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Early Places Ending in -heim as Warrior Club Settlements and the Role of Soc in the Germanic Administration of Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Extract

This article is a further attempt to demonstrate the role played by warrior clubs as components of the Germanic social structure and in the formation of tribal units. Since this presentation is based on a hypothesis, it is necessary to explain the methodology and in particular the model employed.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1981

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References

1. My articles Differentiated Germanic Social Structures,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozialund Wirtschaftsgeschichte 55 (1969): 433–48Google Scholar, “Die Nibelungen als kriegerischer Weihebund,” ibid. 61 (1974): 199–211, and The Role of the Germanic Warrior Club in the Historical Process: A Methodological Exposition,” Miscellanea Mediaevalia 12 (1980): 558–65Google Scholar. I have chosen warrior club as the designation of this institution, partly because its members used the club as their distinctive weapon. A pictorial survival of such a warrior may be found in the club–carrying Wilde Mann of heraldry. The German equivalent, kriegerischer Weihebund, was evolved in consultation with Professor Wolfgang Zorn.

2. Price, “Nibelungen.”

3. Price, “Differentiated,” pp. 441–46.

4. Price, ibid., pp. 446–48, and “Nibelungen.”

5. The ultimate test of a ‘model’ or theoretical construct is: Does it lead the researcher to new data or combinations of data that he would not otherwise have seen?Loewenberg, Peter in Central European History 7 (1974): 273.Google Scholar

6. Thus general references to “peaceful Chauci” and “warlike Burgundians” may be interpreted to yield specific information on Germanic social structures (Price, “Differentiated,” p. 441, and “Nibelungen,” p. 209).

7. Thus the ritual nature of Siegfried's last hunt is not fully revealed until one understands via the Lied vom hürnen Siegfried that the bear was to be sacrificed through hanging and therefore had to be caught alive (“Nibelungen,” p. 207).

8. Merowingerzeitliche Reihengräberfelder im Flurnamenbild rheinhessischer Siedlungen,” Geschichtliche Landeskunde 9 (1973): 1768Google Scholar. There seems to be no English equivalent for Reihengräberfelder, a term meaning literally ‘fields with rows of graves.’

9. This interrelationship was observed in Württemberg by Weller, Karl (“Die Ansiedlungsgeschichte der württembergischen Franken rechts vom Neckar,” Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte n.s. 3 [1894]: 37Google Scholar): “Der vorkarolingischen Zeit einschliesslich der alemannischen aber sind Orte auf-heim zuzuweisen, bei welchen Reihengräber gefunden wurden.”

10. Price, “Differentiated,” pp. 440–41, 446.

11. Price, “Nibelungen,” p. 203.

12. Wenskus, Reinhard, Stammesbildung und Verfassung (Cologne, 1961), pp. 106–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One of the best efforts to arrive at historical insights on the basis of archaeological finds is Werner's, JoachimZur Entstehung der Reihengräberzivilisation,” Archaeologia geographica 1 (1950): 2333.Google Scholar

13. Price, “Differentiated,” pp. 440–41.

14. Altgermanische Jünglingsweihen und Männerbünde (Bühl, 1927), pp. 3842, 4950.Google Scholar

15. Philippson, Ernst Alfred, Germanisches Heidentum bei den Angelsachsen (Leipzig, 1929), pp. 3334.Google Scholar

16. Redlich, Clara, “Erbrecht und Grabfund bei den Germanen,” Forschungen und Fortschritte 24 (1978): 178–79Google Scholar. Similarly Bergengruen, Alexander (Adel und Grundherrschaft im Merowingerreich [Wiesbaden, 1958], pp. 167–68, 171Google Scholar) considers the Reihengräber civilization a kind of troop stationing (Kriegerstationierung) and not a regular tribal settlement (echte Volkssiedlung).

17. Trier, Jost, “Heide,” Archiv für Literatur und Volksdichtung 1 (1949): 9199, provides an etymology.Google Scholar

18. Trier, Jost, Wortgeschichten in alten Gemeinden (Cologne, 1965), pp. 2025.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. “Hagustalar” in Festskrift till Jöran Sahlgren (Lund, 1944), pp. 9499.Google Scholar

20. Trier, Wortgeschichten, pp. 23–24; see also Trier, Jost, “Völkernamen,” Westfälische Zeitschrift 97 (1947): 337Google Scholar; and Bach, Adolf, Deutsche Namenskunde, vol. 2, pt. 2 (Heidelberg, 1954), p. 380.Google Scholar

21. Hay sb2,” New English Dictionary, 5 (1901):134.Google Scholar

22. Trier, Wortgeschichten, pp. 42, 62–68.

23. Ibid., pp. 67–68.

24. Kluge, Friedrich, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 10th ed. (Berlin, 1924), p. 435Google Scholar; Weiser-Aall, Altgermanische, p. 9, n. 1, and p. 84 on sword dancing; or consider the various expressions derived in Swabian from schnur: “Schnur haben, grosse Lust haben”; “Schnuriger, geiler Mann”; “Schnurrant, umziehender Spielmann”; “von der Schnur zehren, von vorhandenen Mitteln, ohne etwas zu verdienen” (Fischer, Hermann, Schwäbisches Wörterbuch, 5 [Tübingen, 1920]: 1086–87, 1090Google Scholar), terms that point to characteristic attitudes of warrior club members, such as lusting for women, Wanderlust, and lack of a regular living.

25. Meyer, Gustav Friedrich, Schleswig-Holsteiner Sagen (1929; reprint ed., Düsseldorf, 1968), p. 39.Google Scholar

26. Price, “Nibelungen,” p. 206.

27. See also the warrior club characteristics attributed to dwarfs by Motz, Lotte in her “New Thoughts on Dwarf-names in Old Icelandic,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 7 (1973): 100117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. Thus the Germanic settlement of France is not touched upon here.

29. Die fränkischen und alemannischen Siedlungen in Gallien, besonders im Elsass und Lothringen (Strasbourg, 1894), p. 17.Google Scholar

30. Wandlungen und Siedlungen der Alemannen,” Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins n.s. 32 (1917): 316.Google Scholar

31. Schiber, Die fränkischen, p. 42.

32. Die bayerischen Ortsnamen, pt. 1 (Munich, 1925), p. 79.Google Scholar

33. For more on open fields as a warrior club criterion see my “Differentiated,” p. 444.

34. Fiesel, Ludolf, Ortsnamenforschung und frühmittelalterliche Siedlung in Niedersachsen (Halle, 1934), p. 10.Google Scholar Note in this connection Carstens's, Rehder Heins observation (Chauken, Friesen und Sachsen zwischen Elbe und Flie [Hamburg, 1941] p. 39Google Scholar) that the “-ingi-people” (identified with -ingen villages) should be identified with the Chauci and the “-heim-people” with the Friesians—in view of my hypothesis that the Chauci were a tribe without a warrior club (“Differentiated,” p. 441).

35. “Ortsnamen in England und in den festländischen Stammlanden der Angelsachsen” in Namenforschung: Festschrift für Adolf Bach (Heidelberg, 1965), pp. 306–7.Google Scholar

36. Bach, , Deutsche Namenskunde, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 329.Google Scholar

37. Kluge, Etymologisches, p. 210.

38. Also: “The long home” (New English Dictionary, 5: 349); Home Office (ibid., p. 350).

39. Kluge, Etymologisches, p. 210. Cf. also Roelandts, Karel “Sele und Heim” in Namenforschung, pp. 274–79.Google Scholar

40. Spiel,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 69 (1947): 441–43.Google Scholar

41. “Centuriones sive heimburgi” as cited by Bader, Karl Siegfried, Rechtsformen und Schichten der Liegenschaftsbenutzung im mittelalterlichen Deutschland (Vienna, 1973), p. 310.Google Scholar

42. Buchda, G., “Heimbürge,” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, fasc. 9, col. 5051.Google Scholar

43. Klötzer, Wolfgang, “Mark und Markgericht im Rheingau,” Nassauische Annalen 65 (1954): 96.Google Scholar

44. Price, “Nibelungen,” p. 206.

45. Kluge, Etymologisches, p. 200.

46. Ibid., p. 355; “Oheim5” in Jacob, and Grimm, Wilhelm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 7 (Leipzig, 1889), col. 1199Google Scholar: “genosse, kumpan.” See also the designation of what appears to be a warrior club leader in the Holstein fairy tale “Min Ohm” in Wisser, Wilhelm, Plattdeutsche Volksmärchen (Jena, 1914), pp. 196–98.Google Scholar

47. Price, “Differentiated,” p. 445; Orgis, W., “Heimfallrecht” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (vol. 2 [1978], col. 51–55)Google Scholar refers to it as applying to “erbloses Gut,” but also as “Nachlass eines Verpflegten.”

48. Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 20th ed. (1967), p. 300. Heim or “ham” are still given the meaning “house”; for a recent example see Colman, Rebecca V., “Hamsocn: Its Meaning and Significance in Early English Law,” American Journal of Legal History 25 (1981): 109–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. New English Dictionary, 5: 4849.Google Scholar

50. Brunner, Heinrich, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 2d ed. (1928), 2: 842, 845Google Scholar; Schwerin, Claudius von, “Heimsuchung,” in Hoops Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, 2 (Strasbourg, 19131915): 486Google Scholar; IV Aethelred at London 4 (Liebermann, Felix, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1 [1903]: 234–35Google Scholar) punishes hamesucken committed “sine licentia”; Colman (“Hamsocn,” p. 107) notes “the association of terror with hamsocn.”

51. Wackernagel, Hans Georg, Altes Volkstum in der Schweiz, 2d. ed. (Basel, 1959), pp. 24, 101, 222–65Google Scholar; Baumann, Ernst, “Heimsuchungen aus der Zeit der HelvetikSchweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 37 (19391940): 179–90Google Scholar; Zimmermann, Jürg, “Eine Heimsuchung im alten Schaffhausen,” Schaffhauser Beiträge zur vaterländischen Geschichte 47 (1970): 114–17.Google Scholar

52. Knaben were unmarried men of military age from age 14 on (Wackernagel, Altes Volkstum, p. 248, n. 1).

53. Taswell-Langmead, Thomas, English Constitutional History, 10th ed. (Boston, 1946), p. 18.Google Scholar

54. Knappen, M. N., Constitutional and Legal History of England (New York, 1942), p. 48.Google Scholar

55. Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed. (St. Paul, 1968), p. 1500Google Scholar; according to Liebermann, (Gesetze, 2 [1906]: 187–88Google Scholar) a “Rechtsstreit,” a “Klagesache.”

56. Black's, p. 1561; according to Liebermann, (Gesetze, 2 [1906]: 199Google Scholar) a “Gerichtsherrlichkeit.”

57. Gartenaere, Wernher der, Helmbrecht, with commentary by Brackert, Helmut et al. (Frankfurt, 1972), p. 153.Google Scholar

58. Cf. Price, “Nibelungen,” pp. 203–4 for similar functions exercised by Hagen as warrior club leader.

59. I do not agree with Günter Lange's arguments that there were two persons, a judge and a bailiff (Das Gerichtsverfahren gegen den jungen Helmbrecht,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 99 [1970]: 225Google Scholar) as the text does not warrant such an interpretation.

60. Cf. Homeyer's, C. H. edition of Sachsenspiegel (Berlin, 1835), 1: 322Google Scholar about the distinction between Ding and Gericht.

61. A traditional translation renders this as “At the same gatherings are selected chiefs, who administer law through the cantons and villages: each of them has one hundred assessors from the people to be his responsible advisers”; text and translation in this paragraph and subsequently follow the edition by Hutton, Maurice, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. 280–83.Google Scholar

62. Ibid., p. 283; Anderson, J. G. C. in his Germania edition (Oxford, 1938), pp. 8990Google Scholar; Much, Robert, Die Germania des Tacitus, 3d ed. (Heidelberg, 1967), p. 219.Google Scholar

63. Much, Germania, p. 219.

64. Anderson, Germania, p. 90, suggests civil cases.

65. Much, Germania, p. 218.

66. The Germanic tradition assigns distinct assemblies to the various levels of judicial and other governmental functions, e.g., hundred-gemot, shire-gemot, witenagemot.

67. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 6. If Tacitus says ‘centeni’ does not refer exactly to the number 100, the question arises whether this term is not better understood as a designation for this group rather than as a numerical expression, an interpretation that would not allow the term centeni to be applied to different groups. Cf. Price, “Nibelungen,” p. 203, n. 17 on the use of the word Hundert in the Nibelungenlied.

68. Taswell-Langmead, English, p. 754.

69. Price, “Nibelungen,” pp. 209–10.