FRINGIA

[ward]

Fringia is on a lot of saber blades spelled different ways.
I asked Oliver Pinchot about it and he wrote

"You can pretty well shave with Occam's Razor on this one. The appearance of the word FRINGIA, variously spelled though it is, almost certainly refers to Thuringia in Saxony for two reasons:
1) the iron ore mined there during the Middle Ages was reputed to be of very high quality, in fact it is still famous for it; it supplied the major arms-making center at Suhl.
2) it is common for the letters T and TH to shift to an F in many languages and dialects. So for Thuringia to become Fringia was a pretty short walk, orthographically speaking.".

Ward

[Jim McDougall]

Well there ya have it!!!! Excellent Ward, and very well put by Oliver, in his very distinct and wry humor! He has always had a brilliant way of putting things that melds superb scholarship with devious wit, leaving you with a permanent understanding of the subject, that makes you smile every time you remember it. A scholar extraordinaire.

All best regards,
Jim

[TVV]

Personally I really do not believe the word Fringia refers to a specific area in Central or Western Europe. To me, it simply means a sword with a Western European blade (and by Western European, everything West of Vienna is meant).

In Bulgarian folk songs it is mentioned as frengia, pronounced fraen-gee-ya, such as:

Тънка пушка бойлия (Thin rifle boyliya)
Остря сабя френгия (Sharp sword frengia)

In Dr. Elgood's book, on page 49, we find another evidence that for the Ottomans, Frengi was just an adjective denoting European origin:

In a list of arms, dated 1009/1600, from a Vizier's cebe-hane, we find, among 75 tufenkler, the following types: [... ], Frengi (from Western Europe), [...].

So to me the meaning of Fringia, or Frengia is just "from Western Europe", in this case a sabre. Similar to how a "damaskiniya" referred to a sword with a wootz blade.

Regards,
Teodor

[ariel]

I am with Teodor here.

First, if Thuringia gave birth to Fringia, what happened to the "u" sound?

Second, transmutation of Th to F usually goes from W.European to Slavic languages. As an example ( just to make Teodor happy), Theodor became Fyodor in Russian. I thought for quite some time about a reverse move, and could not find an example. Anyone?

Third, the Fringia blades came from different places in Europe; why would ( for example)Italians be influenced by a German locality? German blades in India gave birth to a curved saber called Alemani; but the name is French in origin.

A crazy thought: was Francia ( another popular label) just a result of a mis-spelling, whereby the horizontal tick in G was missed and the letter became C ? Either Western masters were not exactly literate or the Eastern ones just copied the mark without understanding of the meaning ... Kind of like me re-drawing Chinese hieroglyphs :-)

[Lee]

Received in my email from Poland:

Word "FRINGIA" encraved into a blade stands for "Franciscus Rákóczi In Nomine Gentis Insurgit Armis". It was a secret word used by members of Hungarian Independence Movement amongst Austro-Hungarian army officers in XVIIIth century to discern themselves from other officers. There were not many of them and they kept low-profile so it is rather 'secret' knowledge I have no source other than verbal story from hungarian sword master though, but it sounds fairly legit.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Lee, quoting email from Poland

... I have no source other than verbal story from hungarian sword master though, but it sounds fairly legit. :

... And worth keeping on a permanent basis

[Jim McDougall]

This is absolutely fantastic! and it is excellent to have these older threads now archived being brought back to the fore with new information. The purpose of threads here has always been to collect and discuss information so our comprehensive understanding of these kinds of details advances.

It seems of course that the FRINGIA word or acronym is well placed in use by the time of the Bathory's (Stefan V Bathory 1430-1493; and Stephen Bathory 1533-1586) but it seems more likely used on the Hungarian sabres of latter 16th century. According to Nadolski (1974, p.35) these were becoming quite popular in line with the example belonging to Stephen Bathory along with the 'sickle' marks and 'GENOA' and 'FRINGIA' markings.

These sabres were colloquially termed 'Batorowki'. In the turbulent political times then their counterparts were sabres with likenesses of Sigismund III Vasa which were termed 'Zygmuntowki' .


In "Edged Weapons: Sabres of the Habsburg Monarchy 16-20th Centuries" (Petr Konipsky and Petr Moudry, Prague, 1991) on p.41 there is a sabre of Austrian hussars officer of 18th century, with the usual sun, moon, star motif and FRINGIA.
As noted by the anonymous contributor here, this new information is most enlightening concerning the context for this well established word or acrostic.
It would appear of course that the earlier used word was realigned to represent the patriotic acronym referring to Francis II Rokoczi (1676-1735) who led uprisings (1703-1711) against the Habsburgs. The use of these kinds of acronyms and acrostic symbolism seems well known in the turbulence of political intriques and conflict well known in these regions, so this is most helpful information.

In "Liberty and the Search for Identity" (Iven Zolton Denes, 2006, p.221) with reference to the Hungarian gentry c.1860, it is noted that "...the gentry intended to realize this new program with a number of refuedalizing actions and they started to use their FRINGIA coats of arms and titles of nobility again, together with all the relics of old feudal life".

As always, the weapons carry these indicators and clues of rich historic heritage, and act as our guides as we follow their lead in uncovering what we may not have otherwise realized.

Lee, thank you so very much for posting this information and bringing this thread back, and deepest thanks to our contributor .

Very best regards,
Jim