William Lost-His-Pants and more fun with indexing medieval names

Abstract

Many books on indexing cover how to index medieval kings and queens, popes, bishops, and other members of the elite. But a whole swath of people do not have neat titles and will not be found in national biographical dictionaries. Using her expertise as both a medieval historian and an indexer, Jolanta Komornicka looks at the naming practices for the medieval masses, specifically the rise of the byname: what it was, how it relates to the surname, and how to index it.