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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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- Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1981
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
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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).
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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, Joachim “Zur Entstehung der Reihengräberzivilisation,” Archaeologia geographica 1 (1950): 23–33.Google Scholar
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53. Taswell-Langmead, Thomas, English Constitutional History, 10th ed. (Boston, 1946), p. 18.Google Scholar
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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
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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.