Ursula

verdantry asked me to post about onomastic research methods, specifically in the context of raw data for fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Bohemian names.

(If you want to suggest a topic for me to post about in January, you can do so here.)

The first step is to find out what is already known. The Medieval Names Archive section on Czech and Slovak is pretty minimal, and there's nothing relevant in the sca.org name articles collection. You can also check old Academy of Saint Gabriel reports. I would use the advanced search tool to look for Bohemia, setting the "restriction" field to "anything" in order to turn up reports with the word "Bohemian" in them as well. There are actually quite a few hits for Bohemia. I would start with the highest-numbered reports and work backwards, checking the bibliographies to see if anything useful shows up. Indeed, there are references to two books by Ernst Schwarz whose titles start Sudetendeutsche Familiennamen and which appear to include data on Bohemian names. One of these books is available on abebooks.com for about $70 plus $10 shipping from Germany; I haven't checked Amazon or other bookfinding sites. (Both books are also in my university library, which means you could likely get someone close to you to work magic via ILL, or ask me to borrow one and let you pet it, if we're likely to be in the same place at some point.)

The other key part of finding out what's already known is to talk to experts. In this case, your likely experts are going to be Aelfwynn (who knows lots of stuff about German names, and lives in Drachenwald), and ffride (whose expertise includes working stuff out about Slavic names, and who lives in Lochac). Maybe one of them has been sitting on data that they would love to share with you! They may also know some language-specific search tricks.

What if you just want to browse around for raw data? ( Stream of consciousness as I explain some Google tricks! )

I want to emphasize that you don't actually have to know an entire language to browse like this. Being able to pick out names and dates is enough to get started! However, you should be aware that names in some languages, including Latin, change form depending on their grammatical function in a sentence.

My translation of the portion of the statutes of the sixteenth-century French Ordre du Saint-Esprit concerning the initiation of a new member. In comparison to fifteenth-century ceremonies, this shows a much greater emphasis on the power of the Sovereign. As one might expect from a kingdom embroiled in religious wars, there is also a far greater emphasis on the role of the Church.

( Those who will have been received to enter into said Order . . . )

In the Society for Creative Anachronism, one can register medieval names and heraldic devices with the College of Heralds. Here's what the Governing Documents of the Society say about the rules the registration process should follow:

Standards of difference and other rules: Laurel shall define standards suitable to the
type of item to be registered, and apply them uniformly to all such submissions. These standards shall be
designed to support the historical re-creations of the Society and to provide sufficient difference from names
and armory registered within the Society to avoid undue confusion, to avoid the appearance of unearned
honors or false claims, and to provide sufficient difference from historical or fictional personages to prevent
offense due to obvious usurpation of identity or armory. Members are encouraged to develop unique,
historically valid names and armory.

Under the current rules and policies, anyone who wishes to participate in the registration process must submit a unique name. (Some historically invalid names are still registrable, but "insufficiently unique" names are not.) The name is required even if one only wishes to register a heraldic device. Registering a name costs about $10 (the exact amount varies from kingdom to kingdom) and takes about nine months. Registering a device is another $10 or so.

One of the reasons that the SCA is attached to the unique name system is that the current registration system depends on paper files organized by this unique registered name. (There are other reasons, of course; a discussion of some of them can be found at the Campaign to End Name Uniqueness, and a more complete view may be obtained by joining the SCAHRLDS mailing list and browsing the archives.) This post proposes a partially computerized filing system. I want to describe why such a system is technically feasible and would allow for greater flexibility, including re-evaluating the "registered SCA name" and "unique SCA name" requirements, if we wish to do so.

( gory details )

Just in case you're not aware of this, the SCA registers names. The SCA guarantees that a registered name will be "unique": of course, the meaning of unique is a complicated issue, especially when we're talking about plausible names for medieval people.

This is a poll about what you think uniqueness ought to mean. This is not a poll about whether names should be unique, nor is it a quiz on the rules as they currently stand; it's a philosophical exercise.

[Poll #1098571]

Does anyone have an image of a fifteenth-century Milanese man?

***

Here's a plate with glasseye's heraldry I painted. It doesn't have as many flowers as the original, which gives it an unintended Art Deco effect.

This morning I wandered around U. Village, the trendy outdoor shopping mall down the hill from me. I bought a pair of shoes that I've been yearning after for a while, since they're the summery version of the little red shoes I'm very fond of. It's still strange to me that I'm grown-up enough to want more than summer sandals and winter boots-- and grown-up enough to pay for them! Such luxury! But the real purpose of the expedition was to pick up a plate I made for glasseye from one of those places where you paint your own dishes. I painted his device, a green shield with an ermine chief and a white sun. The shield came out a lovely glossy green, but I'm most proud of the stylized leaves round the border.

I was at Paint the Town a week ago, for a birthday party for my officemate, S. I don't think I've talked about S much here, but I've definitely enjoyed sharing an office with her and I'm very sad that she's leaving. She'll be moving to Michigan in just over a week! S is sweet and kind and friendly and has any number of talents, including the harp and yoga and drawing. I wish I had gotten to know her when she first came to this city, two years ago, instead of waiting until we did share an office. It's so sad to realize friendships too slowly.

S's birthday was just the start of a busy weekend. Saturday morning I walked to the farmer's market, and bought whole-wheat bread, spinach, chard, fresh garlic, and feta cheese. I spent a quiet afternoon, but in the evening J&L arrived, bearing riches from China! They gave us a gorgeous little teapot shaped like an eggplant with a miniature eggplant for a lid. glasseye and I and J&L stayed up late into the night, sharing -- variously -- beer, Scotch, and ginger-lemon tea, and talking about China, Philadelphia, and old times together. The next day we all went to Folklife, along with J's mother, aunt, and grandmother. We all wandered around together, so I didn't get to dance. :( But we did hear all sorts of music, in particular Spoonshine, bluegrass with string bass! And I spent a long time looking longingly at silk coats, made by a local artist from Indian sari materials. Wonderful thick material with a twirly skirt -- but the best pattern, with little swirling rosebuds, was on a coat one size too small, and I wanted to be absolutely in love before I bought one. (The booth was called Silk Dragons. I got a card, but she doesn't have a website.) I celebrated Memorial-eve by making elaborate pizzas, two with leeks, mushrooms, and white wine, and two with spinach, olives, and the feta I bought earlier in the weekend. Yum.

That brings me back to tonight's culinary adventure, which was Persian rice with barberries. Barberries are incredibly sour, like the dried-fruit version of Sour Patch Kids. I love sour food, but two cups were a little much! And I forgot part of the tah dig step, so no crunchy buttery bottom layer to my rice. But it was one of the most beautiful dishes I've seen in a long time, all white and red and yellow (the recipe asked for a teaspoon of ground saffron), and small amounts with yoghurt and garlic were wonderful.

[Same game.]