[ANSTHRLD] Re: Optio

[kobrien at texas.net]

Etienne, thanks for all the clarifications!


> At 02:25 PM 9/7/2004, Mari wrote:
> >I looked back through the messages in this thread and can't find any
> >indication of what the actual desired form of this order name is.  
> >Should the
> >form of <Optio> actually used be singular or plural?  Should the whole order
> >name be in Latin?  (Something like <Ordo Optionum> or whatever the correct
> >genitve is for <Optio>.)  Does anyone know the answers to these questions?
> 
> The intent is for an award rather than an order.  The award confers a 
> military rank as well as an armigerous rank.  The military rank is "Optio" 
> (essentially an NCO or Sergeant level position).

Is that viewed as a rank in Ansteorra's army?  If so, I'd assume it's a 
kingdom only, "tradition" thing?  Military ranks aren't covered in corpora and 
corpora says kingdoms can't create ranks, so we'd need to handle this as 
a "tradition" think like we do with the centurions.  Or else handle it like a 
new "officer" position.  Groups sometimes have non-standard officer positions 
to meet their own needs and this might be an analogous situation.


> Latin is desired for the whole name.
> 
> Of the form options shown by Mari (I love that page on the Laurel site by 
> the way), something like Group + Group, 

Okay.  Looking up the examples for Group + Group, there is only one: "Friars 
Preachers".  This is a specific reference to the monastic order known as the 
Dominicans (they were friars who also preachers).  It could be argued 
that "Friars Preachers" is actually only one Group (rather than Group + 
Group), just in a multi-word form.  The Dominicans were also known as "Black 
Friars" from the color of their habits.  Looking it over, it probably is not a 
good model for us to use for the <Optio> order.


> or Group + Place, 

Group + Place has more examples:

G + P     Brothers Hospitaller of Burgos 1212 Spain                    A 
G + P     Nobles of Tyrol                1361 Austria    Noble company L 
G + P     Nobles of Catalonia            1481 Spain      Noble company L 
G + P & P Hospitallers for Castille and Demi-Cross  [no date] France   E 
G + P     Maestranza of Ronda            1572 Spain      Noble company L 
G + P     Hospitallers for Germany       1382 Germany    AKA Johanniter Order 

Note that this web article uses modern spellings, though the basic 
constructions are period.

So, something meaning 'Optio of Ansteorra' is probably supportable from these 
examples.  They seem to all be plural, so 'Optio(plural form) of Ansteorra' in 
Latin.

If this is what we are looking for, we can put this question to a Latin expert 
to get the correct form.  If there aren't any Latin experts on this list (I'm 
sure NOT one), I can forward the question to Metron Ariston since she tends to 
fix most of the Latin grammar foo on the CoA level.


> seems most 
> desireable.  My Latin is horrible so I will say "Optio Ansteorrae" or more 
> directly (translate as needed) "Optio of Legio Ansteorrae" would be the 
> desire formation.


Meridies used <Legio> in place of <Order>/<Ordo>.  Their order name was <Legio 
Ursi> rather than <Order of the Legio Ursi>.

My money is that <Optio of Legio Ansteorrae> (meaning 'Optio of the Legion of 
Ansteorra' / 'Optio of Ansteorra's Legion') would be returned with the same 
problem that <Order of the Pensioners of the Venerable Guard> had in July 2003.

You can see the full return by searching for "Venerable Guard" at 
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/loar/2003/07/03-07lar.html and reading the second 
hit.

The relevant bits are:

     Pensioners refers to a group of people. Venerable Guard also refers 
     to a group of people. Therefore, the submitted order name Order of 
     the Pensioners of the Venerable Guard uses the construction [group] 
     of the [group]. No evidence was found that this construction was 
     used in period, as is required by RfS III.2.b.ii (which states 
     that "Names of orders and awards must follow the patterns of 
     the names of period orders and awards"). Lacking evidence that 
     the submitted construction follows a pattern used in order names 
     in period, this name is not registerable.

Something like <Legio Optio(plural genitive case)> would mean 'Legion of 
<Optio>s' and would fit the simple [Group] construction model.  So that's 
another option.  But, from your description, having the <Optio>s viewed as a 
Legion may not be what's intended here.

Hope this helps,

Mari