Fw: Scholastica/Scolastica vars and dims (variants and dimin

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Leo van de Pas

Fw: Scholastica/Scolastica vars and dims (variants and dimin

Legg inn av Leo van de Pas » 28 jan 2006 01:53:01

As I was given this material to use, here it is.

----- Original Message -----
From:
To: "'Leo van de Pas'" <leovdpas@netspeed.com.au>
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 10:41 AM
Subject: RE: Scholastica/Scolastica vars and dims (variants and diminutives)


Hi Leo,

Following this debate, I wanted to provide you with some amo. First, the
name might be well known to all Oxford men (and women, now) because the
origins of the ancient rivalry between town and gown in Oxford revolve
around the St Scholastica's Day massacre which occurred in 1354. I was
certainly aware of the name from my time as an undergrad there in the early
1980s. St Scholastica's Day is 10 Feb., and is still ceremonially marked in
Oxford, when the Mayor and councillors troop to pay their respects and a
symbolic fine for killing 63 Oxford scholars.

Then I checked the LDS website, http://www.familysearch.org and ran a first name
search, which one can do if one chooses the IGI and refines one search down
to one of the particular areas of the world into which they have divided it.
Since we were interested in the incidence of the name and its English/Latin
forms I thought this might prove a useful exercise. When I plugged in
Scholastica I received 151 results spread from the 13th to the 19th
centuries, with only the 15th century unrepresented. Both the form
Scholastica and the variant Scolastica appear. For Africa 2 appear in the
20th century. For the Caribbean Islands, 3 appear. For Central America: 1.
Continental Europe, with 1411 results, shows the variants Scholastika
(German) and Scholastique (French) as well as Scholastica (Latin, used in
Poland, Hungary and in Roman Catholic records in general when kept in
Latin), and so on (Scholastyka is a Polish vernacular variant, for example).
There is NO evidence that Scholastique was ever used in English. Skipping
along to North America (the German section is choc-a-bloc with Scholastica
and Scholastika), where there are 2830 instances of the name and its
variants/derivatives, one sees the form Scholastique, very numerous,
confined entirely to French Canada or its colonial/missionary (Roman
Catholic) offshoots. Scholastica only has 134 instances in North America,
principally among people with French surnames, who, by inference, were
probably Roman Catholics or from that religious background. It may well be
that in the United States, the French form Scholastique (2096
instances)/Scolastique (285 instances)* passed into a wider currency in
English-speaking circles exposed to the French Catholic community, for
example, more widely/generally among Roman Catholics. I love the example of
one Indiana Scholastica whose alternate name was Lesty, presumably derived
from her baptismal name. Scant attention to vowels, the true sign of an
attempt at absorption into the vernacular! In a Pennsylvania case, the
bearer of the name was alternately called Charlotte, and in Iowa, Lottie,
the latter being the common diminutive of the former, perhaps as more
favoured local equivalents of this rare name. Similarly, I have encountered
Evelyn among anglicised Bukovina Germans as the popular equivalent of
Apollonie (German)/Apollonia (Latin), just as many North American Poles
named/baptised Stanislaw/Stanislaus or Cieslaw/Cieslaus become Stanley and
Chester, while in Canada, Ukrainians called Vasil'i, used regularly to get
called Bill by their English-speaking fellows and bosses, which fussy,
anglophone registrars would often lengthen and formalise as William, when
the literal equivalent is Basil, a name not generally noted for the breadth
of its usage in English.

One should point out too that sometimes the English and Latin versions of
names are coterminous/identical. For example, the name Aloysius only exists
in its Latin original as absorbed into current English. One sees this in the
dedication names of parishes named for this saint; they are invariably
called St Aloysius in the English-speaking world. Any forms used in earlier
times do not survive in normal usage. The same applies to Scolast,
interesting though that mediæval English, isolated**, variant may be. I
found no instances of it in the North American or British Isles sections of
the IGI or in the A2A*** databases. Similarly, Scholastique did not occur in
an A2A search at http://www.a2a.org.uk/search/index.asp. The form
Scholastica did, however, appear in 39 catalogues therein.

Now for Free BMD, which shows births, marriages, and deaths registered in
English and Wales (1837-1983) on-line at http://www.rootsweb.com:

There were 26 distinct instances of Scholastica in a database of 111 million
plus records. Of those, 3 were to persons with surnames that were obviously
of non-British origin. One notes the occasional Scholasticus (male) and even
a Scholastious, whose name is later garbled as Scholasteais.

As for Scholastique: there were 2, apparently mother and daughter. Mother
was of French origin going on her names, while daughter had an English
surname, but a French mother. One could check the 1901 census to see if one
could find them to confirm their origins.

I think, however, that that puts paid to the notion that the form
Scholastique is the normal English equivalent of Scholastica, at least in
England and Wales.

Additionally, if one checks PCC wills for the period 1384-1858, at
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/ the following results
appear indicating the rarity of the name in English. One instance is clearly
for someone with foreign ties, and the other from my own county of focus,
Wiltshire:

Description Date Catalogue ref Details
Will of The Honourable Lady Maria Appollonia Scholastica De Rohan otherwise
Mary Chabot, Widow 26 May 1769 PROB 11/948
Will of Scholastica**** Sayer, Widow of Marlborough Saint Peters, Wiltshire
23 November 1686 PROB 11/385

Same database for Scholastique:

Will of Rosalie Scholastique Potier of No 65 Hunter Street Old Kent Road ,
Surrey 23 March 1844 PROB 11/1995 (Clearly someone of francophone origin)

Hunting for earlier uses of names that possibly relate to Scholastica one
finds some items of interest:
Will of Dame Scolast Esterfelde, Widow of Bristol, Gloucestershire 18
December 1518 PROB 11/19
Will of Schollis or Scollis Leach, Widow of Winton, Hampshire 20 January
1654 PROB 11/240

I hope this is of interest.

*=German- or Polish-surnamed folk called Scholastika: 14

**=note the one PCC will instance which may hint at the truth of this form's
occasional usage and hence more widespread survival at least into the
post-mediæval period in England, if not into the present.

***=A2A instance of form Scholast:

SUFFOLK ESTATE

EARLY DEEDS

FILE - Contents of drawer 12 - ref. HA12/B2/12 - date: 1278-1706
item: Conveyance of piece of land with appurts. in Flixton,
Benedict Kemysi, Southelmham St. Peter, to Alan Borel, Flixton. Tues. after
St. Scholast - ref. HA12/B2/12/10 - date: 17 Feb 1349

****=it is in Wiltshire that I encountered my relative Practsey Ernle,
daughter of Thomas Ernle, gent., of Braydon, Purton, Wilts. (Archdeaconry
Court of Wilts. Will made 1694 and proved 1695). After tracing the Ernle
pedigree through wills and other evidence, I was able to see that the name
derived from her grandmother, Praxeda or Praxed Lambe, daughter of John
Lambe, lord of the manor of East Coulston. Elsewhere I see the name used
occasionally as Praxey. Never very common in England, it dates back to
pre-Reformation times, and Praxed(a) (Lambe) Ernle had an aunt or great-aunt
Praxeda (Lambe) Long, born either before, or on the cusp of the Reformation.
PCC will evidence of the name:


Description Date Catalogue ref Details
Will of Praxed Backer, Widow of Shenley, Hertfordshire 01 September 1673
PROB 11/342
Will of Praxey Turtis, Wife of Saint Sepulchre London 21 February 1740 PROB
11/700

One wonders if the following is an even later and greater contraction of the
name?
Description Will of Prace Spear, Wife of Clifton , Gloucestershire Date 29
July 1819 Catalogue reference PROB 11/1618


-----Original Message-----
From: Leo van de Pas [mailto:leovdpas@netspeed.com.au]
Sent: January 27, 2006 2:04 PM
To: GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Scolastica

Dear Nat,

First my apology for slightly disagreeing with you. You are the scholar and
I am not.

You say that the name had minimal currency ourside the circles of educated
piety in medieval Europe. Of the 17 people I have in my data base I have a
year of birth for only eleven, 1509, 1577, 1795, 1851, 1868, 1901, 1904,
1922, 1932, 1944 and 1947.

I wish I had access to primary sources for these kind of people, but not
being able should we stay away from such people and the secondary sources we
can find?

I quoted that Scholastica de Champagne came from ES III/1 Tafel 122, the
same Scholastica can be found also in ES Volume II tafel 47, in both cases
she is called Scholastica, the Latin form.

In the back of Volume II is quite a list of sources used for Tafel 46 and 47
but the most obvious seems : Erganzungen zu den Konigen von Navarra
a.d.h.Blois-Champagne von Ricardo Mateos y Sainz de Medrano/Barcelona and
Jaime de Salazar y Acha/Madrid.

Before discussing the name Scholastica should we track down those volumes to
see which primary sources they had used?

If we had to there could be very little discussion on gen-med. If Richardson
had said, without quoting any source, the French form is
Scolastique/Scholastique, I would not have said a word, the only word coming
to my mind would be _agree_

On the continent, still today, we have the problem that many people have
Latinised first names, in my case I have two. Most people call me Leo but
there are also a number who call me Leonardus.

I am pleased that you agree that Scholastica seems used _secularly_ as well
as officially.

With best wishes
Leo van de Pas


----- Original Message -----
From: "Nathaniel Taylor" <nathanieltaylor@earthlink.net>
To: <GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: Scolastica


In article <1138394474.389234.60570@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
"Douglas Richardson" <royalancestry@msn.com> wrote:

"Leo van de Pas" wrote:
If you go to my website http://www.genealogics.org and in Easy Name
Search
enter Scholastica you will find 17 people, men and women, who had this
name
in this spelling.
The Scolastique de Champagne, Richardson refers to, can be found in ES
III/1
Tafel 122, ES preferred the Latin spelling, Scholastica, in France she
may
well be Scholastique or Scolastique, but that doesn't make it _modern
vernacular_.
With Best wishes
Leo van de Pas

Using the Latin form of a person's name like Henrietta Maria instead of
Henriette Marie is kinda silly I think. But, don't tell Pas that.

I think this whole genre of argument is worthless, except to correct
obvious misreadings of names when quoting primary sources.

That being said, especially for a name like this, which had minimal
currency outside the circles of educated piety in medieval western
Europe, I expect that almost all users of the name would have gravitated
to the Latin form, Scholastica, both in written and spoken usage, since
its most frequent usage was within the convent. Moreover, speakers of
French in the twelfth century still often declined (in verse and likely
in speech) the endings of nouns and adjectives derived from what we call
the first & second declensions in Latin, and 'Scholastica' is one of
those. So I am quite comfortable with giving even more ordinarily
'secular' names of this type their Latin rather than modern French
endings (or leaving both Latin and moderm French endings off if the name
itself is a Germanic one consisting of undeclined roots).

Nat Taylor

a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/

my children's 17th-century American immigrant ancestors:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltay ... rantsa.htm


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