Heluna Ellasdatter - deleted suffix "princess of Norway"

Not to mention that the titles prince and princess for the children of kings weren't used in European kingdoms until about the late 15th and early 16th centuries ;)

Until then, the word prince had a generic meaning -- a very powerful magnate, whether king, duke, or something else.

We should avoid tarting up the profiles on Geni with fake titles.

I considered deleting the last name too.

I assume "...datter" in this case is Danish, but is it a nod to her husband being Danish(?) or was the Geni user who created the profile Danish, or is the source for Sigurd marrying Helluna of Danish origin?

What naming convention would be appropriate for "English" royals in the 9th century (i assume you know!:-))?

I think the last name should be deleted their are enough fake trees

That's a bit harsh Judy, i didn't mean she is not a daughter of Ella, just that the use of a Danish patronym seems to me very odd for an "English" noblewoman.

FYI,

In another discussion one seemingly very knowledgeable Geni member describes that the story of Sigurd marrying Heluna originates from Snorre:

http://www.geni.com/discussions/136928?msg=950260

But scroll down a bit further and another seemingly very knowledgeable Geni member explains that he thinks Heluna is a complete fabrication:

http://www.geni.com/discussions/136928?msg=951688

IF Snorre does describe this marriage then i think that is a good enough reason to leave this profile in place even if it seems historically unlikely.

There is no evidence that Anglo-Saxon women used a patronymic. Some people think they might have, but if so, no evidence survives.

The most common patronymic for Anglo-Saxon man was -ing, but when they appear in Scandinavian sources they are often called -son.

An easy reference for these things is PASE database (Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England): http://www.pase.ac.uk/jsp/index.jsp.

Checking there, this Ælla is ÆLLE 3. The only relationship mentioned in English sources for him is a brother Osberht. No children.

BTW, PASE prefers the spelling Ælle for the three kings of that name, but Ælla for the three ministers. For this Ælle it records variants Alle (1), Alli (1), Ælla (1), and Ælle (1)

So questions to ask are:

1. Does PASE use Snorre as a source

2. Does Snorre mention Heluna

We need someone familiar with the Yingling Saga to chime in.

I'm only half following this discussion. Perhaps I should pay more attention.

The Tale of Ragnar's Sons says Sigurd's wife was Blaeja, daughter of Ælla.

http://www.germanicmythology.com/FORNALDARSAGAS/ThattrRagnarsSonar....

Flateyjarbók (redacted, say 1387) says Sigurd's wife was Heluna, daughter of Ælla.

https://books.google.com/books?id=rLBUAAAAcAAJ&dq=Flateyjarb%C3...

PASE does not use Snorri. PASE uses only primary evidence -- Anglo-Saxons charters, etc.

I missed something. Why are we looking at Snorri??

Online saga translations are easy to find:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/02ynglga.htm

No Herluna.

Ok, so Flateyjarbók and one of the sagas gives Sigurd a wife who is the daughter of Ælla, good enough for me!

I mentioned Snorri because someone in another Discussion linked to this profile implied that the Yinglingsaga was the main source for Sigurd marrying a daughter of Ælla. So Judy's suggestion that we delete the last name as "fake" seems to have been answered.

"Flateyjarbók and one of the sagas"

You want to cite exact sources, so say instead the Tale of Ragnar's Sons and the Jómsvíking saga.

The Jómsvíking saga is part of Ólaf Tryggvasons sage, which is part of Flateyjarbók.

This also answers the question about her patronymic. Notice that Flateyjarbók calls her "Helunu dottur Ella konungs" (Heluna daughter of king Ella). The Tale of Ragnar's Sons uses a similar locution. You could give her a patronymic but it's not in the sources.

Digression: What, if any, did noble and common women from this time and through the middle ages, use for lastnames in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and all the isles belonging to Great Britain today?

Depends on the time period ;)

Remi, I'm not avoiding your question but there really is not an easy answer. People want to take short cuts and find a "rule of thumb", but the best advice is always to check the original records.

The general practice changed over time and was different in different areas.

There is no evidence that Anglo-Saxon women used surnames, but we know that women in Celtic and Norse areas used patronymics.

Surnames start in England after the Norman Conquest, but they weren't immediately hereditary. In many areas they were still subject to quirky changes into the 14th and 15th centuries.

In the early stages of English surnames, women are often called by their father's surname even after marriage, and sometimes they have the surname of a deceased husband even though they have remarried.

From about 1350 or 1400 it was a general rule that women in the core English cultural area used their father's surname before marriage and their husband's surname after marriage. By the 1600s it was a settled matter of common law that women had their husband's surname. By the 1700s it was settled that they had no right to keep their maiden name. That rule lasted well into the 1900s.

However, women on the English periphery followed other rules. Welsh women began taking their husband's surnames in imitation of the English almost as soon as the Welsh began adopting English-style surnames in the 16th century.

But, in the Scottish lowlands and in northern England, married women often kept their maiden names and used the legal formula "alias [husband's surname]" That custom starts to die out after about 1600, and women start following the English rules.

In the Irish areas of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, women routinely kept their surnames without taking a married name until the 1700s and in some areas the 1800s.

The experts say that this all has to do with a change in the culture, where women belonged to their father's family even after marriage changing to an idea that they left their father's family to join their husband's family (and received their share of the inheritance in the form of a dowry, which cut off any further inheritance rights).

Very similar to the Roman idea of marriage cum mano versus marriage sine mano (without or without a transfer of authority to the husband).

Justin,

The fact that you know these sorts of things "off the top of your head" simply amazes me.

Specifically, in your opinion, should I make this profile "Heluna, daughter of Ælla" aka Blaeja or vice versa?

But then, Justin, if they didn't use lastnames of any sort, how did they distinguish between Judith, the daughter of Ælla of Northumbria (yes I know it's a fictional relation from the series Vikings), and Judith, the daughter of Charles II le Chauve (who is a real person), (supposing two persons living close by each other at the same time and of the same class in the society)?

Please, bear with me in my thought experiment ;)

Alex, I've been reading this stuff for 45 years or more. It would be surprising if I didn't know it. What's surprising is that I can't yet explain it in simple terms. My messages always seem to go on and on and on ;)

I don't see a right or wrong answer with Heluna. If it were me, I would enter her as Blaeja / Heluna, and leave any reference to Ælla out of her name. I'd ask for a curator note that says "Probably a daughter of Ælla" then explain in the overview. In other words, keep some of the ambiguity without harping on it.

That's just me, though. There are probably a dozen or more different ways of doing it that would be totally defensible.

Apropos, Blaeja / Heluna, My thought is that Blaeja, means just dark eye, initially as a standing epithet that matched the husbands "snake in the eye", at some point it breaks into two versions of her name.

(Black, blue or grey, all could be called "blue", blaa, blå, at this time, there were no distinct different in that.)

Remi, I know you know so I also know that you're leading up to something ;)

Surnames were originally nothing more than bynames or nicknames. When you have more than one person with the same name in the same crowd you have to find a way to distinguish them conversationally.

Nightclubs are a good example, even though it's funny to think of it. Even if you know someone's surname, you can't assume that everyone else knows. Back in my nightclubbing days people called me Red Justin to distinguish from Big Justin and Pretty Justin, who were also in our circle. ;)

All the evidence we have shows that Europeans and European-Americans have always solved the conversational name problem the same way, by using nicknames.

Those names are rarely important enough to make it into written records (with occasional exceptions), but at one time they became very important -- when Europeans were making the transition to written records. This was a major social change.

It required some way of formally distinguishing all the different people with the same name. So, for example, the charters describe your second Judith in different way. For example, "Iudith filiam Karli regis" (Judith daughter of Charles the king) and "Iudit reginam" (Judith the queen).

The charter writers used the strategy of describing people for everyone they mentioned who might have to be identified later. But, often different descriptions for the same people in different charters. Sometimes it's now an important genealogical question whether a person in this charter is the same person with a different description in a different charter.

The important thing about all of this is that in the beginning the written evidence only really mattered for a fairly brief period. A few generations at the most. By then a new set of people owned the land and had owned it for as long as anyone could remember, so they didn't usually need a charter to prove it. And, if they did need to produce charter evidence, they usually didn't have to go back very far.

Ulf, that's exactly why I said there is more than one solution that would be defensible.

The name Blaeja is suspicious because it seems to be too poetic.

The name Heluna is suspicious because it appears to be fake.

As far as I know, Heluna is thought to be a form of Helena. I don't remember the exact details, but the diffusion of the name Helena through Europe has been very well-documented because it is important to so many early genealogical puzzles. The name entered Russia from Constantinople, then spread to Scandinavia from Russia, then to England from Scandinavia.

I don't remember the dates. 11th or 12th century century in Scandinavia, I think. Anyway, much later than this Heluna. Someone pounding away at the Geni database could probably find the answer.

The reason I made a point (above) of saying that Flateyjarbók was redacted circa 1387 was anticipating this part of the problem. The source is so late that this Heluna falls in easily with the other Helenas who were invented in the 14th through 17th centuries. The people who invented them didn't realize the name could be traced and would someday show the fake.

So, I see the names Blaeja and Heluna both as evidence that this woman was invented. I can't prove it, but without a plausible name she looks suspicious to me.

BTW, her name should be Heluna not Helunu. Heluna is the nominative form. Helunu is just the accusative form (because Sigurd (nominative) married Helunu (accusative). (I had to check that one just to be sure.)

I would guess that if she existed in that path, her name would be...Æthel. ; )

I like that guess.

Something that just occurred to me when you said that -- women in this period were sometimes given new names by their husband's family. There are some famous examples of women who had one given name before marriage and another afterwards. Lots of debate about why that happened.

It wouldn't be impossible that Sigurd renamed her Blaeja (or called her that).

Well, vikings in just that time dealt a lot in slave trafficking, they could easily make the trip down to Africa, get some blue men, as they called darker men, and sell them further up along the way home. The use of epithet as blue head, "black heads", were not unfamiliar, however racism were not invented, they often used attributes to describe or distinguish between objects as well as animal and people, it's an easy way to point out differences, as your own example in the nightclubs.

When I were young, we had to do this all the time, friends with the same name had to be separated so that everyone knew which one we were referring to, little and big were very common, also fat, brown, slow, fast, freckled, red hair, etc.. I guess that this is as old as many of the games children plays, that is also a part of the history.

So (assuming the story has any factual basis) Ælla's daughter, NN, marries Sigurd who renames her Blaeja (for her beautiful "blue" eyes) and later generations decide to call her Helen because they knew Blaeja was only a nickname but didn't know what her real name was?

Yes.

Close, but I would say that later generations had a tradition without a name for her and decided to insert Heluna. That might mean they did not know there was another tradition that called her Blaeja -- else there would be no real reason not to use that name. People of this time didn't have much awareness of historical criticism.

So all name fields blank except for one N.N. and Display name =

"Blæju", a daughter of king Ælla (later known historically as Heluna).

Would you mind locking the name fields (except the aka) if you agree.

I will think it over while i have lunch and add a _brief_ explanation to the About section later, perhaps with a link to this Discussion.