Fortesque/Fortescue

[pabloba]

Due to the date I've been in a very MediEvil mood recently, so in one of those internet wandering searches I found this: www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Fortescue The history of the Fortesque name. Here are some things I found interesting to note:

"This interesting name is of Old French origin, introduced into England at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 by followers of William 1. The surname derives from a martial nickname for a doughty, valiant warrior, derived from the Old French "fort", strong, brave, from the Latin "fortis", with "escu", shield, from the Latin "scutum". The English family of the name Fortescue are traditionally thought to be descended from a notable strong Norman warrior who carried a massively heavy shield in the service of William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings. One branch of the family who hold the title Earl Fortescue are descendants of the Radulfus Fortescu recorded below, who held lands at Modbury in Devon; the family are still associated with the town. The modern surname has three forms: Fortescue, Foskew and Fortesquieu (...) Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling."

In another of those family pages: www.houseofnames.com/fortesque-family-crest

"Before the last hundred years the English language had no fixed system of spelling rules. For that reason, spelling variations ocurred normally in Anglo Norman surnames. Over the years, many variations of the name Fortesque were recorded, including Fortescue, Fortesque and others."

Also:

"The ancient name Fortesque is a Norman name that would have developed in England after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. This name was given to a valiant strong warrior. This name is composed of the Old French elements, fort, which means strong, and escu, which means shield. Sir Richard le Forte was one of the leaders of the Norman army at Hastings. He was a great fighter and protected Duke William by holding a large shield or escue in front of him, hence Fortescue.

Knowing all this, somethings become evident:

-Fortesque means "Strong Shield".

-MediEvil has a lot of shields. There are three shields Sir Dan can obtain, and there are many shield decorations everywhere on the game.

-Fortescue and Fortesque have the same root, there are many Fortescues but there's only a handful of Fortesques. If you google "Fortesque", the first results will always be MediEvil related, but if you do the same with "Fotescue", you'll get many different things.

-The name directly derives from the Battle of Hastings, set in 1066, in which King Harold II is rumored to have lost his life due an arrow to the eye, Richard le Forte was protecting Harold's rival, William the Conqueror. Look here for more: sirdanielfortesque.proboards.com/thread/911/searching-gallowmere

-The year 1066, the Battle of Hastings, the name origin, the shield references, all these served as inspirations, there's hardly doubt about it.


I thought all this was interesting so I made a post about it, now I want to know it there's something behind Zarok, it seems it is a word in Kurdish, but I don't know anyone who speaks it.

By the way, don't know if it's been noted before, but kardok is the plural of kard, which means sword. Get it? Shield vs Sword?

[Dan's Friend]

There's also this French site, which is apparently the family's official website (or so it claims to be). It even mentions Daniel! I don't speak any French, though.
www.fortescu.net/

Dan's blog entry:
www.fortescu.net/page73/blog-7/files/84ac502818faa0d4d89106a13e055a2b-13.html

By the way, don't know if it's been noted before, but kardok is the plural of kard, which means sword. Get it? Shield vs Sword?

This is mentioned on Kardok's page on the Wiki, yeah. Would it be cool to add all this Fortesque trivia on there, as well?

[Garden Variety Zombie]

Huh I didn't know that Kardok thing, nice!

[InnocentSam]

Fortescue is also the surname of the ice cream vendor of Diagon Alley of Harry Potter universe

[pabloba]

Yeah, I found that there was a Fortescue in Harry Potter, that's what made me look for the name origin in the first place

I checked that french page and it seems to gather all information regarding Fortescue/Fortesque surname, it even lists famous people by that name, whether they're real or not, I think Sir Dan has the biggest page of them all.
Thanks to google translate here's some more history to add:

"En rapport avec cet acte de bravoure, Richard (auparavant appelé LE FORT), était depuis lors connu sous le nom de RICHARD LE FORT ESCU. (fort bouclier / écu), " lequel patronyme" écrit Holinshed " tient son origine de la force de son écu "."

That roughly translates to:

"In homage/regard to this act of bravery, Richard (formerly LE FORT ), was since then known with the name RICHARD THE FORT ESCU. (strong shield / shield), " which surname, " wrote Holinshed " takes its origin from the strength of his shield ."*

*Some words were changed from the Google translation so it makes sense. Bouclier and écu all mean shield.

That means that the name directly derives from Richard Fort Escu (formerly Le Fort), who would be the prime ancestor of all Fortesque/Fortesque etc., including Dan.

Also:

"Plus tard, quand l'utilisation des devises fut introduite, les descendants de cette famille, en choisirent une en référence à l'évènement ci-dessus:
" FORTE SCUTUM SALUS DUCUM " qui signifie " Un fort écu le salut des chefs".

That means:

Later, when the use of currency was introduced, the descendants of this family, chose a reference to the above event:
" FORTE SCUTUM SALUS DUCUM " which means " A strong shield is the salvation of leaders"

Now, I'm not sure about that currency part, since currency is way older than that, it may be a mistranslation, but google translate gives no other result, but if it refers to the coin, then probably the motto was engraved in them. If it's so, then that means there could be a coin with the Fortesque/Fortescue motto or crest somewhere.

A bit more:

"La tradition dit en outre, qu'aprés la conquète, Richard FORT ESCU revint en Normandie, où ses descendants de par un second fils, prospérèrent jusqu'au XVIII° siècle ; laissant derrière lui en Angleterre, son fils ainé, Sir ADAM, qui s'est aussi battu à Hastings et fut l'ancêtre des Fortescu Anglais."

Tradition says also that after the conquest, Richard FORT ESCU returned to Normandy, where his descendants by a second son, flourished until the eighteenth century; leaving behind in England his eldest son, Sir Adam, who also fought in Hastings and was the ancestor of English Fortescu.

Well, that gives some insight about all the name variations that came to be, with that we know at least two branches of the name.

But wait, there's more. Among the famous people listed (fictional or not) there are some examples I found interesting:

Captain Fortescue: The captain of a ship called The Madagascar, or at least that what google translate says.
Fortesque locomotive: A brand of locomotives introduced in 1999.
and
Baron Fortesque (this part is in English, so it's a direct copy/paste):
Your basic mad scientist, built a machine to tamper with, as they say, "the very fabric of space and time." It's not clear exactly what the device was supposed to do, but what it actually did--and here's a bit of history I bet you didn't know--was transform all of England into a bizarre, savage landscape teeming with armored green mutants sporting really awful teeth. Since today's Brits are, for the most part, largely non-green and unarmored (though some might argue that the teeth are still a problem), it's obvious someone stepped in to restore the UK we all know and love. Stranger things have happened.
"Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia." H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
www.fortescu.net/blog-12/files/8d094dd198ce7297fb1f6ff2f13bb462-18.html

Something there sounds familiar?

[Dan's Friend]

Awesome research!

Nov 7, 2015 7:07:52 GMT pabloba said:

I thought all this was interesting so I made a post about it, now I want to know it there's something behind Zarok, it seems it is a word in Kurdish, but I don't know anyone who speaks it.

Don't want to derail the topic too much, but according to Google, Zarok is Kurdish for "child". Also, Imanzi is apparently Zulu for "cow". Ouch! 

And there's this on Megwynne: medievalscotland.org/problem/names/megan.shtml

[Garden Variety Zombie]

This all seems like great fodder for the 'Trivia' sections of the various characters on the Medievil Wiki.

[pabloba]

Yeah, it would really be nice to see all this on the wiki, after all, there's always some history behind every name.
"Zarok" meaning "child" is kind of fitting since the over 400 years old wizard is very childish in nature.
And "Imanzi" meaning "cow" is not necessarily something bad or rude. Old sedentary societies that just started to plant food and raise animals often considered the cow to be one of their most valuable possessions, if not the most. A cow would produce milk, cheese, meat, leather, manure, more cows and could be used to plough the soil, all in the exchange of water and grass. Having a live cow would be the difference between life and death. Some cultures still think of them in high regards, some even see them as deities, goddesses that by no means should be disturbed, and should something ill befall them, their aggressor would only be gifted with certain death. So, for a Queen Warrior to be called "cow", may be one of the highest recognitions.

[Dan's Friend]

You're totally right. I failed to consider that angle when I made my original post. I'll add the information to the articles on the Wiki.

[Vollim]

In the great Soviet encyclopedia (this is like the Russian Wikipedia, but the book) I found a mention that during the war of Russia and the Commonwealth, the high ranks of the Russians called the fortifications of the Poles "Forteka". Not all Russians were literate enough to know the word "fort." The word went from mouth to mouth, acquiring different sounds "fortesca", "fortekyu." Later, especially unsuccessful military leaders Poles in mockery began to call these unsightly words. For example, "David" Forteku "- was too interested in women, because of what he became a bad military man, and got that nickname. Maybe not exactly what you were discussing, but this is what I could find.