One of my many places to research ancient pears is here How to find information on rare pears? . In particular i like this reference The pear directory from The Book of Pears and LESCRETS FRUITS ET POMOLOGIE LA POIRE THE PEAR above all others from that link but never understimate Corvallis which 99% of the time has some very useful information NCGR-Corvallis: Pyrus Catalog. You might also have the question this gentleman did on doyenné (pear) | WordReference Forums since you see the word doyenné as frequently as beurre or BERGAMOTE regarding pears which we have discussed.
"I am mystified by the use of the word “doyenné” in the names of French varieties of pears, such as Doyenné du Comice, Doyenné d’Alencon, Doyenné Blanc, Doyenné Boisselot, etc. The WR dictionary gives two meanings for “doyenné” - “deanery” and “deanship”. I have seen that both French and English sources mention Doyenné du Comice and Doyenne du Comice. I can understand that the latter form would mean “the best of the comice”, but it seems clear that the correct form is “doyenné”.
Does anybody know what the name means in this context?"
The only correct form in French is doyenné , but as you probably know, accents are often omitted in poorly edited French texts. On the other hand, if you know nothing about pears and you see the written form doyenne there would be no reason to suspect that the name was actually doyenné . So there could very well be French speakers going around who know a little bit about pears and who really believe that these pears are called doyennes . But I am curious: What French sources did you come across this form in?
In English, accents are not obligatory, and this sometimes leads to mispronunciations of foreign words that become standard in English. So it would appear that Doyenne [dwajɛn] pear is the more common form in English.
This should be considered as a proper noun, so the meaning is “a variety of pear”
You can read the history of this variety of pear here: Dictionnaire de pomologie (1869). It says:
en 1660, dom Claude Saint-Étienne observait dans le recueil cité plus haut : que le nom Doyenné avait été donné à cette poire pour en indiquer l’excellence, puisqu’on disait toujours, ajoutait-il, d’une chose de qualité supérieure : C’est la doyenne . (p. 54)
If this is accurate, then it didn’t originally refer to any actual deanery (unlike comice , for example, which derives from the name of the Comice Horticole of Angers).
Ofcourse the more research i do the more i realize how little we know about pears or will know. We have barely scratched the surface. This link discusses how ancient pears can be Napoleon’s army planted pear trees fact or fiction? and this video shows some of the ancient trees https://vimeo.com/85826984 . The links in this thread are very useful as well What's the real story on ancient pears from this link https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/technical_reports/tb09jb644?locale=en im posting the .pdf for fear of them someday removing it tec_bul_41_.pdf (4.3 MB) and the national fruit collection db in the uk http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/a-z.php
. You can narrow the search for pears only and search for dessert , culinary, or perry as an example depending on what you are looking for http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/pear.php