Chapter XCV: Section V: Constantius

Constantius arose likewise as late as any cognomen deserving to be reckoned. It comes from _constans_ (constant), a word meaning holding together firmly, and compounded of _con_ (together), and _stans_, the participle of the verb _sto_ (I am, or I stand).

So late, indeed, did Constantius become prominent in history in the person of Flavius Valerius Constantius, that he does not even seem to have had a prænomen, and his sons and grandsons varied the cognomen by way of distinction into Constans and Constantinus. Of these the first Christian emperor rendered the diminutive glorious, and though it has not been much copied in the West, Κονστάντινος is one of the very few Latin names that have been Latinized among the Greeks, as well it might be, in memory of the emperor who transported the seat of empire to a Greek city, and changed its appellation from Byzantium to Constantinopolis.

Constantius Chlorus was very popular in Britain, and—as has been said before—the belief that his wife Helena was of British birth, held the island firm in its allegiance till the death of the last emperor who claimed kindred with him. And then Constantius and Constantinus were names assumed by the rebels who first began to break the bonds of union with the empire, as if the sound were sure to win British hearts. Indeed, Cystenian has never entirely disappeared from the Welsh nomenclature, nor Kusteninn from Brittany.

Perhaps one charm of the name to a Kelt was its first syllable, which resembles the _con_ or _cu_ (wisdom or _hound_), which was one of their favourite beginnings. The Constantines of Hector Boece’s line of Scottish kings are ornamental Congals and Conchobars; and, in like manner, Ireland has turned many a Connal and Connor into Constantine in more modern times, accounting for the prevalence of the trisyllabled Roman as a surname.

In Russia Konstantin has been carried on, especially since the days of Catharine II., as a witness to the continuation of the Byzantine empire in that of Muscovy; and here and in the other Slavonian countries alone does it really prevail as a popular name, frequent enough for vernacular contractions, such as Kostja, Kosto, Kostadin.

The feminine of both names was used by the daughters of the imperial family, and Constantia continued among the Provençal ladies, so as to be brought to the throne of France by the termagant Constance of Provence, wife to that meek sovereign, Robert the Pious. She is said to have insisted on his composing a Latin hymn in her honour, when he, not being in a mood for flattery, began to sing “_O constantia martyrum_” which she took as a personal compliment. Constance has ever since been a royal and noble name in France, but the unfortunate Breton duchess, mother of Arthur, probably received it as a supposed feminine to Conan, the name of her father. Italy made it Gostanza, and the Sicilian mother of Frederick II. transmitted it to Germany as Constanz, or Stanze. Her great granddaughter, the heiress of Manfred’s wrongs, took it to Spain as Constanza, the traces of which we see in the Custance, by which Chaucer calls that excellent daughter of Pedro the Cruel, who was the wife of John of Gaunt. After her time it was common in England, and it is startling to find a real Constance de Beverley in disgrace in the reign of Henry VIII., not, however, for forging Marmion’s letters, but for the much more excusable misdemeanour of attending the Marchioness of Exeter in a stolen visit to the Nun of Kent. In the times immediately after the Reformation, Constance died away, then came forth as Constantia in the Minerva press, and at present reigns among the favourite fancy names.

Kostancia, Kotka, Stanca are used in the Slavonian countries, but far less commonly than the masculine Constantine, which is almost entirely disregarded by the Teuton side of Europe.