I was looking up my small town in the Domesday book. In the Essex P-S section of domesdaybook.co.uk (where my town is) there's Plesingho.
'Bernard from Count Eustace; the king claims from Humphrey 'Goldenbollocks'.
I have multiple questions...so many questions. A load of questions about poor old Humphrey actually. I first read it as Goldilocks which confused me even more.
First- from Count Eustace? From his land? Estate? Supported by Count Eustace?
Also, Humphrey Goldenbollocks. Presumably a nickname. Now, as it's nearly a thousand years old, I'm sure no one will know. But was it used pretty much as a surname? Would similar nicknames be used as surnames? So would I say 'I am Nigel, son of Humphrey Goldenbollocks'? Or 'I am Nigel, son of Goldenbollocks Humphrey' or maybe 'I am Nigel, son of Humphrey the Goldenbollocks'. By the way it is written down so seriously, it must have been a known nickname, despite it being rather crude. Are there any other examples of similar names?
And how common were these nicknames? I haven't been reading too closely as I was just trying to scroll down but I can't remember seeing many nicknames. So no 'Bernard the Fisher' type names, although I saw an 'Otto the Goldsmith' and a couple more, but all job related. but then it wouldn't exactly be memorable. Goldenbollocks almost sounds like a compliment...were many compliments sexually based? If it had been a negative name (I don't know, leadbollocks) would the name still have been written in? What could he have done to stop being called Leadbollocks? Would it have been considered something illegal, like slander, libel, etc or just accepted as a joke?
Sorry for asking a lot, it just caught my interest. Another thing I wondered, although there are lots and lots of beehives mentioned, only one entry out of the hundred or so I've looked through mention honey (they said sesters of honey). Was the stored honey in other villages just overlooked? Why the difference in reporting?
(Also, funny note, I'm not posting anything about the village I'm in, but I did see a Frodo 'brother of Abbot Baldwin' which made me laugh).
I just find it awesome that this man I know barely nothing about living in a place twenty or so minutes from me will be immortalised for his testicles.
The perhaps less exciting answer is that Humfrid Goldenbollocks is the Modern English translation of the Latin Aureis Testiculis which is a Latinized attempt at the Norman surname Orescuilz. Some of the Orescuilz family existed up until the 18th century where the name has changed at some point before this into Oresculy (you can read a bit about the earlier ones here. )
The Orescuilz family were given a place called Sanforda, and attached the Orescuilz name to it, corrupting it to Sanford-Orskuys, and eventually into Sanford Orcas.
KSB Keats-Rohan has the prosopography of Domesday if you're interested.
Now I have to go look that guy up. X-D
A "surname," technically, is a nickname, an eke-name, tagged onto a baptismal name. It didn't mean "inherited family name" for centuries to come. In fact, "the surname era" is a phrase used among early onomasts and genealogists to refer to the time before family names, when people would be known by these sort of name + eke-name things.
Now, the Domesday book was collected very soon after the Norman Conquest. This is important, because Anglo-Saxon people didn't use surnames. You would be known as Hadubrand son of Haduwulf, but not as Hadubrand the Well-Endowed. That's part of why you don't see many surnames: most of the people were older than the Conquest, and Anglo-Saxon, and just didn't do that.
Normans, on the other hand, brought in the surname. William the Conqueror? Gilbert Strongbow? Lots of those, even when officially they might be Gilbert fitz Gilbert. So Humphrey seems to be one of the earlier examples. And notice, according to /u/Flubb, he's Norman.
Like any nickname you hate, he could not have sued for slander if he didn't like it. More likely challenged anyone using it to a fight. These things weren't something you had officially registered (well, until the Domesday census): it's just how everyone knew you.
Bernard from Count Eustace
is probably Bernard who comes from Count Eustace: one of his men, whom he sent as being a good source.
Are any of the hobbit names not from the real world?