On 11-Aug-21 4:11 AM, Peter G. M. Dale wrote:
Greetings, I recognize my post from earlier today was a bit lengthy. Thus, I've set out below my principal inquiries in the event anyone has commentary to provide. Much appreciated! Cheers, Pete
[I] Do the names of Goismer’s sons – Alger, Guncelin, Herluin, Humphrey, Walter, William and Ralph – shed any light on his possible background?
[II] Does the use of the names - Geoffrey x3, Richard x2, Gilbert x2, Conan, Ralph, Reginald, Robert, Roger, Walter, and William - by the sons of Goismer necessarily derive from ancestors/relatives or could they have been selected in honour of their
superiors including members of the Clare family?
I'm afraid your questions can't be meaningfully answered. You are
basically asking "Was there a general rule for naming and did this apply
in a particular instance?"
The only sensible response is to say there was observable custom, not
fixed rule, and that without much more evidence than you present we have
no way of discerning how far custom was observed in any whole generation.
If an heir had the same name as his paternal grandfather and a second
son the same name as his maternal grandfather, we can suppose that this
was from familial piety rather than coincidence. But even then we may be deluding ourselves in a specific case.
The same limited stock of names was spread from the top to the bottom of
the social hierarchy. Serfs belonging to abbeys demonstrably used the
same names as lords who were - as laymen - not their direct superiors in
a feudal sense. Medieval people favoured names and found them auspicious
for reasons that we can only guess at. Their modern descendants still do.
Peter Stewart
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