Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources
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| Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources | |
|---|---|
| Name | Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Onomastics, prosopography |
| Publisher | Various academic presses and online repositories |
| Media type | Print; online database |
Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources
The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources is a scholarly reference work compiling personal names attested in medieval Europe from sources such as charters, chronicles, hagiographies, tax lists, and court records. It serves historians, linguists, genealogists, and paleographers working with materials from regions including England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, Byzantium, and Kievan Rus'. The work connects onomastic data to primary sources like the Domesday Book, the Domesday, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Liber Pontificalis, the Chronicle of Fredegar, and the Annales Regni Francorum.
Overview
The dictionary aims to record given names, bynames, and occasional family names from medieval European sources such as the Cartulary of Saint-Évroult, the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Chronicle of Matthew Paris, the Vatican Archives, and the records of the Holy Roman Empire. Entries typically cite manuscripts held in institutions like the British Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Archivio di Stato di Venezia, the Germersheim Archives, and the Archivo General de Indias. It addresses linguistic forms found in texts by authors including Bede, Gregory of Tours, Dante Alighieri, William of Malmesbury, Einhard, Orderic Vitalis, Ibn Fadlan, and Michael Psellos.
Compilation and Sources
Compilers draw on a wide array of medieval materials: royal charters from the Capetian dynasty, legal codes like the Saxon Mirror and the Siete Partidas, episcopal lists from the Archdiocese of Canterbury and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, monastic cartularies from Cluny Abbey, Monte Cassino, Peterborough Abbey, and diplomatic correspondence preserved in the Chancery of Normandy. Catalogue sources include the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for later identification, the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, the Prosopography of the Byzantine World, and the Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici. Paleographers consult manuscripts such as Cotton MS, Codex Aureus, Vaticanus Palatinus, and regional rolls archived at the National Archives (UK) and Archivo General de Navarra.
Structure and Entries
Entries are alphabetical or segmented by language family (e.g., Old English, Old French, Middle High German, Old Norse, Medieval Latin, Galician-Portuguese). Each entry typically includes orthographic variants, linguistic derivation referencing scholars like Jacob Grimm and Émile Littré, attestations from chronicles such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, legal rolls like the Pipe Rolls, narrative sources like The Song of Roland, and documentary records such as the Cartae Antiquae. Cross-references point to regional anthologies including the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, and the Sächsisches Urkundenbuch. Editors may note prosopographical links to figures in the Domesday Book, the Rolls of Parliament, and episcopal catalogs like those of York Minster or Santiago de Compostela.
Usage and Applications
Researchers use the dictionary to identify personal names in charters from William the Conqueror's reign, to trace naming patterns in the age of the Carolingian Empire, and to analyze cultural exchange evidenced in names found in the Norman conquest of England, the Reconquista, and the Crusades. Linguists employ the dataset to study phonological change in Old Norse and Old High German forms; historians of religion consult saintly names from sources such as the Acta Sanctorum and the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. Genealogists cross-check entries against pedigrees preserved in the Herald's Visitations, the Domesday Book, and noble cartularies for families like the Plantagenets, the Capetians, and the Arpad dynasty.
Editions and Translations
The work exists in print editions and online iterations maintained by academic institutions and projects akin to the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources and the Oxford English Dictionary model. Editions often include collaborations between universities such as University of Oxford, Université de Paris, University of Cambridge, Heidelberg University, and the University of Barcelona. Translations and regional adaptations have been produced to align entries with corpora like the Corpus of Medieval Scandinavian Sources and the Iberian Medieval Names Project, and are cited alongside critical editions such as the Patrologia Latina and the Recueil général des inscriptions latines de la France.
Reception and Criticism
Scholars praise the dictionary for facilitating work in prosopography exemplified by projects like the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire and the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, but critique centres on inconsistent coverage across regions—particularly underrepresentation of sources from Eastern Europe, Balkans, and Iberia—and on editorial choices regarding normalization of orthography drawing debate among editors from institutions like King's College London, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History. Methodological discussions reference standards set by the International Council on Archives and by onomasticians publishing in journals such as the Speculum and the Journal of Medieval History.