Some have thought that Tasso’s one fictitious hero, Rinaldo, was partly borrowed from the Paladin, going as he does to the enchanted gardens of Armida, and being only brought back when the crusading host was in the utmost jeopardy. The chief mission of this latter Rinaldo was, however, it may be suspected, to be a compliment to the House of Este.
Some even think Roland himself only another version of Ragenwald, but the one Paladin is undoubtedly traceable to Hruoland, as is the other to Ragenwald, though I am inclined to think that the Rolandsaulen, that accompany the Irminsaulen at the gates of old cities, may perhaps be rightly from Raginwald, judgment-power.
The Normans received this name from two sources, the French Regnault or Renaud, generally from the Paladin, and from their own northern Ragnwold or Rognwald. So Domesday has it in various forms, as Ragenald, Reynald, and Rainald, the latter fourteen times after the Conquest; and amongst them all we have derived our Christian name of Reginald, and the surname of Reynolds. The Scots took their form from the northern Rognvald, belonging to a great Jarl of the Orkneys, a noted skald, and thus obtained Ronald, which is in Gaelic Raonmill.
Ragn, or judgment, the leading word in this class of names, is connected with the Latin rego, to rule, and as rectus sprang from the one, so the Gothic raihts and our right arose from the Teutonic forms, as well as to wreak, and the German rache, vengeance, both from the old idea of justice. Ragn, though primarily meaning justice, is also used, as judgment is, in the sense of wisdom. Reginald Pole was in his own time known as Reynold. We get the longer name from his Latinism as Reginaldus.
Some of Renaud’s freebooting fame may have come from a person whose name so closely resembles his own, that it is by no means easy to distinguish their progeny; namely, Raginhard, or firm judge. A nobleman of this name was Count of the Palace, or Pfalzgraf, to Louis de Debonnaire, and engaged in a conspiracy against him, with Bernard, king of Italy. They were made prisoners, and condemned; the emperor commuted the sentence to the loss of their sight; but his wife, who wanted Bernard’s inheritance, took care that so savage a person was sent to perform the operation that they both died in consequence.
| English. | Scottish. | Gaelic. | Italian. |
| Reginald | Ronald | Raonmill | Rinaldo |
| Reynold | Ranald | ||
| Rex | |||
| Spanish. | French. | German. | Polish. |
| Reynaldos | Regnauld | Reinwald | Raynold |
| Renaud | Reinald | ||
| Regnault | |||
| Esthonian. | Lettish. | Frisian. | |
| Rein | Reinis | Reinold | |
| Reino | Rennold |
Another Reginard is said by Le Grand to have been a cunning politician, who lived in Austrasia in the ninth century, and much troubled his lord by sometimes taking part with the Germans, sometimes with the French, by which means he became so much detested that he was the subject of many songs in which he was called the Little Fox. At any rate, in the great animal epic, the fox has taken the name of Reinart, or Reinecke Fuchs, and as early as 1313, when the sons of the wily Philippe le Bel were knighted, the edifying spectacle was represented before them of the life of Renard the Fox, who became successively physician, clerk, bishop, archbishop, and pope, eating however hens and chickens all the while, much after the fashion of their father’s unhappy tool at Avignon. Renard has thus become the absolute name of the animal in France, to the entire exclusion of the ancient golpe, and in England Reynard is his universal epithet. It was not however confined to the creature, but was once prevalent among the human kind.
| English. | French. | Provençal. | Italian. |
| Reynard | Regnard | Rainart | Rainardo |
| Renart | |||
| German. | Frisian. | Polish. | Hungarian. |
| Raginhart | Renert | Raynard | Reinhard |
| Reinhard | Rinnert | Raynard | Reinhard |
| Reineke | Rennart | ||
| Renke | Rienit | ||
| Renz |
Another old Frankish form is Raginmund, much in use in southern France, where there was a long line of counts of Toulouse, called Raymond, one of whom was celebrated by Tasso in the first Crusade as a gallant knight, but the last of whom, Raymond Berenger, one of the earliest examples of double names, went down before the sword of the first Simon de Montford, as a supporter of the Albigenses. The counts of Barcelona, in Spain, bore the like name, and the old Romanesque territories are still its usual home.
| English. | Provençal. | Italian. | German. |
| Raymond | Raimons | Raimondo | Reinmund |
| French. | Spanish. | ||
| Raimond | Ramon |