How does one distinguish a patronymic Carpenter
From a hammer and nails carpenter in the English
Middle Ages?
This is not a trivial question, because unless the problem is
well understood, a researcher into Carpenter family history could easily
wander off into a kind of carpenter Disneyland, confusing his would be
relatives from a horde of unrelated board-bangers. The original documents
written in Latin and Norman French make no distinction. The modern
translator-editors of these documents will sometimes try to make the
distinction by assigning one individual as a carpenter and another as a
Carpenter. This is done by context, when the context is absolutely clear.
There are still mistakes galore as you might well imagine. In most cases the
editors of Medieval English documents assign everyone as a Carpenter,
sawdust carpenters included, thereby avoiding what is clearly an editors
nightmare. Enter a happy, and perhaps hapless, Carpenter genealogist who
opens a musty volume of English history and is heard in the library stacks
exclaiming, Wow, neat; look at all my ancient relatives! Our
fine-feathered friend proceeds to stitch together all the unrelated hammer
and nails carpenters back to Adam and Eve. The factor that separates all the
carpenters and Carpenters is historical context. Carpenter by itself
is next to worthless. An additional matter to mention is that medieval
hammer and saw carpenters could be quite respectable sociologically. A
carpenter could be attached to an aristocratic household and do very well
financially. He could be a landowner of means with many land records to hand
down through time to confuse the later researcher like me. Such examples are
numerous. At a later date I will introduce my favorite carpenter attached
to the household of Black Prince John of Gaunt.
Sincerely,
Bruce Carpenter