=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20Ali=E9nor=20/=20Eleonore=20(and,=20incident?=

In a message dated 7/28/2006 10:43:35 AM Pacific Standard Time,

Helen of Troy and St Helen the mother of Constantine were both _very_ famous

figures in medieval Europe. The fact that Geoffroy de Vigeois thought
Alienor an exotic name requiring explanation, and that he writing in
Languedoc at the time did not explain the name as a form of Helen

What was his explanation? Or did I miss it in this thread?

Peter Stewart...

In the original post from DBG Heuser: "the explanation given in Geoffroy de
Vigeois, that Aliénor simply means Alia Aenor (Aenor being the mother of
Aliénor)..."

In fact Aenor appears interchangeably with Alienor, these are just
orthographic variants of the same name.

It was not unique to the family of Alienor of Aquitaine's mother and occurs
well before her time. For instance, a charter of Saint-Maixent dated to
1040/44 attested by Aenor, the wife of Albuin; another dated 1086 was
attested by Aenor the mother of Cadelo (probably related to the viscounts of
Aulnay).

If the case put by Matt Tompkins is to be taken seriously, it should be easy
enough for him to find in the vast corpus of Provencal literature
occurrences of Helen of Troy as "Alienor" or "Aenor" of Troy. I will be
amazed if he can produce even one such a flight of fancy.

Peter Stewart