Chapter CCIX: Section V: Richard

Richard, or Richardet, was one of the Quatre Filz d'Aymon, who, according to one version, was the person who gave the fatal blow with the chess-board, instead of Renaud. He is not a very interesting personage, being rather the attendant knight than the prime hero, the rescued, not the rescuer; but under his Italian name of Ricciardetto, he has a whole poem to himself, a mere scurrilous satire upon friars, and was the lowest depth to which romantic poetry fell.

It was not to this Paladin that his name owed its frequency, but to Ricehard, or stern king, an Anglo-Saxon monarch of Kent, who left his throne to become a monk at Lucca, and was there said to have wrought many miracles. The third Norman duke bore the name, and transmitted it to two successors, whence we obtained as many as twenty Richards at the Conquest, and have used it as a favourite national name ever since. Two more saints bore it, the excellent bishop of Chichester, and a hermit, who was made bishop of Andria, in Apulia. Three times has it been on the throne, though finally discarded by royalty after the enormities imputed to the last Plantagenet; and latterly it has lost a little of its popularity, though it has never been entirely disused.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Netherlands. │
│Richard │Richard │Riccardo │Rijkert │
│Ritchie │ ——————————— │Ricciardo │Riikard │
│ (_Scot._) │ Portuguese. │Ricciardetto │Riik │
│Diccon │Ricardo │ │ │
│Dick │ ——————————— │ │ │
│ │ Polish. │ │ │
│ │Ryszard │ │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The leading syllable is from the same source as _ragn_; it is he who executes judgment, the ruler or king, the same word as the Indian _rajah_, and the Latin _rex_. It was _reiks_ in Gothic, _rich_ in old German, _ryce_ in Anglo-Saxon; and its derivative _reich_ was the origin of the Neustria and Austrasia, the _oster reich_ and _ne oster reich_, eastern and not eastern, realms, of the Franks, and of the present Austria or eastern kingdom. _Reich_ is the home term for the German empire at the present day. Our adjective _rich_ is its sordid offspring, and in France a wealthy peasant is _un richart_.

_Rik_ is more in vogue as a Gothic and Frank commencement than among most of the other Teutons, though all use it as a conclusion. Richard is its only universal name; but among the first foes of the Romans, we find among the Suevi, Rechiarius, who is the same with the German Richer, or kingly warrior, and the French saint, Riquier. Ricimar, the name of the terrible Goth who for a short time held Rome, is the great king, and was the maker and dethroner of the four last Augusti; and his namesakes, Ricimer and Rechimiro, appear in Spain, and may, perhaps, be the right source of Ramiro. Recared, Richila, Riciburga, are also Gothic.

The Franks show Rigonthe, or royal war, a daughter of Fredegonda; Rictrude, a saint, as well as Richilde, also a queenly name, which continued for some time in use, and is better than the Richenza and Richarda, sometimes used in England as the feminines of Richard. Richolf endures in Friesland as Rycolf, Ryklof, or Rickel, and Germany once had Ricbert.

One great name of this derivation is the northern Eirik. The first syllable is that which we call _aye_ to the present day, the word that lies at the root of the Latin _œvum_, the German _ewig_, and our own _ever_. Ei-rik is thus _Ever King_. An ancient Erik was said to have been admitted among the gods, and Earic was the second name of Æsc, the son of Henghist; but it was the northern people who really used Eirik, which comes over and over in the line of succession of all the Northern sovereignties, figures in their ballads, and, in the person of King Eirik Blödaxe, is connected with their finest poetry. In the present day it is scarcely less popular than in old times, and has the feminine Eirika.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ German. │ Nor. │ Swedish. │
│Eric │Eric │Erich │Eirik │Erik │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Polish. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ Esth. │ Lapp. │
│Eryk │Erih │Erik │Erik │Keira │
│ │Areh │ │Eers │ │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Two other names of the North have the same commencement, Eimund, ever protecting, or eternal guard, commonly called Emund, and Eilif, the ever-living, answering to the Greek Ambrosios. Eilif is also written Eiliv, Elliv, Ellef, and even Elof, and Latinized in Elavus.[141]

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Footnote 141:

Roscoe; Munch; Butler; Michaelis.