[ANSTHRLD] FW: Devise in progress: William Black Dragon (Ironwyrm)

[tmcd at panix.com]

"Don and Monica" <dmriney at earthlink.net> wrote:
> well if he doesn't mind german there is Willhelm Schwartz von Worms

Which doesn't mean what he wants.  That's Black Willy of the city of
Worms.

If someone on this list can't help him -- though given the number of
Domesday Book entries in Reaney and Wilson, I'd be surprised if
someone can't help him with a name "lower than high born in late
eleventh, early twelfth century Britain" -- I'll echo the suggestion
that he go to S. Gabriel.

They can also give him a crash course in onomastics.  "Anyone from the
army rank of Sergeant, middle class, or below seldom seems have last
names other than descriptive, occupational, locational or nicknames."
is, I believe, misleading: I believe everyone ABOVE those ranks had
descriptive, occupational, locational, or nickname surnames too.  The
examples that come to mind respectively are: Duke William the Bastard
and Robert Bossu ("the hunchback": Robert Beaumont, Earl of
Leicester); Earl William Marshal; any number of Foo de Bar names, like
Roger of Hereford, Humphrey de Bohun; King Henry Plantagenet, King
Richard I the Lion-Hearted, and Robert II Curthose (Duke of Normandy).
He left out the big category of patronymics: King Henry II FitzEmpress
most famously.  All these from Brother Cadfael's time or a little
later.

Also, "army rank of sergeant" didn't exist until much later.  Sergeant
tenantry was just a variety of feudal tenure, owing services that were
not knightly.

"Saxons were adopting Norman names to avoid oppression"?  Aping the
upper classes was a lower-class sport until just a few generations
ago.  And as I wrote elsewhere,

    From: Timothy McDaniel (tmcd at panix.com)
    Subject: Re: Hydrogen Utopia
    Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
    Date: 2002-09-05 13:56:59 PST

    ... The Frenchity or Normanitude of the aristocracy in England is
    generally greatly exaggerated.  By the time of Henry II of England
    (mid to late 1100s), according to _Henry II_ by W. L. Warren,
    there were chroniclers noting that there was little difference
    between lords of French descent and others, and Ordericus Vitalis
    noted that he hadn't learned French until he was seven.  The whole
    "Norman pig/Saxon dog/Robin Hood" is well out of proportion.

Though that's about 50-75 years after his desired turn-of-the-12th-C
persona, and (as always) I invite correction if I'm wrong.  I'd love
to know more about Norman treatment of Saxons qua Saxons (as opposed
to qua anyone-who-is-not-us), just because of the strong SCA and
popular idea of Norman tyranny.

(Note: *I*, Daniel de Lincolia, am indeed a Norman pig-dog tyrant.
But that's just because I'm Norman, I'm a pig-dog, and I'm a tyrant.
I really don't care in the slightest whether you're French, German,
Spanish, Danish, or Saxon.  I'll tyrannize you just the same.
I assure you there is not a hint of racial or personal animosity in my
tyranny.  I'm an equal-opportunity tyrant.  And I think I speak for my
fellow Normans in this too.  Wherever we go, we cheerfully tyrannize
ANYONE, from the repressed freemen of Norway to the whimpering Greeks
of Sicily, from the brutalized paynim of Jerusalem to the groaning
slaves of Dublin.)

(But I digress.)

Daniel de Licolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com; tmcd at us.ibm.com is my work address