[antir-heralds] Order of the Red Bear

[Wenyeva atte Grene]

At 4:33 PM -0700 4/3/07, Ursula Whitcher wrote:
>Suzanne Jacquest wrote:
>>  Me again! Keeping you busy... lol
>>
>>  Could this be conflict checked please? I found no conflicts. Also,
>>  could someone with OED access check the spellings please?
>>
>>  Order of the Red Bear
>
>There's a 1398 citation of the modern spelling of bear in the OED,
>referring to the constellation, but I'm not sure it's the most usual for
>our period.  There's a 1596 example of "beare" from Shakespeare;
>browsing through, that looks like the most usual sixteenth-century spelling.

See also 
http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED4138&egs=all&egdisplay=open 
for Middle English spellings galore. "Rede Bere" is a pretty good 
Middle English form.

http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=byte&byte=131465007&egdisplay=open&egs=131541031 
is the entry page for the ME forms of "order" -- "ordre" seems most 
common, but "order" is there as well, among other spellings.

So Ordre of the Rede Bere is a fine Middle English version of the 
order name, if that is what you are looking for.

W
(Not to go all gung-ho about using the MED for everything, but it's 
free, and every form in it is automatically period, and often you 
find useful stuff there that isn't in the OED.)

-- 
\-\ Wenyeva atte grene * "In tenebris lux"
  \-\ Armorum Servula, quam Ancoram Caeruleam dicunt
   \-\ Per chevron argent and vert, three beacons counterchanged.