Porcarius (french: Porcaire or ''Porchaire'') is the
Latin word for "
swineherd
A swineherd is a person who raises and herds pigs as livestock.
Swineherds in literature
* In the New Testament are mentioned shepherd of pigs, mentioned in the Pig (Gadarene) the story shows Jesus exorcising a demon or demons from a man and a ...
" and was occasionally used as a masculine
given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a fa ...
in the
early Middle Ages. Since ''porcarii'' were often slaves, "only elite couples
amed their children Porcarius and they probably did it ironically." In the 7th-century
hagiography
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...
''Martyrium Prisci et sociorum'', for example, the aristocratic landowner Porcarius is introduced while boar hunting. The Spanish name
Suarius may have a similar origin.
[Jamie Kreiner, ''Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West'' (Yale University Press, 2020), pp. 122 and 249 n9.]
Known bearers of the name include;
*
Porcarius I
Porcarius I ( fl. 489–495) was the abbot of Lérins in the late fifth century and into the early sixth. He wrote at least one spiritual treatise in Latin and two other works have been tentatively assigned to him.
Life
Porcarius' abbacy cannot be ...
(fl. c. 490), abbot of Lérins
* (d. c. 600), abbot of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand
*
Porcarius II
Porcarius II,A. C. Cooper-Marsdin, ''The History of the Islands of the Lerins: The Monastery, Saints and Theologians of S. Honorat'' (Cambridge University Press, 1913), p. 42. in French Porchaire II or Porcaire II (died c. 732), was a Benedictin ...
(d. c. 732), abbot of Lérins, martyr
*Porcarius (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
1150), brother of
Peter Abelard
Peter Abelard (; french: link=no, Pierre Abélard; la, Petrus Abaelardus or ''Abailardus''; 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, poet, composer and musician. This source has a detailed desc ...
and monk of Buzay Abbey
References
{{given name
Latin masculine given names