An onomastic calendar: July

• July 1: Feast day of Saint Aaron.
• July 2: Elizabeth Tudor was born in 1492.
• July 3: Hugh Capet was crowned king of the Franks in 987.
• July 4: Saint Ulrich of Augsburg died in 974.
• July 5: Joan of the Tower, queen consort of Scotland, was born in 1321.
• July 6: Richard the Lion-Heart ascended the throne of England in 1189.
• July 7: Madeleine of Valois died in 1537.
• July 8: Saint Grimbald died in 903.
• July 9: Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg was born in 1511.
• July 10: Emperor Hadrian died in 138.
• July 11: Martin Frobisher sights Greenland in 1576.
• July 12: Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle is printed in 1493.
• July 13: Alexander III is crowned king of the Scots.
• July 14: Louis VIII became king of France in 1223.
• July 15: Saint Bonaventure died in 1274.
• July 16: Saint Clare of Assisi was born in 1194.
• July 17: Count Baldwin VI of Flanders died in 1070.
• July 18: Godfrey de Bouillon, crusader knight, died in 1100.
• July 19: Philipa of Lancaster died in 1415.
• July 20: Claude, queen of France, died in 1524.
• July 21: Feast day of Saint Victor of Marseilles.
• July 22: William Wallace is defeated at the Battle of Falkirk.
• July 23: Saint Bridget of Sweden died in 1373.
• July 24: Mathilda of Tuscany died in 1115.
• July 25: Casimir I the Restorer was born in 1016.
• July 26: Pope Celestine died in 432.
• July 27: Conrad II of Italy died in 1101.
• July 28: Rodrigo de Bastedas, conquistador and explorer, died in 1527.
• July 29: Olaf II of Norway died in 1030.
• July 30: Italian painter Giorgio Vasari was born in 1511.
• July 31: Ignatius of Loyola died in 1556.

#Namehunt: Celestina

We received a request to determine if the name Celestina — such a gorgeous name — was used in 16th C Italy. The masculine form, Celestine, was the name of a couple of popes (and an anti-pope!) which means it wasn’t entirely unheard of amongst men, but papal names, unlike saint’s names, didn’t necessary bump the popularity of their corresponding feminine forms. So just because examples of Celestinus can be found floating around wasn’t any guarantee, or even indication, that we’d find any Celestinas.

But we did! Our earliest example is one Celestina that occurs in Il “liber” di S. Agata di Padova, from 1304.

Our next earliest example is an English one from Canterbury, Kent, in 1349/50. This is an unusual name to find in England at this time; during the 13th C there was a fashion of adopting fanciful Latinate names, but most of these names fell out of use within a century. So where does this English Celestina come from? Was she maybe not English by birth? We’ll never know.

Interestingly, a century later, the daughter of one of the papal collectors in England, the Italian Simone da Teramo, named his daughter Celestina. We haven’t yet found a precise date for her, but Simone was collector between 1420 and 1425, so she was presumably born sometime in the early 15th C.

Then we move into the more murky of the data that we’ve found. There is a reference to one Celestina filia Thomas which occurs on p. 34 of vol. 14 of Studi piemontesi; unfortunately, we don’t have access to enough of this journal to be able to determine the date of this record. If any of our readers have access to this journal, we would love to have a copy of the article covering p. 34!

How about the 16th century? Well, we did find a 16th C example, from 1502. But it’s from Barcelona, not Italy, so we’re still on the lookout! If you know of any 16th C Italian examples, please share in the comments.

An onomastic calendar: December

• December 1: Anna Komnene was born in 1083.
• December 2: Gerard Mercator died in 1594.
• December 3: Berengar I was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 915.
• December 4: Theobald II of Navarre died in 1270.
• December 5: Pope Julius II was born in 1443.
• December 6: Baldassare Castiglione was born in 1478.
• December 7: Saint Columba was born in 521.
• December 8: Mary Queen of Scots was born in 1542.
• December 9: Malcolm IV of Scotland died in 1165.
• December 10: Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa in 1510.
• December 11: Llywellyn, last sovereign Prince of Wales, died in battle in 1282.
• December 12: Stephen Báthory, king of Poland, died in 1586.
• December 13: Pope Celestine V resigns the papacy in 1294.
• December 14: James V of Scotland died in 1542.
• December 15: Basil II, emperor of the Byzantine Empire, died in 1025.
• December 16: Henry VI was crowned king of France in 1431.
• December 17: William I Longsword was assassinated in 942.
• December 18: Theodulf of Orleans died in 821.
• December 19: Agnes, Duchess of Burgundy, died in 1327.
• December 20: Margaret of Provence, queen of France, died in 1295.
• December 21: Pope Honorius II was elected in 1124.
• December 22: Stephen of Blois was crowned king of England in 1135.
• December 23: Berengaria of Navarre, Queen of England, died in 1230.
• December 24: Constance of Austria, queen of Poland, was born in 1588.
• December 25: Merry Christmas!
• December 26: Arthur III of Brittany died in 1458.
• December 27: German mathematician Johannes Kepler was born in 1571.
• December 28: Alaric II became king of the Visigoths in 484.
• December 29: Thomas Beckett was murdered in 1170.
• December 30: Vasily I of Moscow was born in 1371.
• December 31: Eleonora Gonzaga was born in 1493.