Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 792

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 792

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/792

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked for information about the use of the name <Ysabeau> in late-period French, about the surname <Lambert>, and about arms in blue and gold with an angel as the central charge. Here is what we have found.

You asked about <Ysabeau> and the alternate spellings <Ysabiau> and <Isabeau>. According to our sources, the spellings with an initial 'Y' were predominant in the 13th century [1]. <Ysabiau>, in particular, is an Old French spelling, which was probably not used much past the 14th century, and was probably pronounced \EES-a-byow\. By the last centuries of our period, the <-beau> spelling supplanted <-biau> and 'I' replaced 'Y' as the initial letter [2, 3].

The name surname <Lambert> derived from an identical given name, recorded in the 13th century [1]. The name <Ysabiau Lambert> would be a fine 13th or 14th century name; it would probably have implied that your father (or perhaps grandfather) was named <Lambert>. <Isabeau Lambert> or <Ysabeau

Lambert> would be a fine later-period French name; at this time, <Lambert>
could still have named your father, but the later you get, the more likely that it would have been a true surname.

Angels are not very common charges in period armory, but they were occasionally used. An early 15th century English family named <Brangor> or <Berenger> bore "Gules, an angel standing erect with hands conjoined an elevated on the breast habited in a long robe girt argent wings displayed Or" [4]. Another example from that period is recorded as the arms of the king of <Hyspie>; those arms contain a demi-angel [5]. Saint Michael appears in the arms of the city of Brussels, "Gules, an angel or treading beneath his feet the devil sable" [6].

Quite a few angels have been registered in Society arms, so it should cause no trouble if you want to submit one. In your colors, there is one very simple, elegant possibility: "Or, an angel affronty azure" (a blue angle standing and facing front, on a gold background). The reversed coloring, a gold angel on a blue field, would also be lovely arms, but would be too similar to existing Society arms to be registerable.

I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek, Alison MacDermot, Lothar von Katzenellenbogen, Elsbeth Anne Roth, and Zenobia Naphtali.

For the Academy,

Arval Benicoeur


References

[1] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris",

Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama).

[2] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et

Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987).

[3] Cateline de la Mor, Sixteenth Century Norman Names (SCA: KWHS

Proceedings, 1994; WWW: re-published 1997 by Arval Benicoeur). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/cateline/norman16.html

[4] Papworth, John W., _Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials_, reprint

(Five Barrows Ltd., 1977).

[5] Richental, Ulrich, Das Konzil zu Konstanze, facsimile edition

(Konstanz: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1964), folio 131b.

[6] Neubecker, Ottfried, _Heraldry: Source, Symbols, and Meanings_

(Maidenhead, UK: McGraw-Hill Co., 1976).