[Sca-cooks] Sabrina Welserin

[Decker, Terry D.]

You really don't need another cookbook to make the case for Welser.  The
Welsers, Fuggers and Hochstetters were the great banking families of
Augsburg.  Sabina's trading recipes with Georges Fugger says that she was
one of "the" Welsers.

There is a certain problem with the transfer of cognate names between
cultures.  The use of Sabina in Italian is understandable.  The Sabine is
the hill region northeast of Rome and the people who live there are Sabines.
The Sabines were amalgamated into the Romans by the 3rd Century BCE.  This
still leaves the problem of how Sabina moves from Italian into other
languages as a name.

There is a Saint Sabina, martyred in the 2nd Century CE, which is probably
where the name comes into usage in Middle Europe.

Sabrina is a little trickier to place.  It probably derives from Brittonic
*?abr?n? (the "sigma" is aspirated giving the "S" sound in Latin).  This
appears in Old and Middle Welsh as "Habren" and in modern Welsh as "Hafren."
The Britonnic form is [resumably what passed into Old English.  While the
princess may have received he name from the river, the "Sabren" form of the
name may actually be older than the "Habren" form.

The legend is that of King Locrine and his Queen Guendolen.  Locrine was in
love with Estrildis, but was forced to marry Guendolen.  He had a son by
Guendolen and a daughter (Sabrina) by Estrildis.  Guendolen found out, a
civil war ensued and Locrine was killed, securing the throne for Guendolen's
son.  Guendolen then drowned Sabrina and Estrildis in the Severn.  IIRC, the
legend first appears in written form about the 12th Century.

Geoffrey of Monmouth use the Latin form "sabrinae" in his "History of
Britian" as well as the Welsh form "Habren," in reference to the Severn.  I
don't have my translation handy to see what he says about the legend.

According to one source, the Latin "sabrinae" translates to "borderland."

BTW, the SCA College of Heralds has turned down Sabrina as not having been
used in period , but I don't believe they were aware of the Brittonic
etymology and (AFAIK) no one made any effort to chase down the original text
of the legend.

The research suggests that you are correct in stating Sabina and Sabrina are
distinctly separate, but I would like to know more about the origin and
derivation of the Latin forms.

Bear


> > I believe you will find Sabina is a variant of
> > Sabrina.  The family name is
> > actually Welser, and I believe the Welserin
> > means something on the order of
> > "of the Welsers."  Unfortunately, Middle German
> > grammar is not a strong
> > suit.
> >
> > Bear
>
> I really don't think so.  I don't have a baby
> name book handy, but I did find this website and
> this coincides with what I remember of the two
> names:
>
> SABINA   f   English, Italian, Spanish,
> Portuguese, Romanian, Polish, Czech
> Feminine form of Sabinus, a Roman cognomen
> meaning "Sabine woman" in Latin. The Sabines were
> an ancient people who lived in central Italy,
> their lands eventually taken over by the Romans
> after several wars. According to legend, the
> Romans abducted several Sabine women during a
> raid. When the men came to rescue them, the women
> were able to make peace between the two groups.
>
> SABRINA   f   English, Italian
> Pronounced: sa-BREEN-a
> From the name of the Severn, a river in Wales,
> which was originally named Habren. In Celtic
> legend Sabrina was the name of a princess who was
> drowned in the Severn. Supposedly the river was
> named for her, but it is more likely that her
> name was actually derived from that of the river.
>
>
> There may be better places to find name
> derivations. YMMV.
>
> As for Welser/Welserin, I do agree with you.
> There is another period German cookbook from
> Sabina's cousin Phillipine Welser, which was
> printed in 1545 about 8 years before Sabina's
> cookbook.
>
> Huette