two roses. * Three legs conjoined in pall. * Paly wavy of four. * A stag rampant. * A tower charged with five roses in saltire. * A sword sustained by an arm issuant from sinister. * A sword sustained by an arm issuant from sinister between in chief two mullets of eight points.