Correct last name for Burgundians

Question

We do have some profiles for early Burgundians. They are variously named Bourgogne, Burgundy, Burgund, and Burgunder. And some of them inexplicably had their Current Name changed to Merovingian. It is generally agreed in the literature that the Burgundians were not Franks but a separate East-Germanic tribe, therefore, the Current Last Name of Merovingian is not correct. As an East-Germanic tribe they also most certainly spoke a Germanic and not a Romanic language and for sure not English. The question is what should their LNAB be? This involves profiles prior to the mid-6th century.

Comments

Forgive me for coming late to this discussion.

EuroAristos naming guidelines have several stated purposes. The most obvious is consistency across Wikitree so when newcomers and established users want to locate a certain profile, they will find all members of that family without having to search variants. I give Burgundy, of Burgundy, Bourgogne, de Bourgogne, De Bourgogne, DeBourgogne, Borgoña, etc., as examples. I have seen of Borgoña and of Bourgogne as well.

Notice that capitalization and spacing choices will prevent matching. That is both a reason and a benefit to keeping prefixes out of LNAB fields. That and the fact that users from different languages will use different prefixes.

Burgundy is in France; therefore, the French language version of the province should be used throughout the centuries. This is not for historical accuracy, but for consistency in locating Burgundians across all of Wikitree.

Historical and ethnic distinctions may be explained in the notes section of each profile. Whether or not Burgundians are considered Franks is irrelevant to the naming fields.

At this moment there are 225 profiles for Bourgogne, 13 for Burgunden and 29 for de Bourgogne. I did not continue looking for variations. Making them all Bourgogne is user friendly and in line with at the EuroAristos project places and guidelines.

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Just be aware that in the 5th century the Kingdom of Burgundy was centered around Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg, all nowadays German speaking (yes, even Strassburg) and not at all located where today's Burgundy is.

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So, practically speaking for the purposes of Wikitree, at what point in time do "Burgunden" parents have children who come to be called "Bourgogne"?

Are the "Burgunden" folk ancestors of the Medieval Burgundian rulers?

Remember that it has been stated before that Wikitree is about genealogy, not history.

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At this point, do you think it would make sense to change Bourgogne-240 to either Borgoña or León in order to reflect geography instead of ancestry?

That was my preference several years ago, but the consensus was to keep the family name or in this case ducal house of origin. It was emphasized that Wikitree is about genealogy, more than history.

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Thanks Katherine for coming to the conversation and late is better than never :)

Although I can appreciate the value of using the name Bourgogne, because that region is now in France, and it can add some consistency and perhaps make profiles easier to find, I think we also have to keep in mind the overall Wikitree naming standards, which are to use the name that the people themselves might have used.

I know that's difficult with many pre-1500 profiles, but I think the decision reached from this G2G discussion to use 'Burgunden' for this group of profiles was the correct one, given they were a Germanic tribe, and probably didn't rule the area we now know as Burgundy or Bourgogne.

Even with the later rules of Burgundy, using the same name can be confusing because they were from different families.  The Dukes of Burgundy were from the French royal Capet family and after that dynasty died out, were inherited by the Valois dynasty, but the Counts or Counts Palatine of Burgundy were from a totally different dynasty (Ivrea, I think).  Perhaps that's why it is better to use the dynastic name, rather than the territorial name for the Last Name at Birth (LNAB)?

Even more confusing is the use of Bourgogne as the LNAB for some of the rulers of Castile and Portugal, which although technically correct because they did descend from those dynasties, is imposing a patriarchal naming pattern on what was essentially a matriarchal descent.

I can also appreciate that having a consistent name is a way of avoiding people creating duplicates, but recent changes to the import of gedcoms and the requirement to have a pre-1500 badge has mostly stopped the creation of duplicates, at least in pre-1500 profiles.  I think this means that we can use names that better reflect the real situation of the times, rather than perhaps using a name solely to make a profile easier to find.

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Obviously there has been more discussion while I was writing the above, but to address one point - the early Kings of Burgundy are in no way related by genealogy to any of the later Dukes or Counts of Burgundy

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I believe there may be some genetic material transmitted from the Germanic Burgunden tribespeople of 400 to the French inhabitants of Burgundy a thousand years later, but there is no line of descent to the leaders.  The Burgunden chieftains gave a daughter or two in marriage to the rising Merovingian line and disappeared.

Answer 1

Hi, Helmut -- I looked at the profile and saw that there was no information in the biography, and that makes conversation difficult.  So I pulled in material from Wikipedia.  That can be improved on later, of course, with better and more original sources, but it immediately sheds light on part of the problem you were facing.

This is Chilperic II of Burgundy who lived in the 400's.  There is another Chilperic II, a Merovingian king, who lived in the 600's.  So giving the Burgundian king a Merovingian designation confuses the two Chilperics.  Given that I now knew this, it seemed irresponsible to let it be, so I removed the CLN of Merovingian, and now the reader at least has a clue as to who this Chilperic is.

That does not answer your question, of course.  I suspect that at the time, the man was simply known as Chilperic.  If the preference is to use his jurisdiction as his LNAB, then the correct language designation for the jurisdiction -- Burgundy -- should be used.  This might give him the same LNAB as rulers of Burgundy who lived 800 years later, which would might make people think they were related, although we don't imagine that two people named Smith are related as a consequence of that alone!  There may also be a dynasty of which he was a part, although at this moment he is unconnected to parents or children.  I'll leave that to others to sort out -- but at least I think we've solved the Merovingian problem!  .

Comments

I wonder whether "de Burgundy" might not a better naming. I know there have been all sorts of esoteric arguments about the de as in de Vere. But living in France as I do, the erstwhile president was Giscard d'Estaing. Nobody questions whether his surname is d'Estaing but he descended from Les Comptes d'Estaing - The Counts of Estaing.

Nobody has a problem with the Irish reduction  O'Leary or the Welsh ap.

Stop fretting about what Chilperic was called. It was probably something like Chilperic the fair, the unready, or the unwashed!!!!

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Well, the convention is to leave out the article, so it would end up simply LNAB Unwashed.  Chilperic II Unwashed.  I could live with that -- but at a considerable distance!

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Seriously, though, I'd propose that Helmut, whose language credentials for the area far exceed mine, propose what he thinks would be the best LNAB. Probably it would be a form of Burgundy, and it would then be the form which most closely fits the native language of the time.

The Wikipedia article mentions some family members, so it may be possible to connect the Burgundian Chilperic II to the rest of the  global family tree, but I'd not recommend anyone attempt that until we have some agreement on what LNAB should be used.  Deliberately creating a new LNAB that we know is wrong and will be corrected probably borders on IT vandalism.

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Burgund seems to be the German for Burgundy or Bourgogne, however although Chilperic and his brothers seemed to be known as King of Burgundy (not sure if that should be König von Burgund or König der Burgund), his father seemed to be King of the Burgundians (König der Burgunden?); King of the tribe of Burgundians rather than King of the place Burgundy.  Perhaps the Last Name at Birth for Chilperic should be Burgunden?  That's of course if my German is anywhere near correct?

Helmut happy to have my German corrected, but I would suggest we go with the modern German rather than anything else.

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I would opt for Burgunder or Burgunden (both forms are used in contemporary German) for these old Burgundian profiles. The German Wikipedia calls the rulers König(e) der Burgunden. After the 6th century the originally Germanic Burgundians got rapidly assimilated by the culturally Romanic indigenous population and it would be fair to call the later Burgundians Bourgogne.

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My gut sense is that these entities in the 400's were really more tribes than kingdoms and König der Burgunden, King of the Burgundians, would be the most sensible full name.  Following Euroaristo naming conventions, the LNAB would then be "Burgunden", the CLN would be "der Burgunden", and the Title would be "König".  

If that makes the most sense, then we would need a Leader to change the name accordingly, since the current profile manager doesn't have a pre-1500 badge on his profile.

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Agree with John A.  & Helmut on this too .

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So this wraps up my role with Chilperich for a while.  it was a good run -- new name, expanded bio, good sources, murdered by his brother, who must have REALLY hated his wife.

I added a map from Wikimedia to show where his kingdom was, a blue circle in the middle of the dying Roman Empire.  Unfortunately my first try got a tiny version, the second try got a size one can read.  If anyone knows how to get rid of the first one now, please help!

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Done. On the picture page go to "Add/Edit" - counterintuitively that will let you remove the picture.

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Awesome!  Thanks!

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I assume you realize de Burgundy is a mongrel name, a French prefix with English translation of the place. This is exactly why prefixes don't work. Issues of capitalization, spacing and translation all get in the way of simple naming guidelines.

Answer 2

Let me start a new answer on this.  Roger Travis has kindly made me Chilperich II's profile manager.  In reading the history, I see Chilperich's daughter Clotilda married Clovis I of the Franks.  A search confirmed that Clovis already has a WikiTree profile, as does Clotilda -- and Clotilda's father, Chilperich --  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/ Bourgogne-127.  So we now have duplicate profile to be merged, (Burgundy-77 and Bourgogne-127)  and several profiles with the French spelling Bourgogne rather than the more Germanic spelling of Burgunden.  

These were not rulers of Burgundy, to which some of their fellow tribesmen gave the name when they moved farther west a couple of hundred years later, and they did not speak French. I'd like the endorsement of the Euroaristo project regarding the proposed LNAB of Burgunden (the English equivalent being "Burgundian") for this particuiar family (which lasted only several generations) before proceeding with any changes.

Comments

Even the French call them Burgondes, not Bourguignons.

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Helmut, this is all I can handle at the moment.  Makes sense to tackle the French speaking Burgondes in sequence, later!  It does make sense, though, that if we're going to do things in a language which is foreign to us, that we should seek the expertise of those who are familiar with the language!

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Jack, I didn't mean to bring in another language, my comment was just meant to highlight that even in French these profiles are not named "Bougogne."

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And that is correct, when referring to people living at that time, we call them Burgondes, not Bourguignons.

Answer 3

Just reviewed the entry in Cawley's Foundation for Medieval Genealogy / Medeival Lands project.  In Cawley's citations of original documents, he uses phrases like "King of the Burgundians", but in his own writing refers to "King of Burgundy."  This is unfortunate, because the territory ruled by Chilperich was centered in Worms, in today's central Germany.  If it overlapped at all with today's Burgundy in France, it overlapped only a small degree.  The Burgundians were a tribe, and all these Germanic tribes were in motion in this period.  Tying them to a specific place, and calling that place "Burgundy" only servces to confuse.

Comments

Agree, König der Burgunden sounds best.

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Darlene and I also agree that it should be Burgunden as well. Give the project a couple days to settle the LNAB and it will be done. Thanks for the references posted above. Although the LNAB is different in other wikis and online sites, it's best to use what works for WikTree.

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Super; so you'll change the affected LNABs.  If you want to merge my Chilperich into the other, I'll be glad to do the cleanup with an integrated profile.

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[http://gilles.maillet.free.fr/histoire/genealogie_bourgogne/menu_bourgogne.htm] Great ref and history site for early Burgundy.

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Thanks Shelly.  Looks like a very informative site.  Certainly, it appears that those interested in Burgundy, wherever it was located, claim the early rulers as "Roi des Burgondes" -- King of the Burgundians.

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I'm looking at later Burgundians and have only briefly browsed this period in history so not much help in this instance I'm afraid. This goes back to the break up of the Roman Empire and the history of Gaul etc. Very interesting period entering into the legendary if not mythological geneologies. Very few primary sources available.

This site may also be of interest for Burgudian geneologists; loads of links for later Burgundians  and others of the Empire and general history of the period.

[http://thierryhelene.bianco.free.fr/drupal/?q=node/94]

Kind regards

Shelley

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John Atkinson agreed to Burgunden.  Maggie and I agree with Burgunden.  I think three leaders is enough, if those who started this discussion concur, to move forward with this.  I have limited time to look for these, but if someone wants to drop me a PM and give me a list of profiles that need the LNAB changed, I will handle it.  I have proposed a merge for Burgundy-77.  Once the LNAB is changed, the merge can proceed.

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O.K. I've merged the two above-mentioned into a new Burgunden-1 profile.  I'll leave the cleanup to you, Jack.  Thanks for bringing this up.

P.S.  I got the list and will work on getting the others changed...

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Thank you so much, Darlene. I am a fish out of water with Burgandies so happy you did them !

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Team work, Maggie!  Jack emailed me a list of ones to change.  I think I got them all done.  He'll double check and get back to me.  And I certainly am no expert on this group...