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From: "Peter A. Kincaid" <>
Subject: Re: Alwin I & Alwin II - the first hereditary Earls of Lennox
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 15:27:36 -0400
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In-Reply-To: <df917494-9aaf-4e49-918e-ad9fa6389726@e15g2000vba.googlegroups.com>


Your Watson reference does not state that the earls
of Lennox descend from Eber. It talks about Lennoxmen.
Surely nobody thinks all the people in Lennox were
of Eber. Perhaps some were, but anything more than
that is a stretch.

Where is the evidence that the earls of Lennox sponsored
the creation of MS 1467; or even any part of it?

The scribes in the 12th century were giving the name
David which is the venacular form we use the same way
today. Why is it that the name we use as Alwin today
could not be given as Alwin in the 12th century? It perhaps
being a middle English development of an old English name
like Ædelwine, Æthelwine, etc. In a number of charters
the name Alan is given alongside of Alwin so the notion
that scribes of the time would have anglicized Alwin as
Alan or Alanus is not credible.

One has to bear in mind that there were two prominent
men in Scotland in the mid 12th century with the name
Alwin; the first being 'Alwino mac Archill' and Alwin, first
Abbot of Holyrood. In the spirit of Cynthia Neville,
are we to now give Gaelic renderings of their names?
Are we to now anglicize their names as Alan?

Peter



----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Maxwell Findlater" <>
Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.medieval
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: Alwin I & Alwin II - the first hereditary Earls of Lennox


[snip]

I was refering to the evidence quoted by Watson, which has nothing to
do with Skene or MS 1467. Watson quotes from LL 318 b 42, "at Eber
meet the seven Eoganachts and the Lennoxmen in Alba", and BB 41 b 36,
"as to the Eber, of his descendants are the Dail Cais ..... and the
Eoghanacht of Cashel .... and the Lennoxmen in Alba." Watson also
quotes the original Gaelic. I hasten to add that I am not an expert
on Irish Annals.

[snip]

I agree, but you have to wonder why the Earl of Lennox sponsored the
creation of MS 1467, if he did not believe that it related to his
family and that his family were of Gaelic origin. Of course the first
two earls were omitted in the pedigree, but that may be for a number
of reasons. Their absense doesn't diminish the fact that it is a
pedigree of the earls and it does lead back to Ireland.

>
> Alwin is not a modern version of his name. It was
> a contemporary rendering of his name. Resorting to
> positions that the scribes must have translated a
> Gaelic name is not objective academics. This is a
> person projecting their own desires.

I really don't follow this comment. I would have thought that Alwin -
I said Alwyn - was a modern version of the name; I didn't say it
wasn't used then, but I have no knowledge of its use then. The
version Al(e)winus is clearly Latin, not a spoken language at that
period, so it must have been translated by the scribes from a
vernacular original. (I know you don't deal with this, but if they
wanted to anglicize him the would surely have called him Alanus.)


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