ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3243 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3243 ************************************ 19 Jun 2007 From: Femke de Roas Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an authentic name for an Anglo-Saxon woman living sometime between 950 and 1000. You also asked for assistance choosing a byname, either a patronymic based on the given name or a locative based on Hexham or Durham. In addition, you also asked if or would be acceptable if your first choice was not. Here is what we have found. There are some special characters here we should describe. The {AE} stands for the letter ash, which looks like and 'a' and an 'e' stuck together and is pronounced in Old English like the 'a' in . The {th} represents the letter thorn, which can be described as a lower-case p overlapping a lower-case b, so that they share a single loop. The {dh} represents the letter edh, which looks like a backwards 6 with a crossbar on the riser. The name occurs quite often in late Old English documents, though not in this spelling. [1] We recommend the standard spellings <{AE}lfswi{th}> and <{AE}lfswi{dh}>; both are consistent with our data and 10th century Old English scribal practice. A great many Old English personal names are composed of two elements. , for instance, is a compound of the elements and <-wyn>. The elements that were used were chosen from limited repertoires of first and second elements, all of which are closely related to Old English words. [2] The second element <-wynn> or <-wyn>, for instance, which is known from many Old English feminine names, is related to the word 'joy'. We can find no independent evidence for a first element , however, or any plausible source for such an element. [3] It's true that a name occurs in a Latin charter of 946, but this appears to represent the rare name , which is known from a few other sources and has a very well attested first element. [4, 5, 6] (The final <-e> of is a grammatical ending.) We have not seen a general pattern of reduction of to ; it's possible that it is a peculiarity of this particular Latin document, or an unusual artifact of Latinization. We therefore cannot recommend the name as good historical re-creation, especially considering that was apparently quite rare to begin with. Patronymics, or bynames which identify the individual's father, were common in Anglo-Saxon names. Unfortunately, we find only one instance of the name England prior to 1066, and that individual was a priest [7]. Locative bynames, those which identify the place a person lives or lived, were also used. The Old English name of what is now Durham was , a spelling that is actually found in your period. [8] Old English locative bynames were prepositional phrases, more or less analogous to a modern English phrase like . In our experience the prepositions most often found are and <{ae}t>, both of which require the place-name to be put into the dative case. These prepositiions are both used to describe being "from" a certain place. The dative case of is , so the corresponding bynames are and <{ae}t Dunholme>. These were pronounced roughly \ohn DOON-hohl-meh\ and \at DOON-hohl-meh\, respectively. It's likely that both are authentic, but we have a slight preference for , which we have actually found. [9] The place-name has a more complicated history. Most of the available citations are too early or too late for your period, but we did find and ca. 1000. [11] However, Old English was not a uniform language across the area in which it was spoken, and these spellings are more characteristic of dialects spoken further south than Hexham. Fortunately, we have enough information to reconstruct what must have been the local form of the name. The place-name is based on a word usually normalized as or 'bachelor, warrior' (or an identical masculine name). In the local Old Northumbrian dialect, however, the word was , and the place-name must have been , from which the modern name derives. [12] The dative case of is , as may be seen from the prepositional phrases and , both 'at Hexham', in Annals 766 and 788 of the Peterborough Chronicle. [10] If you choose a locative byname referring to Hexham, we recommend , pronounced roughly \ohn HEKH-stall-des AY-eh\, where \KH\ stands for the sound of in Scottish and German , and \stall\ sounds like the modern English word . We can recommend , , <{AE}lfswi{th}>, and <{AE}lfswi{dh}> as given names for an Anglo-Saxon woman between 950 and 1000. Further, we suggest , <{ae}t Hehstaldes>, and as suitable bynames. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Maridonna Benvenuti, Talan Gwynek, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Adelaide de Beaumont. For the Academy, Femke de Roas June 18, 2007 _______________________________________________________________________________ REFERENCES [1] Miller, Sean. 'Anglo-Saxons.net: Charters' (WWW: Sean Miller, no date); S 487, S 593, S 662, S 747, S 775, S 866, S 889, S 1242, S 1485, S 1539, S 1503, S 1511, and S 1520. http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=show&page=Charters [2] In some cases the related word is not recorded and had probably gone out of use before the earliest written records of Old English, but historical linguists have nevertheless been able to reconstruct it. [3] There is an Old English word 'water, a stream, a river', but it is not a plausible source: its meaning does not fit any of the well-established patterns for Old English name elements. (Here the colon indicates that the preceding vowel is long.) [4] Miller, Sean. 'Anglo-Saxons.net: Charters' (WWW: Sean Miller, no date); S 517b. http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=show&page=Charters The list of witnesses to this charter includes four other names that have apparently been written without the final consonant of the first element: , , , and . [5] Selte/n, Bo. Anglo-Saxon Heritage in Middle English Personal Names, Volumes 1 & 2. (Lund, Sweden: Royal Society of Letters at Lund, 1979); II:75. (The slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter.) [6] Miller, op. cit., S 1539. This charter, from the 10th or 11th century, mentions a bondwoman whose name appears in the accusative case as , implying a nominative case (or ); this is a standard late variant of . [7] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.n. . [8] Watts, Victor, John Insley, and Margaret Gelling, eds. The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society (Cambridge University Press: January 2004); s.n. . [9] Annal 1072 of the Peterborough Chronicle, or E Manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, notes that 'he was given the bishopric at/of Durham'. Annal 1080 begins 'In this year the bishop Walchere was slain at Durham at a moot'. Annal 1087 names 'William, bishop of Durham'; here the phrase even functions as (part of) a byname. [10] [10] Jebson, Tony. 'The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' (WWW: Self-published, 1996-2006). http://asc.jebbo.co.uk/ http://asc.jebbo.co.uk/intro.html http://asc.jebbo.co.uk/e/e-L.html [11] Fox, Bethany. 'The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland'. Preprint (WWW: Alaric Hall, no date); Appendix 'Early Attestation'. http://www.alarichall.org.uk/placenames/fox.htm http://www.alarichall.org.uk/placenames/attestations.htm [12] Watts et al., op, cit. s.n. . More accurately, the of derives from ; the <-ham> is the result of a late substitution for the original .