12-05-2026, 09:01 PM
Over the last week or so, I have found and added many examples to the spreadsheet that I found on archive.org, munchener library, oxford library, and cambridge library. As I was doing so, I had some thoughts and questions.
The "standard" set for french
From the late 14th century to the early 16th century france, there appears to have been a "standard" set of non-latin month names that were most common: mars, auril, may, juing, juillet, aoust, septembre, octobre, nouembre, decembre: a 5/10 score. These now make up a large block in the spreadsheet.
So for a higher score, either auril, juing, juillet, aoust or octobre have to change. This is seen in NE france and belgium the most.
Here is a rough map showing the general regions where scores of 6.5+ are found (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. / You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.):
The cities Metz, Tournai, and Arras are the most common other than Paris and might be worth investigating further.
The reason that these areas produce higher scores seems to be:
auril -> apuril / aueril
juing -> jung
juillet -> jullet
octobre -> octembre
Each of these individual changes appear to be more common in these areas compared to others, explaining the higher scores.
In fact, non-latin names in general appear to be more common in these areas, is there a known reason for this? The vast majority of entries in the spreadsheet found by everyone are in N/NE france and belgium. At least on my part, the search shouldn't have been biased towards that area specifically; I simply searched for books of hours and almanacs in various libraries and languages without a filter for location. In some libraries, I simply searched for all possible variants within OCR metadata, including many potential misspellings of various month names.
Finding many paris entries was expected, but where are all the non-latin books of hours in southern france? I found month lists in the netherlands, germany, italy, belgium and northern france, but barely any from southern france.
It's possible that scholars outside of northern france overwhelmingly used latin names in writing, which means we may be missing the common names for those areas almost entirely.
However, one thing that is (already) abundantly clear is that wherever these month names were from, they are not standard. They are also decidedly not the traditional german or dutch vernacular names either (other than perhaps augst/oogst). Both the german and dutch sets are found in reasonable abundance alongside latin examples, and neither match the VMS. Neither do the danish or welsh, for that matter.
Not to mention that they also do not appear to be italian either, or anywhere near to an italian area, which raises all sorts of questions.
The "standard" set for french
From the late 14th century to the early 16th century france, there appears to have been a "standard" set of non-latin month names that were most common: mars, auril, may, juing, juillet, aoust, septembre, octobre, nouembre, decembre: a 5/10 score. These now make up a large block in the spreadsheet.
So for a higher score, either auril, juing, juillet, aoust or octobre have to change. This is seen in NE france and belgium the most.
Here is a rough map showing the general regions where scores of 6.5+ are found (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. / You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.):
The cities Metz, Tournai, and Arras are the most common other than Paris and might be worth investigating further.
The reason that these areas produce higher scores seems to be:
auril -> apuril / aueril
juing -> jung
juillet -> jullet
octobre -> octembre
Each of these individual changes appear to be more common in these areas compared to others, explaining the higher scores.
In fact, non-latin names in general appear to be more common in these areas, is there a known reason for this? The vast majority of entries in the spreadsheet found by everyone are in N/NE france and belgium. At least on my part, the search shouldn't have been biased towards that area specifically; I simply searched for books of hours and almanacs in various libraries and languages without a filter for location. In some libraries, I simply searched for all possible variants within OCR metadata, including many potential misspellings of various month names.
Finding many paris entries was expected, but where are all the non-latin books of hours in southern france? I found month lists in the netherlands, germany, italy, belgium and northern france, but barely any from southern france.
It's possible that scholars outside of northern france overwhelmingly used latin names in writing, which means we may be missing the common names for those areas almost entirely.
However, one thing that is (already) abundantly clear is that wherever these month names were from, they are not standard. They are also decidedly not the traditional german or dutch vernacular names either (other than perhaps augst/oogst). Both the german and dutch sets are found in reasonable abundance alongside latin examples, and neither match the VMS. Neither do the danish or welsh, for that matter.
Not to mention that they also do not appear to be italian either, or anywhere near to an italian area, which raises all sorts of questions.
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