Historiographic Thread: Name changes and avoiding other anachronisms

MAlexMatt

Banned
The Byzantine Empire: The name 'Byzantine' was not coined until 1557, more than a century after the empire died, so obviously no-one at the time called it that. The people of the Empire themselves considered themselves Romans and used that name. Everyone else referred to it as "the Eastern Empire" or "the Greek Empire"--in opposition to "The Latin Empire", which had been the Western Roman Empire.

A few things:

1. Byzantine, or its linguistic equivilent, was indeed used in this period, but only as a colloquial reference to Constantinople and its environs. The entire Empire was the 'Empire of the Romans' and the people were the 'Romans'.

2. The transition from 'Roman' to 'Greek' in the West began around the time of the Ottonian dynasty of the HRE. It became a very political subject whether the HRE or the Byzantines were 'true' Romans.

3. I don't think I've ever heard of the Western Roman Empire being called 'The Latin Empire'. In fact, I think the only time that name has ever been used is in historiography related to the Latin conquest of the Byzantines.
 
Crocodilopolis in particular just sounds funny. :p

Because it is Greek for "City of Crocodiles". The city reportedly had Sobek, the crocodile-god as its patron deity. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodilopolis and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobek

Many of the Greek names are in the same vein:

*Heliopolis = City of the Sun. A city with Ra-Atum as its patron deity. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopolis_(ancient) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atum

*Hieraconpolis=City of Hawks. A city with Horus as its patron deity. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekhen and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus

*Herakleopolis=City of Herakles. A city with Heryshaf as its patron deity. The Greeks identified Heryshaf with their own Herakles/Heracles. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herakleopolis_Magna and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heryshaf

*Lykopolis=City of Wolves. A city with Wepwawet as its patron deity. See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asyut and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wepwawet

*Hermopoles=City of Hermes. A city with Thoth as its patron deity. The Greeks identified Thoth with their own Hermes. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermopolis and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth
 
Dutch: This term was often used generically of all Germans (as a corruption of "Deutsch") well into the 19th century, especially in the USA (the Pennsylvania Dutch are actually Pennsylvania Germans). Ironically the people of the Netherlands were sometimes actually excluded from the 'Dutch' category and instead called 'Hollanders'. This stemming from the fallacy, still seen today, that "Holland" = "The Netherlands", when it is actually only part of the country (compare England / Britain).

It is the part of the country which includes Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague, so it was quite influential in the region and still is. But "Hollanders" only account for about 6,1 million people. While the Kingdom of the Netherlands has a total population of about 17 million people.
 
Using the phrase "UK" as a term to describe the country was rare until the mid-twentieth century. Prior to that most people said either "Britain", or often "England" was (incorrectly, and usually by the establishment) considered synonymous with Britain or the UK.

I'm not sure anyone really called it 'Britain' pre-war. 'England' seems to have been pretty unbiqutous. 'Britain' only seems to have come into standard use after the war.
 
I'm not sure anyone really called it 'Britain' pre-war. 'England' seems to have been pretty unbiqutous. 'Britain' only seems to have come into standard use after the war.

Everybody assumes the Scots just didn't talk about their country. :p

Seriously, it is hard to reconcile this with Brittania, Brittanic Majesties, Britons True, North Britain, the British (never English) Empire, the British (very seldom English) Army... What is meant by this, I think, is that in former times no-one objected if a public figure called the country England. Except us, but whatever.

And this is not to mention the emphatic 18th C rejection of Scots Englishness by the English themselves. The interplay of these three overlapping identities is both interesting and relevant and ought not to be simplified away.
 
Seriously, it is hard to reconcile this with Brittania, Brittanic Majesties, Britons True, North Britain, the British (never English) Empire, the British (very seldom English) Army... What is meant by this, I think, is that in former times no-one objected if a public figure called the country England. Except us, but whatever.

We're not talking about formal designations, we're talking about everyday speech, and it's fairly emphatically obvious if you look at material written at the time that use of 'England' as a synonym for Britain was widespread. By definition it was an incorrect and innacurate usage but that didn't stop it being used.

I'm not sure how much this applied to Scotland. I've seen things which suggest it was used in the same way; and if it was, that need not imply a rejection of Scottishness, because, as above, it was being used a synonym for another concept.
 
We're not talking about formal designations, we're talking about everyday speech, and it's fairly emphatically obvious if you look at material written at the time that use of 'England' as a synonym for Britain was widespread. By definition it was an incorrect and innacurate usage but that didn't stop it being used.

Widespread, sure, but widespread and ubiquitous are different things. And 'Britain' was widespread too, as I've pointed out by a great volume of examples; to say "no-one called it Britain pre-war" certainly untrue.

I'm not sure how much this applied to Scotland. I've seen things which suggest it was used in the same way; and if it was, that need not imply a rejection of Scottishness, because, as above, it was being used a synonym for another concept.

Nope. After the flirtation with North Britishness, not enough Scots who were in Scotland at the time did this for it to be worthy of any note. Hume moaned about being called English, Burns went on about being Scottish, Scott lamented Anglification and he was of course a huge aesthetic influence on everybody who wanted to be seen as Scottish, especially political conservatives, so that in Scotland the establishment harped on about Scottishness.

As for the common people, well, the Lowland masses continued to go on about When Scotland Was Scotland (at least in places were England or Englishness were actually visible in daily life), English Kirk was an abusive term, and the Highlanders had a low opinion of Saxons from England or Scotland.

Apart from some members of the commercial, intellectual, and enough-land-to-have-a-house-in-Edinburgh elite in a few earlier decades of the 18th century, Scottish people in Scotland didn't say England when they meant Britain. Sometimes they tried to portray things they didn't like as being 'English', often wrongly (Episcopalianism, the Hanoverian monarchy, whatever); but whenever you were enthusing about Great Britain, it was Great Britain.
 

Thande

Donor
3. I don't think I've ever heard of the Western Roman Empire being called 'The Latin Empire'. In fact, I think the only time that name has ever been used is in historiography related to the Latin conquest of the Byzantines.

People in the 1600s called it that. I was reading Isaac Newton's book about the Prophecies of Daniel the other day and he refers to the Western and Eastern Roman Empires as the Latin Empire and the Greek Empire.
 
Similarly, Norway in English was originally Norweg, but the pronunciation was the same--G in Old English was often pronounced as Y. This is preserved in the demonym, "Norwegian", but the pronunciation has changed to fit the spelling - "Nor-weej-an". Originally the word would have been pronounced "Norwayan", which is the spelling used in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.
Note, however, that the name means 'northway', so norway is a partial translation.
 
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