Gamla örtug

Abstract

In the tax records of Stockholm from 1502 and 1503, a personal name appears which is interpreted in the dictionary of medieval personal names of Sweden (SMP) as a man’s name Hartvik or Hartika, written Gambla Artich ‘Old Hartvik’. The author finds this explanation unlikely and proposes that Gambla Artich is an attestation of a byname ‘old örtug’, where ‘örtug’ is a coin denomination. Furthermore, it is proposed that the name bearer is probably a woman. Bynames are not generally used to refer to women in Swedish medieval sources, and it is argued that the great majority of the relatively few known cases should be explained as a derogatory usage, typically denoting marginalized women.