Chapter CCXVIII: Section VI: Power

_Magan_ is the Gothic and Saxon to be able, whence our defective _may_, and a number of other words in all the various northern tongues, in especial _main_ or _chief_. The names from it are chiefly of German origin. Maginfred, or Powerful-peace, was a fine Old German name, which, by the time it came to the brave but unfortunate Sicilian, son of Frederick II., had been worn down to Manfred, whence he was called by his subjects Manfredi, by his French foes Mainfroi, and by his English contemporaries Mainfroy.

Meginhard, main power, was a chronicler of the early ages, and in 1130 appears in the Cambrai registers. The Germans used it as Mainhart, and the English surname Maynard is from it. Meginrat made Meinrad, or powerful council, and Maginhild is still in use in the North as Magnild.

The _main_ land is, in fact, the chief land, the _main_, the chief sheet of water, or sea, and _might_ and _main_ are so closely connected together, that Maginhild is the most natural step to Mahthild, Main heroine to Might heroine; for _maht_ is really the modern German _macht_, and our own _might_, and both these mighty names were in early use in Germany. Mahthild was the wife of the emperor Henry the Fowler, and afterwards became the sainted abbess of Quedlingburg. Another Swabian Mechtild was canonized after being abbess of Adilstetten; and so fashionable did the name become, that all the French maidens, who were not Alix, seem to have been Mahthild; and in Italy it was borne by the Countess Matilda, the friend of Gregory VII., whose bequest was one of the pope’s first steps to the temporal power, and who is introduced by Dante in the flowery fields of Paradise. The Flemings call it Mahault, and thus term the lady, who, as the wife of William the Conqueror, brought it to England. Molde, as the Normans were pleased to term it, was regarded as so decidedly a Norman name, that the Scottish-Saxon Eadgyth was made to assume it, and it continued the regnant royal name until it sunk beneath the influences of the Provençal Alienor. It seems as if Matilde had been freshly introduced in Flanders when Count Philip married Matilda of Portugal; and this, and the old traditional Mehaut, went on side by side, just as in England did the full name Matilda, and the Anglicized Norman contraction Maude. Of late years Maude has been fashionable, though not so near the original, nor so really graceful in sound as Matilda. The earlier Mall and Moll were from Matilda, not Mary, which came much later into use.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│English. │French. │Italian. │Bavarian. │
│Matilda │Mathilde │Matilda │Mechtild │
│Molde │Mahaud │ ————————— │Mechel │
│Mall │Mehaut │German. │Melchel │
│Maud │ │Mathilde │ │
│Tilda │ │ ————————— │ │
│Tilly │ │Hamb. │ │
│ │ │Tilde │ │
│ │ │Tille │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Maatfred and Maatulf were old masculines.

From _may_ and _might_ we pass to our other defective auxiliary _can_. ‘Knowledge is power,’ is an idea deeply rooted in our languages, for the difference between _I ken_ and _I can_ is well-nigh imperceptible. The Sanscrit _gna_, forming the Greek verb γιγνώσκω (gignosco), reappears in the Latin _nosco_, and the Anglo-Saxon _cnawan_. Another Anglo-Saxon form is _cunnan_, answering to the Danish _kjende_, Iceland _kunna_, German _kennan_. Thence our word _cunning_, knowing, and _cuth_, the past participle, known, noted, or dexterous, whence came several North-Anglian names, Cutha, Cuthwealh, Noted power; Cuthred, Noted council; Cuthwine, Noted friend; Cuthburh, Noted pledge; and chief of all Cuthbryht, the great saint of Lindisfarn in his lifetime, of Durham after his death, when the wanderings of his relics rendered his fame so great that Cuthbert is still national among the peasantry of Northumbria and the Lothians.

_Kann_ seems to have been originally a past tense of _ken_, and the Teutonic mind concluded that to have learnt is to be able, for all adopted the word _can_ without an infinitive, and varied it into past tenses. To be able was likewise to dare, whence the old Teuton _kuoni_, Frank _chuon_, Saxon _cene_, German _kuhn_, bold.

Be this as it may, a large class of names has arisen from these words of knowledge and action, earliest of the bearers of which should stand Kunimund, king of the Gepidæ, and Chunimund, king of the Suevi, both meaning Able protection. Chuonrath, Able council, or Bold-speech, was also Suevic, and in the form of Konrad, afterwards a world-wide name in the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, till the last of their generous though impetuous blood was shed on the scaffold of Corradino, as Naples fondly termed its unfortunate young heir, the Conradin of history. Pity for his untimely fate assisted to spread the name through all the German dependencies, and it has become so common that, like Vasili, Tom, and Heinz, Künz has descended to cats. It has the feminine Cunzila; and our old Mercian King Cenred represented it in England.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │
│Conrad │Conrade │Cohat │Corrado │
│Cenred │Quenes │ │Currado │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ German. │ Bavarian. │ Swiss. │ Swedish. │
│Konrad │Kadl │Chuedli │Konrad │
│Kunz │Kuenl │Kudli │ ————————— │
│Kurt │Kuenz │Chuedler │ Netherlands. │
│Kuno │Kunl │Kored │Koenraad │
│ │ │Koredli │Court │
│ │ │Chuered │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Danish. │ Russian. │ Bohemian. │ Slovak. │
│Cort │Konrad │Kunad │Kunsch │
│ │Kunrat │ ————————— │ │
│ │Kondratij │ Lusatian. │ │
│ │ │Kunat │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Kunigund, or Bold war, was the name of a daughter of the counts of Luxemburg, who was wife to Henry of Bavaria, the sainted emperor, and shared in his canonization, rendering her name national in Bavaria. Another royal saint reigning in Hungary added to its honours, nor has it ever sunk into disuse.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ French. │ Italian. │Portuguese. │ German. │ Bavarian. │
│Cunigonde │Cunegonda │Cunegundis │Kunigunde │Kunl │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

The West Saxon Cenbyrht is the same with the German Kunibert; and Wessex likewise reckoned among her kings Cenfyrth, or able peace, Cenfus, bold impetuosity; while Mercia has Cenhelm and Cenwulf.

Alternating with these are Cynric, Cynebald, Cynewald, Cyneburh, Cynethryth, whose first syllable is _cyn_, _kin_, or _kind_, meaning, of course, kindred or lineage. Some refer Kunibert and Kunigund to this same _kin_ instead of _kuhn_. This word _cyn_ is one of those regarded as the root of king, _cyning_, the son of his race or kindred.

Another word seems to have had the same double meaning of ability being strength; for _svinn_, which is wise in the northern tongues, is in those of central Europe, strong; the English _swith_, Gothic _swinths_, German _swind_; whence the present _geschwind_, and swift; moreover, _swindig_ is much, or many, in vulgar Dutch, and to _swindle_ is probably to be too much for the victim.

Suintila was an old Gothic king of Spain, Swithbert, one of the early Anglo-Saxon missionaries, especially honoured as the converter of the kindred land of Friesland, where he was revered as St. Swibert. Swithelm was another Saxon form; but the most noted amongst us was Swithun, the bishop of Winchester, tutor to King Alfred, and endowed with many supposed miracles, the best known of which was the forty days' rain, by which, like other honest English saints, he testified his displeasure at having his bones meddled with. The Germans have had Swidburg, Swintfried, Swidger; but in general this has served as a feminine termination, as in Melicent, Frediswid, and in all the many _swiths_ and _swinds_ of the Franks and Goths.

Whether this be the root or not, Svein is in the North a strong youth, generally a servant, but in the form of Svend becoming the favourite name of the kings of Denmark, belonging to him whom Ethelred’s treachery brought down on England, where it was called Swayn, and translated into Latin as Sueno, while Tasso calls the crusading Swend, Sveno. Svinbjorn occurs in Iceland, and is our Swinburn. Svenke, again, is the active or slender youth. It is amusing to see how, from a strong man, the swain became a young man, then a bachelor, then a lover, and, finally, a shepherd.

Another of the mighty words that have been formed into names is _vald_, the near relative of the Latin _valeo_. Our verb _to wield_ continues the Anglo-Saxon _wealdan_, which named the wealds of Kent, nay, and the world itself.

Vald still stands alone in the North, and once was the name of a Frank abbot of Evreux; St. Valdus, in Latin, St. Gaud, in French.

The leading name is, however, Waldheri, Powerful-Warrior appearing as the young prince of Aquitaine, who, in the curious Latin poem which seems to represent the Frankish _Nibelungenlied_ in the south of France, flies from Attila’s court with his fellow-hostage, the Burgundian Hildegunna, and her treasure, and repulses the pursuing Gunther and Hagano. This same Walther was said to have afterwards reigned thirty years in Aquitaine, and, no doubt, the name was already common there, when, about 990, it came to saintly glory, through a monastic saint of that dukedom, who, being followed by two others, caused it to be spread far and wide. Indeed, there are twenty-eight Walters in Domesday, and Cambrai made plentiful use of it in the same form, till, about 1300, the spelling was altered to the French Gautier. Walther von Vogelwied, the Minnesinger, who bequeathed a perpetual dole to the birds of the air at his tomb, well deserved that the memory of his name should be kept up in Germany, and it has always been very popular. Wat, as a contraction, is as old as Rufus’s time, and Water was in use, at least, in Shakespeare’s time, when he shows the prophecy of Suffolk’s death by water fulfilled by the name of his assassin.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ Irish. │ French. │ Italian. │
│Walter │Thaiter │Waltier │Gualtiero │
│Water │ │Gualtier │ ———————— │
│Wat │ │Wautier │ Spanish. │
│Watty │ │Gatier │Guttierre │
│Wattles │ │Gautier │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Portuguese. │ Netherlands. │ Lettish. │ Dutch. │
│Gualter │Gualterus │Waters │Wolder │
│Gualterio │Walter │ ———————— │ │
│ │Wouter │ Swiss. │ │
│ │Wout │Watli │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Waldemar is an old German form imported by the Normans to England, and sometimes supposed to have been carried to Russia, and to have turned into Vladimir; but this has been traced to a genuine Slavonic source, though it is used by the Russians to represent Walter.

This commencement is almost exclusively German; its other varieties are Waldobert, or Walbert, the Gualberto of Italy, Waldrich, and, perhaps, Walpurg, though she is more probably from _val_, slaughter.

Frodhr, Wise or learned, is sometimes an epithet, but is also used for a name, and Latinized into Frotho. The Germans have it in combination as Frodwin, wise friend, Frodbert and Frodberta, whence the French make Flobert and Floberte.

The root _mah_, which made the Sanscrit _mahat_, Zend _maz_, Greek _megas_, Latin _magnus_, Kelt _mawr_, comes forth again in Teutonic, with _mære_, or _mara_, in Anglo-Saxon, with its comparatives _mœrre_ and _mœriste_, whence our _more_ and _most_. This same sense of greatness formed the word _maara_, fame, and _maren_, to celebrate, both old German, and it is the commencement of the Frank chieftain’s name from whom all the princes of the earlier race were called Meerwings, Merowig, or Famed men, the Meerwig of German writers and Meroveus of Latinity, whence the Merovée of French history.

Our own Anglian Mercians had among their royal line Merowald, Merehelm, and Merewine; but, in general, _mer_, or _mar_, is used as a termination rather than a commencement, and then is always masculine. Merohelm is also called Merchelm, so the French saint, ‘Marculphe,’ _may_ have been Merowulf, though he now looks more like Markulf, a border wolf.[148]

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Footnote 148:

Munch; Sismondi; Butler; Junius; Kemble; Michaelis; Lappenburg;
Mariana; Weber and Jamieson; Donovan.