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XIII.— Scriptural Names in Early Middle English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

G. H. McKnight
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Extract

The paramount influence of French learning in England after the Conquest is well known. Under Edward the Confessor many of the most important church positions in England had been filled by foreigners. Although most of the foreign prelates were expelled by Earl Godwin, after the accession of William there was an immediate and general occupation by the invaders of all high offices of church and state. Freeman (Norman Conquest, vol. III.) remarks that when, near the end of his reign, “William gathered his Witan to his great Gemot at Salisbury, there was not a single English earl and only one English bishop to answer his summons.” That under these circumstances French culture and French learning must have dominated in England, is obvious.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , 1904 , pp. 304 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1904

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References

1 The nationality of the priests in the 13th century is indicated by the typical names referred to in the Ancren Riwle, p. 340 : “say a munuch oer a preost; and nout Willam ne Walter.”

1 This investigation was undertaken by me at the suggestion of Prof. F. Kluge, who has himself touched upon the subject in his article on “Das Französische Element im Ormulum,” Engl. Stud., xxii, 179–182.

2 Freeman's statement is too sweeping. Such names as Iacob and Petrus were occasionally given to Englishmen even in Anglo-Saxon times. Cf. Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum, Cambridge, 1897.

3 The Norman influence on English personal names is well-known and striking. Before the Conquest the nomenclature of Normandy was almost totally different from that of England. “With few exceptions, in the generation of Domesday, a name was a certain indication of race, particularly in the case of names of women.” “An effect of the Norman Conquest,” according to Freeman, “was that the nomenclature of Normandy was brought into England and the great mass of distinctively English names was, for the time being, at least, driven out, a rare exception being the names Eadward and Eadmund, which, because names of saints, had been given by Henry III. to his two sons and in this way preserved. The typical Anglo-Saxon names Godric and Godgifu gave place to Jack and Jill.”

1 The name Stephen is an example in point. See list.

2 A remarkable instance of the superior prestige of French forms of names is afforded by the English poem, King Horn, in which (due, of course, to an OF. original poem) even Teutonic names appear in French form, Ailbrus, Ailmar, Allof, Cutberd, Saddenne, Arnoldin. Cf. Morsbach, Beitr. z. rom. u. engl. Phil., Festgabe für W. Förster, Halle, 1902.

1 There are, of course, exceptions to the general rule of faithfulness. The Latin th character in scriptural names seems to indicate in OE. a stop-sound initially; medially and finally it seems, sometimes at least, to indicate a spirant sound and is sometimes represented by e. g., Sciia Metr. 1, Bitinia Sal. 197, Jafe gen. (usual form), Nazare Elene 913. Lat. ph, on the other hand, seems to indicate a spirant sound everywhere except finally, and this spirant sound is represented in OE. by f in Betkfage (beside Bethphage), Cafarnaum (Capharnaum), Eufraten. Effrem Farao, etc. In the final position the Lat. ph cannot have had a spirant pronunciation at the time when these names were introduced, For example Joseph undoubtedly ended with a stop-sound p, though in writing there occur the two forms, Joseph, Iosep.

2 Judith is the regular form occurring in the OE. poem bearing that title. In the A.-S. Chronicle we have what seems to be the popular French pronunciation of ‘Judith’ used as a personal name. The name of the French Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald and wife of Aethelwulf appears in the different manuscripts of the Chronicle as : Iuytte A, Iuette B, Iudette C, Iuætte D, Iothete E.

1 The names ‘Paul’ and ‘Saul’ seem to illustrate this difference. Paul, coming into popular use, has undergone the regular OF. sound-change and appears regularly as Pols, Pol. ‘Saul,‘ on the other hand, never popularly used, appears as far as I have observed, as Saül.

1 Orm's Ma()é(o)w has the accent regularly on the second syllable. The spirant , however, hardly seems to be French. At least the development of the name in later French does not show the complete shading out of the dental that one would expect to follow the spirant pronunciation.

2 These names appear in Greek respectively as .

page 311 note 1 The subsequent development of Michael in French (Cf. list of names) seems to indicate short -ěl in OF. (Mod. Fr. Michél).

2 The final -p in Orm's Jopess, Amminadap may be explained by native laws of sound change. Cf. explanation of gossip, cheeselip (Kluge, in Paul's Grundriss).

1 If the forms Daui, Iuþewess, etc. came from the French, they must have come in early in the 12th century, along with fei (G. & E.), plente (G. & E.), nativite (Chron. 1113), cariteþ (Orm). The spirant sound th is foreign to French after this period, where it represented an intermediate stage in the shading out of medial and final dentals.

2 The peculiar forms, Noþ, Noþess, Abyud, Abyuþþ in the Ormulum, perhaps find an explanation in this connection. Orm was undoubtedly acquainted with such forms as Daui, for the spirant is supposed to have disappeared from French before 1150. He deliberately chose the older form Daviþ, just as he had chosen cariteþ. He seems to have mistaken Noë for one of the newer forms, which had lost the dental spirant, and for the sake of uniformity and consistency he adds the -þ. The form Abyuþþ perhaps has a similar explanation, though it may be due to confusion with another name. Cf. Abiud, Abiuþ in the Cursor Mundi, 9237, 9238.

1 Both the initial and the length of the final vowel find precedent in OE. Cf. in Hierusalem × × Dan. 2 (the alliterating syllable is the first one), ⊘d in Jerusalem Dan. 708. If my scansion of these half-lines is correct, the synizesis of Orm's form also finds precedent in OE. The OF. has four syllables, e. g., Hierusalem, Pass. Chr. 261. Notice also the later ME. forms, Iurselem, Jud. 3, 17; iursalem, iurselem, iherusalem, Cursor Mundi 7599, 9203, 20946. For a differing opinion cf. Bright, Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xiv, 352.

1 For a definition of the distinction between French and English accentuation in this period, see Behrens, as above, p. 64.

2 That the Teutonic accent on the initial syllable of foreign names did produce lengthening seems to he true in the case of Máre and errsalæm (and possibly in the case of Amminadab, Emmanuæl) in the Ormulum, and in the case of Mihhal. See Pogatscher, as above, p. 31, and the opposed view of Bright in Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xiv, 355.

3 The use of the word ‘prophet,‘ as distinguished from OE. Wit(e)ga, may probably be attributed to French influence. Propheta occurs but once in OE. Cf. H. S. MacGillivray, The Influence of Christianity on the Vocabulary of OE., Halle, 1902.

1 The distinctively native forms are such as : ebreisce folc, iudeisce men, isrælisce bem (bern?) = ‘children of Israel,‘ etc.

1 These words obviously did not have the dental spirant in OF. Cf., Japhet, Mist. Vieil. 6032, Nazaret, Wace's Marie 40. The loss of the dental, which would have followed the intermediate spirant pronunciation, did not occur in these forms. Cf. C. I, 5, above.

1 The names in parentheses are shown to be French by their association with the other names distinctively French in form.

1 Many common names, such as Aaron, Adam, Moises, etc., have been omitted from this list because there is no apparent distinction between the French and the English forms. Many unusual names also have been omitted because unusual names generally retained their Latin form, and hence were the same in French and in English.