In the following, different issues related to the research sources used are discussed. The first part focuses on the quality of the sources: i.e., what kind of temporal and areal factors have to be taken into consideration when
analysing medieval records and editions made of them. The second part concentrates on the role of habits and traditions of medieval scribes in the procedure of recording personal names.
1.7.1 TEMPORAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL ISSUES IN SOURCE MATERIALS
In general, sources studied in the present work are limited in time. The northeastern Baltic Sea area is only very rarely documented in any kind of written record during the prehistoric era. It can be claimed that only when (and partly because) the Catholic and Orthodox Churches cemented their authority, the study area came under the influence of written culture. The time of this change varied depending on the region, but it is safe to say that the most densely populated parts of the study area were incorporated in the ecclesiastical taxation system before the end of 14th century (cf. e.g. Raninen and Wessman 2015: 346).
In practice, all the sources containing Finnic anthroponymy are from the Christian era, the oldest occurrences dating back to 13th century. Consequently, it could be considered problematic that names derived from the sources of the Christian era are regarded as pre-Christian. Explanations and solutions for this issue are presented further in section 1.8.1.
The lack of written culture and documentation is also the main reason why the number of preserved sources from 13th to 14th century is low. It is impossible to give exact numbers but the following example sheds light on the proportions: in Diplomatarium Fennicum -database (DF), which contains medieval records concerning the area of modern Finland, the number of sources from the oldest one to the year 1399 is 1147, and from the year 1400 to 1519 the number is 5705.8
Furthermore, it must be noted that many of the oldest preserved records do not contain information about ordinary people. In other words, those Finnic persons that are named in the oldest preserved records are often local men of importance. Partly because of this, records almost never contain pre-Christian Finnic female names.
Remoteness of the study area together with many regions being very scarcely populated are further reasons for the low number of preserved records from 13th and 15th centuries. This applies especially to the northern areas of contemporary Finland and Russia, which were either loosely under the jurisdiction of local central powers, namely the Realm of Sweden and the Novgorod Republic or were still considered “no man’s land”.
The number of records increases from the late 15th century onwards, but it does not mean that the written material would contain a lot of pre-Christian
8 The oldest entries in DF are sporadic inserts from old chronicles and sagas. The number of entries starts to be frequent only from the end of 13th century onwards.
Finnic personal names or that all the areas with supposed Finnic presence would be sufficiently covered. The latter problem applies to the remote areas in particular, but even some of the more densely populated places, such as southern Estonia, are adequately covered only from the 17th century onwards (KNR). The lack of pre-Christian Finnic personal names, despite the increasing number of preserved materials is, in turn, observed most likely because the usage of pre-Christian Finnic anthroponymy had already declined by the end of the 15th century. Names derived from Finnic name elements are only a minority compared to Christian anthroponymy in sources of the 16th century and later. The other factor for the low number of preserved pre-Christian Finnic names is that medieval written documentation had its peculiarities that affected the way names were recorded. The next section will deal with this topic in more detail.
1.7.2 THE HABITS AND PRACTICES OF PRESENTING PERSONAL NAMES IN MEDIEVAL DOCUMENTATION
The lack of pre-Christian Finnic names and Finnic name forms can be partly explained by the naming conventions used by medieval scribes. Even though they did not have common rules for grammar or spelling practices, the language and the type of record affected the writing style and the orthography of personal names (Blomqvist 2017: 90, 161‒162, 216‒226).
Furthermore, the orthography of names rarely reflects the way the name was pronounced in vernacular use. Misspellings, analogies, or translations of names occurred often. It is likely that many of the scribes were familiar with the local Finnic dialects (cf. Blomqvist 2017), but, nevertheless, they were following writing traditions developed for foreign languages. Within the framework of the present study, the research material consists of records written in Latin, Low German, Russian and Swedish.9 Thus, scribes often adapted the names to such forms that fit with the traditions of local administrative language. A good example of this is found in the Diocese of Åbo where a court document regarding land holdings of Bridgettine abbey in Nådendal (Finn. Naantali) has survived in two copies: as a draft and official version. Interestingly, some of the personal names mentioned in the draft are in Finnish: e.g. kocko heyki and jussi.10 The official version has both of these names adapted: kocko heyki becomes hendric and jussi as jøns (Blomqvist 2017: 124; DF s.v. 4136).
9 These definitions of the languages used in the records are simplifications. For example, the form of Russian language attested in the so-called birchbark letters found in the city of Novgorod and dated between 11th and 16th centuries (Ianin 1997) is different compared to the so-called Russian chancery language, which was used in the census books of Novgorod at the turn of 15th century.
10 First of the names, kocko heyki contains elements kokko (‘eagle’) and Heikki (‘Henry’), whereas the other one, jussi, is derived from the cognate of John (Swed. Jöns).
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that personal name elements of Finnic origin are only rarely part of the main names (~ given names). They mostly occur in bynames: in patronyms and family names for example. In addition to that, it is often difficult to know if a person’s secondary name, as in the case of Morthen Tojuo (Toivo ‘hope’) in Tyrvää parish in 1546 (SAYL), refers to a place of residence, parallel main name or family name. Thus, the research data of the present study contain names from all these categories. The connection between personal names and settlement names is explained in more depth in section 1.8.1.
It must be noted that the research material consists mostly of editions that are based on original documents. Many of the sources used in the present study were edited either in the late 19th or early 20th century. It is obvious that the editing processes at the time were not as systematic as they are nowadays.
Consequently, there is a possibility that the editors have transcribed some of the material incorrectly. Moreover, many of the preserved medieval records are copies made during the Late Middle Ages or after, and original records cannot be found.