patronymic customs in medieval iberian culture(s)
M.Sjostrom
I started to wonder,
whether Gomez Perez de Toledo was a son of Fernan Perez de Toledo (by his portuguese wife Tereza Vasquez da Cunha), or not:
http://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00270556&tree=LEO
whether Pero Suarez de Toledo, lord of Bolanos, was a son of the same Fernan Perez de Toledo (by his portuguese wife Tereza Vasquez da Cunha):
http://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00461280&tree=LEO
Do the iberian patronymics of 1300s have any expectability, any explanatory power about filiation and paternity ?
t...@clearwire.net
filiation, yes. patenity, no.
About the beginning of the 13th century, the patronymic system started
to break down. Rather than the name necessarily changing with each
generation, if a child was specifically named for a particular
ancestor, that ancestor's name would be given in full, both baptismal
and patronym. Hence, in the cases given above, Gomez Perez is fully
documented as eldest son and heir of Fernan Gomez (although the "de
Toledo" is simply a toponym, and not a toponymic surname - the man was
from Toledo). He received his name, in full, from his paternal
grandfather, Gomez Perez. This was the first generation of the family
to deviate from strict usage, and in naming his son, he went back to
the old style, his son Diego being named for his maternal grandfather,
Diego Garcia, yet called Diego Gomez (probably because Diego Garcia
named a son for himself, Diego Garcia as well, so calling the first
cousin as Diego Gomez distinguished them.
As to Pedro Suarez, the use of this name is what led Nat and I to
predict that Gomez Perez, the earliest definitive member of the
family, was in all probability the son of a Pedro Suarez in the prior
generation, and hence Fernan Perez named his younger son after the
father's paternal grandfather. Basically, it had to come from
somewhere. Just to give an indication, the children in this
generation were Gomez Perez, Pedro Suarez, Vasco Fernandez, Gutierre
Fernandez, Suer Gomez, Martin Fernandez, Constance Fernandez and Juana
Gomez. Of these, Vasco, Gutierre, Martin, and Constance follow
patronymic usage (with Gutierre, this is actually somewhat unexpected,
as he was named for his uncle, Gutierre Gomez). Pedro Suarez and
Gomez Perez were named for ancestors, patronym and all, and Juana and
Suer are anomalies. Occasionally, the father's partonym was used, and
this could be an example of that (e.g. the Diego Garcia I named above
was illegitimate son of Juan Garcia). However, my guess would be that
both were named for siblings of Fernan Gomez that died young or for
whom record has not been found.
The take-home is that if there is deviation from expected practice, it
is usually explainable based on an evaluation of the larger pedigree.
By the next century, use of true patronymics was completely abandoned,
replaced by this less systematic patronym inheritance, with a
particular one eventually 'locking in' as happened with the Garcia de
Toledo and the Alvarez de Toledo.
Just for another example, the children of Fernan Perez de Ayala (and
as an aside, while his father was named Pedro so his could be
considered a true patronymic, this is probably the case only by
coincidence, as he was clearly named for his maternal grandfather,
Fernan Perez Barroso): Pedro Lopez (son of Fernan Perez, son of Pedro
Lopez, son of Sancho Perez, son of Pedro Lopez), Diego Lopez
(apparently simply given the same patronym as his brother, although
given the father's interest in genealogy, this could have been pulled
from way back the pedigree), Juan Sanchez (paternal grand-father's
brother), Inez Alfonso (great-great-grandmother), Mencia [patronym
unknown] (given name from great-grandmother), Juana Garcia (maternal
grandmother), Aldonza Fernandez (true patronymic), Sancha Hernandez
(paternal grandmother), Elvira Alvarez (mother, in turn named in full
for her maternal grandmother) d. inf, Leonor Hernandez (true
patronymic), Elvira Alvarez (mother).
As an aside, I know of no reliable evidence that Theresa Vaszquez,
wife of Fernan Gomez, was a member of the da Cunha family, or
Portuguese at all. Based on the naming patterns, I would be looking
for a family that used the names Martin and Vasco.
taf