According to a family genealogy, I probably had an ancestor who owned a place called Haencoern some time during the 1300s. I say “probably” because the genealogy during this period isn’t definitive, but most probably true based on local naming and marriage customs of the era.
Although quite a bit of archival information about the Utrecht area has become freely available online, I am unable to find any reference to Haencoern, although I assume it was some sort of farm, possibly one of the so-called ‘fortified farms’, of which several still exist whose history goes back to the period of history mentioned. I suspect that my failure to find anything on Haencoern has to do with changes in Dutch spelling, or with the possibility that whoever transcribed the information misread a letter or two. The work was done in consultation with professionals, but that wouldn’t completely rule out an error or two.
So my question is this: Based on possible changes in spelling and pronunciation, what could Haencoern be a misprint of? I’m thinking it should be Haan- “Rooster’s-something”, but “Roostercorn” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. “Rooster’s-Comb”, perhaps? Still not terrific, although I’m prejudiced by the fact that “Coxcomb” is an archaic pejorative in English, roughly meaning “dandy” or “fop”.
A parallel example is Hennesprong another local farm dating back to the 1300s, but which was then known as Hindesprong (Stag’s Leap). In this case it is no mystery, since I’m aware that /d/ in the middle of a great many Dutch words vanished in the early modern period.
the /ae/ > /aa/ switch is exceedingly likely, so the first part would probably be ‘rooster’ (haan). As for ‘coern’, I really do not have a clue, it does not resemble anything I can think of. There’s two options that come to mind: 1) it is supposed to be ‘koren’, and the e and the r got switched around for some reason. Koren is a collective name for wheat and oats and what have you, related, I have no doubt, to English ‘corn’ - so I’m not sure that that makes any sense. The other option (more likely to be true) would be that coern is a word of which we have lost the meaning in modern dutch - but something that would somehow refer to a farm building. I don’t know, it might even refer to modern ‘keur’ (although it does not seem to explain the ‘n’ in there. Keur kan refer to a whole bunch of things, including ‘a great selection of’, but also choice or decision. Take your pick, more etymological info here.
Spectre, a friend of mine is a specialist in Dutch genealogy, and has contacts with folks even more specialized in medieval Dutch questions such as you’re asking. I’ve taken the liberty of forwarding this on to her, to see what she can make of it.
My ancestors also came from such a fortified farm, the name of which can be found as far back as 800 AD. My surname is derived from that name, 1200 years later.
Possibility: Ok, as far as I can tell poking around it’s an old spelling of Haankoren (which has the sense to me of “chickenfeed”)-- some sort of rent or mortgage or lease situation for land with payment/dividends made now and then: shows up in old genealogy and legal documents.
(search on http://www.kb.nl/script/ncrd-thesaurus/thesaurus.php?zoekterm=na ) so it might not be the site but the legal situation surrounding it?
I’m beginning to think that the archive they cited only means that the ancestor was the owner of some property that was under a “chicken-money” obligation with respect to the overlord.
This sort of thing wasn’t totally unheard of; until 1993 the Principality of Andorra was obliged to pay a yearly tribute amounting to a few USD to its two co-princes, the President of France and the Bishop of Urgel. The bishop additionally received an annual payment in kind, consisting of 6 hams, 6 cheeses, and a dozen live chickens.
SoP-- do you have the original text that used the term, or are you getting this info 18th-hand? Might disambiguate.
QtM-- what does your pal do, BTW? Amateur genealogist or historian? (trying to imagine what kind of person has a copy of Verdam’s Middle Dutch as a hobby. . .)
It was included as a chapter in the family genealogy, so what I’m reading is a modern recounting. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if the original will become available online. The provincial government of Utrecht seem to have this bizarre notion that historical archives should be available online, freely to anyone who wants them. I don’t find a whole lot of that in this country, leastways not without having to get past a cash register.
My pal works for a local research library. She’s got connections with dutch genealogists who do this stuff as hobbies or are academics who do it for a living. The actual person who ferreted that info out of Verdam’s is a project manager and ICT consultant at Nationaal Archief.