Unknown occupations in Latin

[nhtim]

I am working on translating some church records written in Latin. In my attempt to translate the Church records from the 1670s in Gniewkowo, Poland; I have come across what I believe are occupations that I can not find translations for. I am sure that these are occupations, because they are places within each record where the Surname &/or Occupation has shown up in other records. Many people did not have last names, and the occupations were listed. These and some other questions were posted to another Latin Forum, but not all the mysteries were solved, so I thought I would also post them here in order to get more input.

1: Cameratoru - The only reference I found for "Camerator" is ... vault, vaulted room, small boat .... How would this correlate to an occupation if this is in fact a correct translation of the word. One person had found a definition referring to a judges chambers. I don't think that this relates in any way to a Judge... because these people would be higher up in the community and would have Surnames. People referred to by occupation only were from the lower class.

2: Ouilator / Ouillarij - these 2 words are in 2 different records they look similar so I thought they mean the same thing... I have not found anything to give me a clue as to what they mean. One person thought it could come from ovile meaning sheepfold indicating the profession of shepherd, It is interesting that shepherd comes up for this word because I also have the occupation "opilionis" which I understand as shepherd,

3: Cmetori - NO CLUE but it is mentioned in more than just one record. This is baffling anyone who encounters it.
some comments: Cmetori - could be related to metor meaning measure off meaning a surveyor? An explanation for my speculations toward the meaning of Cmetori cm is not a combination of consonants usually used in Latin so it probably is an abbreviation of cum which just means with. Therefore the root of the word is either metori or etori etori did not turn anything up but metor means means to measure off. The only other word I have that it could be related to is meto which means to fear, but I don't think coward is a profession. One other thought is that it was related to Cmentarz in Polish which means cemetery. maybe somehow the priest latinized a word?????? "Polatin" .

4: Inguiliri - I have no idea & nobody else did either.

5: Bratatoris - this is in a number of records, & I could not find anything to help me. I thought that maybe it was "brewer" but I dont think this is correct. There is a Surname in one of the records that is Bratoszewski, which is of course similar. Bratatoris would not be a last name in Poland as written here, so I can only assume that it is an occupation.

6: Fabri filig - ?weaver?

I greatly appreciate any comments or questions that may lead to solving these mysteries. If anyone would like to see copies of the original records.. I will be happy to email them, maybe someone will see something that I did not.

[darodalaf]

1: Cameratoru - The only reference I found for "Camerator" is ... vault, vaulted room, small boat .... How would this correlate to an occupation if this is in fact a correct translation of the word. One person had found a definition referring to a judges chambers. I don't think that this relates in any way to a Judge... because these people would be higher up in the community and would have Surnames. People referred to by occupation only were from the lower class.

Maybe cognate with the German Keller/Kellerman. Cellars are often vaulted. This would fit the concept of labour class naming.

That was what come to my mind.

darodalaf

[nhtim]

darodalaf,

Thank you for your input. Your comment is intriguing, and I see where this could be, but although there is a possibility of this, I doubt it because any last names I already have in any of the records are definitely Polish. and all occupations are listed in Latin. Now what makes your comment intriguing is that this area of Poland was Prussian, although in the time period of the 1670 it would have been more Lithuanian, and later slowly "germanized"

I have also had someone suggest that --- Camera meaning room, and that cameratoru could mean "personal assistant" in the home.

Any thoughts on that?

[nhtim]

1: Cameratoru - The only reference I found for "Camerator" is ... vault, vaulted room, small boat .... How would this correlate to an occupation if this is in fact a correct translation of the word. One person had found a definition referring to a judges chambers. I don't think that this relates in any way to a Judge... because these people would be higher up in the community and would have Surnames. People referred to by occupation only were from the lower class.

Maybe cognate with the German Keller/Kellerman. Cellars are often vaulted. This would fit the concept of labour class naming.

That was what come to my mind.


darodalaf

I have an updated to my search. Camerator = chamberlain

1. an official charged with the management of the living quarters of a sovereign or member of the nobility.
2. an official who receives rents and revenues, as of a municipal corporation; treasurer.
3. the high steward or factor of a member of the nobility.
4. a high official of a royal court.

Because no Surname is used, I would venture to guess that it would not be definitions 3 & 4, and more than likely definition #1

[nhtim]

I have posted the images of the records in question to a page on my website for those that would like to take a look at the actual documents. http://www.firkowski.com/latin.html

I look forward to your input. Thanks for all the help.

[adrianus]

Salve nhtim

fabri-filig[atoris?] = fabri-filic[ator]? = ??? worker with ferns (filix filicis) as in making decorative fern borders or possibly thatching or weaving, ut dixisti? or who makes bracken fences? bracken = filix, too.

ovillator = shepherd, vel qui cum opilione/ovilione laborat /shepherd's assistant?
ovillinus-a-um=belonging to sheep, so ovillarius = worker with sheep

inquilinus (adjectivum / substantivum) : of foreign birth / immigrant vel non-native person (Joannis Inquilini = [born] of John/Johannes the Foreigner)

braxator = qui cervisiae fabricandum in fabrica regit; beer-making supervisor = brewer, ut dixisti.

cmetaris = caementaris? : caementor? : ? caementarius = stone-cutter, mason, wall-raiser

[nhtim]

Salve nhtim

fabri-filig[atoris?] = fabri-filic[ator]? = ??? worker with ferns (filix filicis) as in making decorative fern borders or possibly thatching or weaving, ut dixisti? or who makes bracken fences? bracken = filix, too.

ovillator = shepherd, vel qui cum opilione/ovilione laborat /shepherd's assistant?
ovillinus-a-um=belonging to sheep, so ovillarius = worker with sheep

inquilinus (adjectivum / substantivum) : of foreign birth / immigrant vel non-native person (Joannis Inquilini = [born] of John/Johannes the Foreigner)

braxator = qui cervisiae fabricandum in fabrica regit; beer-making supervisor = brewer, ut dixisti.

cmetaris = caementaris? : caementor? : ? caementarius = stone-cutter, mason, wall-raiser

This is great!.... I had thought that it might have been related to weaving, and you also mention that here. Someone had thought that it might actually be "son of the smith" from fabri filiy. Now, althought it sounds like a plausable explaination. I tend to go with your assessment because it was something I had thought also.

Your explaination of the difference between the 2 sheep related occupations is something that finally makes sense, although one thing still puzzles me, why would there be a differentiation with these 2 and the word opilionis, which is also mentioned in some of the records.

Since there has been no other clues from anyone I have talked to on "inguiliri" I am definitely inclined to agree with you, and it is a matter of the handwriting to change it from Inguiliri to Ingulini! Thanks!!!!!!!

Yes, I finally figured out Braxator!!

Your explaination for Cmetari is the only one I have seen that makes any sense! Congratulations.!!!!

Thank you again for your assistance!!!!!!!!!

I take it that you had a look at the actually records... From looking at them, do you think that the priest probably had a problem with his latin?

[adrianus]

Salve Tim
I am simply guessing between weaving, thatching, fencing. Without a definitive authority, it should be left as "something along those lines" for a trade. As for the priest having a problem with his latin, I did look at your facsimiles and they look good to me (although I didn't look totally thoroughly). It's not a problem with the latin. Familiarity with early handwriting, scripts and official abbreviations (church, legal and administrative) suggests that what you see as a "g" is actually a "q" in "inquilini" (it looks like an "n" to me in "ini" + in many manuscripts a "q" looks like our open "g" and a "g" like our closed-loop "g") and "braxator" definitely has an "x" as you noticed. "P" and "v" are often switched in early orthography and you know that spelling could vary widely in time and throughout Europe, so you cannot say divergences in spelling are mistakes. There is no standardisation in vernacular spelling at this time, and that's a good thing for what it reveals about regional pronunciations. Also a writer may or may not include the typical signs of abbreviation. So "et" could easily be an abbreviated "ent" in "cmet" for caement", --otherwise a tilde above the "e" would indicate an abbreviation (hastily written, it often looks like a macron or an acute accent when it isn't), and even then a sign wasn't necessarily unique. So the same sign could indicate different letter groups, as in "et" = "ent" or "emt". Additionally, different types of strokes through "b" and "p" could mean many different letter clusters. This wasn't at all confusing to someone who could immediately recognise what word was meant, since familiarity with the language (latin) and the context would immediately rule out all other possibilities. Also, inflected endings were often omitted in legal documents, to make it easier to write and I think to avoid any embarrassment (conveniently) in getting agreements wrong (and invalidating the document potentially). So leaving out a case ending doesn't necessarily indicate bad latin. You know, don't you, that all the trade names you point out are in the genitive case to agree with the person they are attributed to, whose name is in the genitive. As for the differences between opilio, ovilio, ovillator and ovillarius, I don't know that you can infer anything necessarily. They may be describing hierarchical job distinctions or they may be referring to the same shepherding job, and that could vary from region to region and time to time, and they may even have been written by the same hand as synonyms. We all do that sort of thing, I believe, for love of variety and sometimes to show off. Anyway, I enjoyed your post and am glad if anything I said was useful, even if it's not definitive by any means.

I do see abbreviations with the comma-like sign (typical) over the "n" in Joanes for Joannes in "Patrini Joan'es Gniatkowski..." (although that is , in fact, an abbreviation sign used as a spelling correction --I've read some papers which interpret these as acute accents but they aren't) and you've also got a "Jacob9" or "Jacobg" which is actually Jacobus (because that's not a "g" at the end). Having noticed that, now I realize that I was completely wrong about "fabri-filig". In fact, it is as your friend suggested "filig" or "fili9"= "filius" --definitely not "filig." with a "g" (which has a closed loop): "Jacobus fabri filius" "godparents were Jacob the smith's son [and...]". Now when you look carefully at your facsimiles, you'll see that what looks like a "g" resolves into three distinct signs: "g" (with a closed loop), the letter "q" (like a "g" but open at the bottom), and the abbreviation "9" for "us". This was common throughout Europe for centuries.

[adrianus]

It's also worth pointing out in your handwriting sample, nhtim, the common practice of abbreviating final "m". So "Marianna'" (with a raised comma-like tail)= "baptizavi...Mariannam" (accusative). That tail on the word is significant and recognizable. "filiu'" (with a raised comma-like tail)= "filium", "filia'" (with a raised comma-like tail)= "filiam", "Eade'" (with a raised comma-like tail)= "Eadem". "legittm'" (with a raised comma-like tail)= "legitimum" or "legitimam" --and you see also "legitima'" for "legitimam" so one t or two, whatever you feel like, possibly. However, if you speak "legittm'" you can hear the word unpack correctly as "legitimum/am" but if you speak or think about "legitm'" it doesn't sound right but like "legitmum/am". So why not write "legitim"? --well, because the four verticals of "im" can be confusing in handwriting (just an idea about why the double t, and possibly I'm amateurishly explaining away what can't be explained or else is just a mistake). You don't have to consistently do it, though, and you read "baptizavi...Hevam" (Eve). Note that you may also elsewhere come across a terminal "z"-like symbol for the dative/ablative inflexion "ibus", --plus other sorts.

This is why internet access to photographed sources revolutionizes historical scholarship: printed transcriptions often can misrepresent the handwriting of the original source materials. Of course, until the colour and resolution is sufficient (and for other reasons), photographs will still not be sufficient substitutes for inspecting the originals, but they can throw up some types of transcription errors. (Forget about the accuracy of OCR in these matters, because visual inspection by a human is the only thing to base critical judgements upon here.)

The more you scrutinize your documents, the more confidently you can say the writer's latin is good. Certainly, it's fit for its time and purpose and, certainly, it's better than mine (when I have to guess at some words). One might qualify that, however, by saying that any literate person, even without Latin, could learn how to keep a baptismal register in Latin. After all, the vocabulary set required (including the sorts of abbreviations available and appropriate, together with typical proper names of people and places) was quite narrow and expressions are formulaic.

[nhtim]

Adrianus,

Thank you very much for the lessons in handwriting this will come in handy as I continue to look at other latin records!

I think I am coming to a point of finally solving my mysterious occupations!!! It has been quite the education though, and I look forward to reviewing the records I have already looked at to see if I can learn anything new that I missed based on some of the information you told me about the handwriting.

It was so important to me to be clear on occupations, because those occupations are acting as Surnames for the lower class... and at some point in time everyone will be using surnames... so I want to have all the information I can to correctly place people where they belong in the families.

[adrianus]

If you wouldn't mind, nhtim, please share with us here (in this thread) your occupations list when it is complete. I think a lot of us would be interested.

Si tibi non molestum erit, nhtim, catalogo artium tuo perfecto, amabò te eum nobis in hoc filo describito. Ut credo, ille multos tenebit.

[adrianus]

Ref on p.118 to "cementaris" (long "e" = "ae" from older word caementarius)
"masons making 2 doorways from stone at task 8s (Item cementaris ij hostia facientibus de petra ad tascam). --14th century record
in
The Fabric Accounts of Exeter Cathedral as a Record of Medieval Sculptural Practice
Author(s): Jean A. Givens
Source: Gesta, Vol. 30, No. 2, (1991), pp. 112-118
Published by: International Center of Medieval Art
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767054
Accessed: 19/04/2008 12:54

[nhtim]

I will gladly make and post a list of occupations I encountered in the records I am looking at, as you say it will probably be useful to others. I am going back through all those records I have already looked at and when finished with at least through 1700, I will get a list up here for all.

I went to the website you mentioned, but I am not able to view p 118 because I am not a subscriber I guess, but thanks anyway!

[adrianus]

I went to the website you mentioned, but I am not able to view p 118 because I am not a subscriber I guess, but thanks anyway!

No problem, nhtim. There are only a few words in a footnote that relate to "cementaris" and I gave the important bit already above.

Minimè grave, nhtim. Quod iam suprà dedi summa est rerum quae ad "cementaris" verbum pertingunt. Paucum in adnotatione est.

Here's a fuller extract. Ecce circumjacentia et illa adnotatio in totâ:

[on p.115] In almost every case we have seen, the term associated with the preparation of bosses and corbels is "carve" (taillandis) rather than the more generic faciendam.[see footnote 32]

[footnote on p.118] 32. In this specific connection an Exeter reference in 1286-1287 seems ambiguous. The text refers to "masons making 2 doorways from stone at task 8s (Item cementaris ij hostia facientibus de petra ad tascam)." Erskine, Accounts, I, 7. [The Accounts of the Fabric of Exeter Cathedral, 1279-1353, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, N.S. 24 and 26, ed. A. M. Erskine (1981, 1983).]

[Interaxus]

Happened upon these other responses quite by chance. Small world.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthre ... ight=Latin

Cheers,
Int

[nhtim]

Happened upon these other responses quite by chance. Small world.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthre ... ight=Latin

Cheers,
Int

Those are from my posts to this Latin forum.

[adrianus]

Hi,
I found in the DuCange dictionary the following definition for "cmeto, cmetonis"
(are you sure it is not an N ?) :
"apud Polonos homo rusticus seu servilis conditionis".

Fred_C on the other forum must be right. Nonne rectè dicit in altero foro Fred_C. "cmeto, cmetonis" = fortassè anglicè "farm labourer"?

It's definitely "cmetonis" and not "cmetoris" in nhtim's document (just look at how the writer forms his "r" and "n" elsewhere), so it definitely is NOT "cementarius" or a variant of it.

[nhtim]

Hi,
I found in the DuCange dictionary the following definition for "cmeto, cmetonis"
(are you sure it is not an N ?) :
"apud Polonos homo rusticus seu servilis conditionis".

Fred_C on the other forum must be right. Nonne rectè dicit in altero foro Fred_C. "cmeto, cmetonis" = fortassè anglicè "farm labourer"?

It's definitely "cmetonis" and not "cmetoris" in nhtim's document (just look at how the writer forms his "r" and "n" elsewhere), so it definitely is NOT "cementarius" or a variant of it.

I guess this makes sense as there are a number of records that have this listed as an occupation, and it was a farming community with lots of farmers (hortulani)

Even after looking at that word in those records, it is difficult for me to be sure "r" or "n" but if I look at it by noting how many other letters in the documents look like "r" or "n" in comparison to what I have in question. I agree with you.

Thank you for all your efforts on my behalf adrianus. I am real happy to be solving these mysteries and learning something at the same time.