Chapter LXIX: Section XII: Agnes

The word ἄγος (agos), a thing to which religious awe attaches, gave the adjective ἄγνος (agnos), sacred or pure, whence was named the tree whose twigs the Greek matrons strewed on their beds during the festival of Demeter, and which the Romans called by a reduplication of its title in both languages, the Agnus Castus. Agnus, the Latin for a lamb, is said to have come from the consecration of those creatures to sacred purposes; and thence, too, came Agnes, the name of the gentle Roman maiden, the place of whose martyrdom named the church of Sant' Agnese. It is said to have been built by Constantine the Great only a few years after her death, on the spot where she was put to the utmost proof; and it retains an old mosaic, representing her veiled only by her long hair, and driven along by two fierce soldiers.

Another very ancient church of Sant' Agnese covers the catacomb where she was interred, and she has always been a most popular saint both in the East and West, but most especially at her native city. There a legend became current, probably from her name, that as her parents and other Christians were weeping over her grave in the catacomb, she suddenly stood before them all radiant in glory, and beside her a lamb of spotless whiteness. She assured them of her perfect bliss, encouraged them, and bade them weep no more; and thus in all later representations of her, a lamb has always been her emblem, though it does not appear in the numerous very early figures of her that are still preserved.

A saint who was the object of so many legends could not fail of numerous votaries, and Agnes was common in England and Scotland, and was a royal name in France and Germany. The Welsh form is Nest. A Welsh Nest was the mother of Earl Robert of Gloucester. Iñes, as the Spaniards make it, indicating the liquid sound of the _gn_ by the cedilla, gained a mournful fame in Portugal by the fate of Iñez de Castro, and Iñesila has been derived from it, while the former English taste for stately terminations to simple old names made the word Agneta. It is more common in Devonshire than in other counties. In Durham, there is a curious custom of calling any female of weak intellect, “a Silly Agnes.” Italy has invented the masculine Agnolo and Agnello, often confounded with Angelo, and used as its contraction.[47]

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ Welsh. │ Manx. │ French. │
│Agnes │Nest │Nessie │Agnes │
│Aggie │ │ │Agnies │
│Agneta │ │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Italian. │ Spanish. │ Portugues │ Swedish. │
│Agnese │Ines │Inez │Agnes │
│Agnete │Inesila │ │Agneta │
│Agnesca │ │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Danish. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Slavonic. │
│Agnes │Agnessa │Agnizka │Neza │
│Agnete │Agnessija │ ————————— │Nezika │
│ │ │ Bohemian. │ │
│ │ │Anezka │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Servian. │ Lett. │ Esthonian │ Lithuanian. │
│Janja │Agnese │Neto │Agnyta │
│ ————————— │Nese │ │ │
│ Lusatian. │ │ │ │
│Hanza │ │ │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

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Footnote 47:

Jameson; Brand, _Popular Antiquities_; Liddell and Scott; Michaelis.