Chapter CXXVI: Section XIX: Town and Country

Urbanus is one who dwells in _urbs_ (a city), a person whose courtesy and statesmanship are assumed, as is shown by the words civil, from _civis_ (a city), and polite, politic, polish, from the Greek πὸλις of the same meaning; and thus Urbane conveys something of grace and affability in contrast to rustic rudeness.

Urbanus is greeted by St. Paul; and another Urbanus was an early pope, from whom it travelled into other tongues as Urbano, Urbani, and Urban.

┌──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Roman. │ Russian. │ Slovak. │Hungarian.│
│Urban │Urbain │Urbano │Urvan │Verban │Orban │
│ │ │ │ │Banej │ │
└──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

In opposition to this word comes that for the rustic, _Pagus_, signifying the country; the word that in Italian becomes _paese_, in Spanish _pais_, in French _pays_. The Gospel was first preached in the busy haunts of men, so that the earlier Christians were towns-folk, and the rustics long continued heathen; whence Paganus, once simply a countryman, became an idolater, a Pagan, and poetized into Paynim, was absolutely bestowed upon the Turks and Saracens in the middle ages. In the mean time, however, the rustic had come to be called _paesano_, _pays_, _paysan_, and _peasant_, independently of his religion; and Spain, in addition to her _payo_ (the countryman), had _paisano_ (the lover of his country); and either in the sense of habitation or patriotism, Pagano was erected into a Christian name in Italy, and Payen in France; whence England took Payne or Pain, still one of the most frequent surnames.

The two Latin words, _per_ (through) and _ager_ (a field), were the source of _peregrinus_ (a traveller or wanderer), also the inhabitant of the country as opposed to the Roman colonist. The same word in time came to mean both a stranger, and above all, one on a journey to a holy place, when such pilgrimages had become special acts of devotion, and were growing into living allegories of the Christian life. This became a Christian name in Italy, because a hermit, said to have been a prince of Irish blood, settled himself in a lonely hut on one of the Apennines, near Modena, and was known there as _il pellegrin_, as the Latin word had become softened. He died in 643, and was canonized as St. Peregrinus, or San Pellegrino; became one of the patrons of Modena and Lucca, and had all the neighbouring spur of the Apennines called after him. Pellegrino Pelligrini is a name that we find occurring in Italian history; and when a son was born at Wesel, to Sir Richard Bertie and his wife, the Duchess of Suffolk, while they were fleeing from Queen Mary’s persecution, they named him Peregrine, “for that he was given by the Lord to his pious parents in a strange land for the consolation of their exile,” as says his baptismal register, and Peregrine in consequence came into favour in the Bertie family; but in an old register the names Philgram, Pilgerlam, and Pilggerlam, occur about 1603.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │
│Peregrine │Pérégrin │Pellegrino │Piligrim │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

To these may perhaps be added the Italian Marino and Marina, given perhaps casually to sea-side dwellers; and their Greek equivalents, Pelagios and Pelagia, both of which are still used by the modern Greeks. Pelagius was used by the Irish, or more properly Scottish, Morgan, as a translation of his own name, and thus became tainted with the connection of the Pelagian heresy; but it did not become extinct; and Pelayo was the Spanish prince who first began the brave resistance that rendered the mountains of the Asturias a nucleus for the new kingdom of Spain.

Some see in his name a sign that the Arian opinions of the Visigoths had some hereditary influence, at least, in nomenclature; and, indeed, Ario occurs long after as a Christian name; others consider Pelago’s classical name to be a sign that the old Celto-Roman blood was coming to the surface above the Gothic.

Switzerland likewise has this name cut down to Pelei, or Poli.[87]

-----

Footnote 87:

Butler; Michaelis.