Just 3 years after the Roman invasion of Britain, there is mention of Julius Planta in an edict of the Roman Emperor Claudius.
The full text of an edict of the Roman Emperor Claudius of 46AD, granting citizenship to people living near modern Trento in the Italian Alps, includes..I have for the matter under consideration sent Julius Planta, my friend and advisor. And since he has investigated and examined the matter with the utmost care, in consultation with my procurators, both those who were in the vicinity and those in other parts of the region, with regard to all other matters I grant him permission to make decision and render judgment ....As a close advisor to the Roman emperor, Julius Planta could have had links to almost anywhere in the Roman empire.The Romans left Britain in 410AD; and in 491 Frisian tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) brought the Germanic basis of Old English to Britain. It is conjectured that most people at the time were speaking Celtic but only about 20 Celtic words survived into English; and only about 200 Roman words were found in the first 150 years of Anglo-Saxon English - one of these was planta and a similar word is found in Old High German, Old Norse, and French. Also, there was evidently an early influence of the Latin word planta on the phonetically similar (Celtic) word clanda (meaning `family').
Over 800 years after Julius Planta, at the end of the reign of Charles le Chauve of France, a new Duchy of Aquitaine was begun with count Bernard Planta Pilus (in Latin) or Plantevelue (in French) who had exerted his authority first on l'Auvergne and le Velay (869-72AD).
According to the Da Vinci Code of popular fiction and other pseudo-history, the name Plantard is supposed to date back that far. This has been dubbed The Plantard Subplot which involves:
- a mythical linkage of Planta in England to Plantard; as well as,
- a family tie of Plantard to Plantagenet and Plantevelue in France.
To put the record straight about the Razes genealogy itself, there is:
In particular, the associated `so-called Razes genealogy' includes the `Plantagenet like' names...
- Plantard - ardently flowering offshoot of the Merovingian vine;
- Plantavelue - implanter or offshoot of hairy powers of renewal and healing; and,
- Plantamour - implanter or offshoot of the Lord's creative love (or man's generative love).
The Merovingian Dynasty 450-751AD
- evidence of a more direct cultural Plantagenet-Plant link in England than the claimed indirect linkage of Planta to Plantard and hence to Plantagenet; and,
- evidence for the true forebears of Geffrey Plante Genest (forefather of the English Plantagenets) in France.
Certainly, the 9th century existence of Bernard Plantevelue in Aquitaine is widely accepted and there is widespread modern evidence for the name Plantamour. In modern France, the name Plantard is found mostly in Brittany and also near Switzerland where there is evidence also for the noble name Planta. Some Plant-like names are mentioned for example, under Plantaz, on a Swiss web site.
There is quite widespread evidence for Plant-like names around western Europe. It is likely that a popular culture led to these names, though this requires some understanding of early beliefs.
The debunked Razes genealogy claims that a blood line Planta in England descended from the Plantards. Less controversially, there are various possibilities by which `Plant like' names could have arrived in England, such as..
The Y-line DNA Testing programme of the Plant Family History Group may shed further light on such possibilities. So far, the DNA results indicate that the English Plant family is from different male-line stock than the French-Canadian Plante family.It is possible to make various conjectures about the meanings of the associated Plant-like names. For example, in Breton, ard means art or craft and plantan can mean to implant, such that a possible sense to Plantard is an `implant(er) of skill or divine magic'. The name Plantamour might be related through the `rose of heavenly love' to a `courtly love' sense for the name Planterose. The latter name may have held sense as an `implant(er) of heavenly love and healing' since the healing powers of the rose were believed to be many. Alternatively, Planterose may have related to the old French Planterosse with a `horse borne establisher' sense similar to that of Plantagenet.
The name of the Plantagenets however is more usually said to relate to their emblem, the sprig of broom. The sprig of broom is hairy and it can hence be related to a virile hair sense to Plantevelue. Such a connection seems less extraordinary when it is noted (a) that hair (and bone and nail) was said, in the philosophy of Scotus Erigena (a contemporary of Bernard Plantevelue), to contain only insensitive `vegetative life'; (b) the Merovingians were reknown for their cult of long hair; and, (c) in the Middle English herbal Agnus Castus, broom is ascribed the vertue of knitting together broken bones and sinews. Powers of healing broken bones could have been important to Plantevelue and the Plantagenets.
More particulalry, the literal meaning of Plantevelue was `hairy shoot' and the sprig of broom is an instance of a hairy shoot. Names of philandering were popular at the time of Geffrey Plante Genest, who was the forefather of the Plantagenet surname.
Subject to further findings, the possibility has been considered (Journal Number 27) that many Plant-like names are unrelated except that they arose from similar late medieval cultures, spread across Western Europe, involving Greek and Celtic traditions modified by Christian teachings, interacting with the Latin word planta. The Latin word planta implies life's foundations as `sole of foot' or `shoot for propagation' and, in (Celtic) Welsh, planta becomes `to beget children' and plant becomes `children'. This can be related to pre-scientific beliefs in mythic origins from the land as well as from blood ties.
Since the times of the Egyptian deity Osiris circa 2400BC there had been a long tradition of vegetation, fertility, and the soul and, even by the 17th century, the English poet John Milton described death as returning to earth and our mother's lap. In Welsh myth, Math could not live unless he kept his feet in the lap of a virgin and, with Gwidion, he created Blodeuedd from blossoms of oak, broom, and meadowsweet. There is various evidence of pre-scientific belief for life's origins that involved a mixing of concepts of the vegetable or vegetative soul (from the land) and intellective life from the Lord's Word (and from blood ties).
Plantevelue can mean `hairy foot' as well as `hairy shoot for propagation'. Both meanings can be related to contemporary beliefs about life's origins and to Pseudo-Dionysius writings on the All-Ruling Deity as the mighty root of creation springing forth various plants.
The Bible represents the foundations of God's kingdom as the smashed feet of clay of Babylon's third kingdom producing the miry clay at the foot of a mountain for the propagation of men's seeds (Daniel 2:31-44). It also represents men as the plants in God's vineyard (Isiah 5:7) and as the branches of Jesus as the vine with God as the husbandman (John 15:1-5). The rose is substituted for vigin birth in Middle English (cf. augmentation of the flesh) and peas for Jesus as the Prince of Pees (cf. the integrating vine of peas or peace). The 14th century Middle English poet William Langland states that `Love is the plant of pees' indicating a metaphorical grounding of man's or God's love not only on the planting of pea seeds but also on the integrating vine.
Though some Plant-like names may have related to a religious work ethic, there is sense as `scions of the holy vine' or `souls of God' for such names as Plantevine, Plantevin, Plantebene, Plantefeve, Planterose, and Plantamour. The vegetable soul of augmentation or porrection can explain the national emblems of England (rose) and Wales (leeks). In Switzerland, there are various Plant-like names including Plantaporrets (dialect for leeks), Plantefoi and Plantfor, and there is the noble Planta/Von Planta family. In `Plantagenet' England, Plantebene or Plantefolie can mean a `hallowed offshoot or child' or a `child of (contrition of) sin' and, rather similarly in Switzerland, Plantefoi or Plantfor can mean a `planted place or child of faith or testimony' or a `child of tribunal or conscience'.
Across medieval Europe the vegetable soul carried powers of nutrition, augmentation and generation. Meanings based on the sole of God's kingdom, or the soul of augmentation or porrection, or the soul of love or generation of children can explain such names as Planta, Planterose, Plantaporrets, Plantamour, and Plant.
A possible line of influence can be traced through the names Plantevelue and Plante Genest starting in Aquitaine in France, leading on to the Plant surname in England.
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Geoffrey Plante Genest, count of Anjou and Maine was the father of king Henry II of England and, amongst others, Hamelyn, Warren earl of Surrey (London) - it is near Hamelyn's de Warenne descendants that the subsequent English Plant surname is mainly found. In 1200, king John married Isabella of Angouleme in Aquitaine who subsequently married Hugh de Lusignan, the most prominent baron of Aquitaine. In 1247, John de Warenne married Alice Lusignan (de Brien) and English resentments of favouritism towards the `foreign' Lusignans led on to the Baron's revolt in England, leading to the capture of king Henry III at Lewes (1264), though the king was freed by John de Warenne at Evesham (1265).
There is evidence the name Plante Genest (hence Plantagenet) was used for Geffrey by the 1160s; but, evidence for subsequent use of the name is weak until the mid 15th century. A rare early explicit mention is in the Close Rolls (1266): this refers to Galfrido Plauntegenet, serjent at arms, Wodestock, with garderode duties to the king. Also at Woodstock, with duties to the royal palace, there is the first evidence for the spelling Plente which is found in 1219 just after the times of Henry II's son, the lecherous king John; and this spelling can be associated with the meaning `abundance' or `fertile'.
The name spelling Plante occurs in England by 1262. In modern France, this spelling is clustered around Aquitaine. Though `Plant like' names may have arrived in England earlier (possibility 1), an Aquitainian influence could relate to possibilities of such names arriving in the times of the Angevin Empire (possibilities 2 and 3 above), which comprised three blocks: Anglo-Norman; Angevin; and Aquitainian. There is particular reason to suppose an influence on the formation of the Plant surname in England from Geffrey Plante Genest's nickname, which fathered the subsequent royal surname, Plantagenet, as well as evidently influencing more immediately the formation of such names as Plant.
The Plant surname is found in close proximity to various de Warenne lands around England until the mid 14th century; this is when the Plants settled in their principal homeland of east Cheshire which is also where the disinherited de Warenne family settled. Early Plants were also found near the lands of William Longspée (Long Sword) who was (like the de Warennes) an illegitimate descendant of Geffrey Plante Genest. It seems likely that there was an influence from the Plante Genest nickname on the English Plant surname, though this may have just been through the popularity around Longspée and de Warenne lands of the Plante Genest metaphor of a `growing shoot' for renewing life's origins.
The possibility of a Welsh influence on the formation of the Plant surname may also be considered: there was an early Welsh influence on the de Warennes through a 1225 marriage to Maud (Matilda) Marshall of Pembroke who had earlier married a half-brother of Longspée; and the subsequent homeland of the de Warennes, along with that of the Plants, was near Wales. In Welsh, plant means children and, in Old Irish, cland means family: both cland and plant are said to come from early adoptions of the Latin word planta. Phonetically similar words in modern English are clan and plant, though we now use other words for life's foundations: land; sole; sprig; scion; and child. Sprig and scion have both human and vegetable meanings, which is appropriate to a medieval view of life's origins as shoots from the land (man's vegetable soul) as well as offshoots from the Lord in His kingdom (intellective soul). Man's vegetable soul can be traced back to primitive beliefs about human life's emergence from the land.
In particular a culture of a `hairy shoot' tradition may have been transmitted by the Longspée and de Warenne descendants of Geffrey Plante Genest to the formative Plant surname. This may have been ameliorated by more godly meanings such as through a mid-thirteenth-century Savoyard influence in England - for example, the Queen's uncle Peter of Savoy was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.
By the time that Plantagenet became an hereditary royal surname in the mid-fifteenth century, a more developed scholastic (godly) sense may have come to more the fore. In the intervening period, the English Plant surname (with possible spellings Plente or Plonte or Plaunt) may have held a Welsh-like `offspring' meaning that was compatible with the `growing shoot of renewal' sense of the influential nickname Plante Genest and the `fertile' or `abundant' sense of plente.
Anglo-Gascon Savoyard Plantebene - pleasant shoot _:_ Plantefoi - planted faith Plantefolie - wickedness shoot _:_ Plantamour - planted love Planterose - risen shoot _:_ Plantefor - planted conscience
The DNA evidence is in keeping with the Welsh. Though the meaning may have been slightly different in the medieval Welsh Marches and beyond, the meaning of Plant was probably `shoot' or `offspring' and the DNA evidence shows that they were the offspring of a single family. But whose?
That the first Plants had a cultural connection to the Plante Genest nickname is better evidenced than the modern myth of their blood-link to Plantard. Though their connection to Plantagenet was more likely cultural than genetic, it is relevant to consider Plantagenet-favoured concepts about the vegetative soul.
Origins of Plant Name