Jesus Christ's name in early medieval west

Iesvs is the Latin (Roman) version of the Hebrew name Yeshua (phonetic spelling). The Greek version of Kristos means 'the annointed one.' I doubt that another appelation was in use in the Western empire. Latin was the language of the upper classes in latter-day Rome. On the street, Greek was more commonly the Lingua Franca in all the Roman colonies, including Judea.

Latin: Ievsvs
Middle English: Jesu
Old French: Jhesu
Old High German: Isa

In Old High German it is, as far as I know, "isais" (source: Lexikon des Althochdeutschen)

Do you ahve references for especially your Latin quote, hobitbob?
(I just know pre-medieval sources in Latin, where it always has been "Iesvs" [and this only reasoned by the fact that in Latin 'v' and 'u' is the same letter].)

Other than the Vulgate, and various missals I had access to when writing my MA, not really.

I had, fortunately (in this special case, at least) living in Europe/Germany :wink:

I am referring to the most common spellings I encountered. I had access to several 14th and 15th century documents, missals, wills, and and early printed versions of preyers. Most of these were in photocopy form. Included in these were several prayer books from Fulda. I am not arguing with you, merely pointing out that spelling wasn't standardized until much later.

Actually, when I asked the original question I was referring to I wanted to know what Jesus was commonly called in western Europe. I suppose if you hear a Greek talk about Christianity you will probably hear him say the words "Jesus Christ". I wonder what words you would have heard from a speaker of late antiquity. The only capital of Christianity for three centuries was Rome so I assume a Latin name would have evolved.

I believe you assume wrongly, Dov. A lot of Greek was used in everyday speech in Rome and Christianity had first taken hold in the Near East, where Greek was far more common than Latin, before the movement reached Rome. An appelation such as Cristos to the proper given name 'Jesus' would not have seemed strange to the Romans and there would have been no need to translate it into Latin. Don't forget, even the Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church uses some Greek. The [i[Kyrie Eleyson[/i] portion of the Mass, which is a plea for mercy and forgiveness, isn't Latin. It is Greek and was a standard legal formula of the time, in throwing oneself upon the mercy of the ruler.

You know how it is when you hear a new word for the first time and then hear it a dozen times in the following weeks? Well, when I first asked this question of the group, I of course didn't know the answer, then I saw a bumper sticker with a Orthodox Christian cross. Next to that were the words, "Slava Isusu Christu". If that was Romanian then most likely that is what Jesus was known by in late antiquity. I assume "Slava" is a reference to the church or to the Slavic in some way. I may be wrong.

"Slava" or "Salva"?

'Slava' is a Slavic word (still current in modern Russian) which means, roughly 'Glory.'

Thanks, I didn't know.

Not roughly, this is an absolutely accurate meaning of the word in both modern and ancient Russian.

So I am assuming that the bumper sticker was written in a Romance language, which Romanian was. So the sticker said then, "Glory to Jesus Christ". It couldn't have derived from an "eastern" church because they would, I suppose, have used the name Jesus Christ.

The use of the word 'slava' would indicate the bumper sticker was written in a Slavic language, rather than Romance. Here's the rub, however: while Romanian is classified as a Romance language, it has been greatly influenced by Slavic languages due to the fact that virtually all the country's neighbors speak Slavic languages. There are many Slavic loan words which appear in no other Romance language. For example, the word for 'yes' in Romanian is 'da', not 'si', 'sim' or 'oui.' I'm not fluent in Romanian, but I assume the sticker means 'Glory to Jesus Christ' or some variation thereof.

Welcome back, Andrew!

"Slavă Domnului!" means "Thank God!", so the sticker could mean something in the mentioned direction as well.

[Nice and quite complete online dictionary here:English<> Romanian dictionary]

Hello, Walter, and thanks for the welcome. I have three weeks of e-mail to catch up on! A truly daunting task.

Your post admirably illustrates what I was saying about Romanian. That phrase is a mixture of Slavic and Romance roots. The Dominului part is obviously derived from the Latin (cf. dominus=Lord), while the slava is of Slavic derivation.