What's in a Name?

There’s a rhythm to reading medieval history – especially when you’re making your way through Volume I of The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, which is only “shorter” in the way the Hundred Years’ War was “a bit of a scuffle”. You soon become attuned to a certain cadence in the names: Anselm of Canterbury, William of Malmesbury, Peter Abelard (who frankly sounds like he ought to be playing the lute in a 1970s prog-rock supergroup). The formula is reassuring – a given name followed by a location, often with a Latin flourish to give it a bit of ecclesiastical gravitas. It’s the medieval equivalent of signing off emails with “MA (Oxon)” and hoping no one asks what your dissertation was about.

And then, like a monk tripping over a cassock hem, along lumbers Herman the German.

I nearly spilled my tea. While every other monk, mystic or metaphysician gets a reverential title fit for a cathedral inscription, this poor fellow sounds like he should be headlining a travelling sausage stall. “Herman the German – one night only in the mead tent – bring your own flagon!”

Which is wildly unjust, given that Herman the German – or Hermannus Alemannus, to use his more scholarly sobriquet – was no mere sideshow act. He was a formidable translator working in 13th-century Spain, instrumental in reintroducing Aristotle and Arabic philosophy to the Latin West. Without Herman, half of Scholasticism wouldn’t exist. Aquinas might’ve ended up shelving scrolls instead of writing commentaries.

But fate – and posterity – had other ideas. The man deserved a name like Herman of Toledo or Herman of the House of Intellectual Thunder, and instead got lumbered with something that sounds like a rejected Beano character. It’s as if the scriptorium ran out of Latin and thought, “He’s German, he’s Herman, that’ll do – next!”

You do start to wonder who else history quietly misfiled. Barry the Byzantine, perhaps, doing admin in the Hagia Sophia. Nigel of Nineveh, who pioneered the medieval clipboard. They’re probably all out there, lost to the ages because they didn’t get a proper PR team behind them.

Yes, Alemannus sounds suitably grave and cloistered – but translated bluntly back into English, it’s just Herman. The German. A man who shaped European intellectual life and yet, by sheer accident of nomenclature, now sounds like someone who’d offer you schnapps with your Aristotle.

So here’s to him. Not of Canterbury or from the Abbey of St Egregious, but simply Herman. The German. A scholar, a translator, and a walking argument for tighter quality control in medieval name assignments.

If Volume I of The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History has taught me anything so far – other than the fact that Louis was the medieval version of Dave – it’s that the Middle Ages were as gloriously absurd as they were devout. And somewhere, between the mystics and the monarchs, there’s always a Herman doing the heavy lifting – with a name that wouldn’t look out of place on a beer mat.