Thread: FRINGIA
View Single Post
Old 20th December 2009, 06:44 AM   #26
TVV
Member
 
TVV's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Bay Area
Posts: 1,599
Default

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:

Quote:
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
TVV is offline   Reply With Quote