Germany
2. Place names referring to church and christianity
2.2. Christian personal names and names of saints in place names: the problems of differentiation
While this first group will not be discussed further, the second group of place names consists of those that feature a Christian personal name within the determiner. This can be either the name of a Saint—which would create a
“true” patrociny name—or a personal name with Christian or biblical reference.
With their non-Germanic basis these personal names from Greek, Latin or Hebrew are therefore easily identifiable.
“While biblical figures or Roman, Franconian, Anglo-Saxon and Irish ante types were raised to the Glory of the altars in the early Middle Ages, more and more names of local Saints and also of oriental ones came in use.”
16 Kirchen-names are dominant by far.
17 Maria also was the patron of the local monastery.
(FLACHENECKER 1999: 148). This statement by HELMUT FLACHENECKER
points to a relevant problem for the search and identification of patrociny place names: “Local Saints” bear local, in this case Germanic names. It would be absurd to assume, that in place names that were formed with personal names like Adalbero,18 Adalbert,19 Brun20 or Winfried21 always the Saint of that name was meant. Nor is the existence of a church in that settlement of much help.
To give an example: the volume on medieval patrociny place names based on patrocynia deducts—though with a question mark—a patron named Udalricus (KRUMWIEDE 1960–1988: II, 215) from the place name Ulrichshagen (cf. NOB VI, 201). It is true that a number of Saints with that name are known. On the other hand, the personal name Odalrik, Olrik, Ulrik is among the very well documented and often used personal names in the German language area (FÖRSTEMANN 1900: Col. 1190–1192; SCHLAUG, 1962: 141, 1955: 133).
Therefore, the place name alone is not a strong enough argument for the deduction of such a patrociny place name.
In addition, patrocynia of a religious institution can change with time. “Patro-cynia were thus depended on prevailing trends. Only with limitations can one deduct the time of creation from present-day patrocynia of churches or altars.”—FLACHENECKER explains (1999: 147). He continues: “In the High Middle Ages, the number of Saints and their origins became unfathomable.
Many patrocynia were only short-lived due to the following regionalisation of cult and therefore the patrocynia.” (1999: 149). When the patrocynium changed a once existing correlation between a patrocynium and a place name could be obscured. The patrociny place name would not concur with the patrocynium anymore.
Consequently, the search for patrociny place names faces the difficulty having to decide, whether it is a case of a “normal” personal name or that of a patron, a Saint. Even the existence of a correspondent church or altar patrocynium might not be of any help. Friedrichsdorf in the district of Gütersloh for example has a church named Sankt Friedrich. It is named after and dedicated to Bishop Friedrich of Utrecht (died on the 18th of July 838). Therefore one could justi-fiably assume that this Friedrich is also the eponym for the place name. How-ever, this is not the case. The eponym was Prince Friedrich August, prince-bishop of Osnabrück, Duke of York and Albany as well as Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg (Hanover) who gave permission to the foundation of the settlement on the 9th of February 1786. The church was only built much later between
18 Adalbero of Augsburg, died 28th of April 909 (cf. LThK I, Col. 126).
19 Adalbert of Magdeburg, died 20th of June 981 (cf. LThK I, Col. 130).
20 Brun of Köln, died 11th of October 965 (cf. LThK II, Col. 732).
21 Winfried Bonifatius, died 5th of June 754 (cf. LThK II, Col. 591–594).
1863 and 1866. Such wrong conclusion can also be drawn with personal names of a non-Germanic origin as the example of Georgsmarienhütte (district of Osnabrück) proves. With Georg and Maria two known Saints are represented in the place name. Several other place names have them as their eponym. But also in this case the name stems from secular persons rather than Saints. The Georgs-Marien-Hütten- and Bergwerksverein (an incorporated mining com-pany) was named after George V. and his wife Mary. It founded an iron and steel plant in the vicinity in 1856 and four years later, the corresponding workers colony became the present-day town of Georgsmarienhütte.
This phenomenon mainly appears in the modern era as these two examples show. Many more could be added. But there is another reason for the restriction to the time before 1600. While I tried to detect whether a place name was formed using a Saint’s name for all place names with a non-Germanic personal name, this could not be done for place names that were formed with Germanic personal names. This is mainly due to the vast number of place names within the area in question that follow the personal name + primary word pattern. According to hitherto existing findings, not less than half of all place names are of that type, which would account for approximately 20,000 names. Such a detailed analysis did not seem to be necessary for two reasons.
Firstly, the number of true patrociny place names in the area under inspection is relatively small. Secondly, a large part of this area is covered by two comprehensive patrocynia inventories: “Mittelalterlichen Kirchen- und Altar-patrozinien Niedersachsens” (Medieval church and altar patrocynia of Lower Saxony) by WALTER KRUMWIEDE (1960–1988) and “Patrozinien Westfalens von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Alten Reiches” (Patrocynia of Westphalia from the beginnings until the end of the Holy Roman Empire) by PETER
ILLISCH (1992). With the help of these publications one can quickly detect whether a place or the religious institution belonging to a place have a known patrocynium or patrocynia and whether they correspond to the personal name in the place name. However, one needs to be careful, because at least in HANS -WALTER KRUMWIEDE’s book, sometimes possible patrocynia are deduced from the place name itself. The place name or the personal name in the place name is used to provide evidence for a patrocynium that cannot be accounted for otherwise. This method is sometimes faulty, as the example of Bartolfelde in the district of Osterode proves. KRUMWIEDE (1960–1988: II, 146) deduces—
though with a question mark—a possible patron named Bartoldus. From an onomastic point of view, this proposition is proven wrong as Bartolfelde is found as Bardenevelt and Bardelvelde in the written records (NOB II, 19–20).
This does not only rule out a personal name Bartold as determiner; it also shows that there cannot be a personal name within the place name Bartolfelde because the obligatory genitive construction (-es) is missing.
I will elaborate only briefly on place names featuring a (non-Germanic) per-sonal name with a Christian background without it being the name of a patron.
Only a few female names like Anna22 occur. Predominantly, male names were found: Christian in Cashagen in the district of Ostholstein (1320: thome Kerstenhagen, LAUR 1992: 197), Kastendieck in the district of Diepholz (1521:
Carstendyke, GOV Hoya Nr. 1263), Kastorf in the district of Lauenburg (1286: Kerstendorp, LAUR 1992: 377), Kerstlingerode and † Kerstlingerode both in the district of Göttingen (NOB IV, 236–237), Martin in Martensrade in the district of Plön (1433: Martensrod, LAUR 1992: 450), and Martinsbüttel in the district of Gifhorn (c. 1220, copy 14th century: Mertenesbutle, GOV Gifhorn Nr. 394; see also CASEMIR 1997: 169), or David in Vitzdorf in the district of Ostholstein, which is named after a liege of Waldemar II (1231:
Dauidthorp, LAUR 1992: 668). The number of differing names is however limited with male names as well. Only Johannes, Nikolaus ~ Kla(u)s, Christian and Peter are relatively widespread. Altogether, the number of place names formed with a Christian personal name remains small. This is at least true for the names recorded prior to 1600. Such formations can be detected much more often for younger settlement foundations (cf. the many more recent Marien-place names in Schleswig-Holstein in LAUR 1992: 447–448). This is not at all surprising since Christian personal names only came into use centuries after Christianisation took place.
Christian personal names started to become more popular from the 12th century.
They were usually based on the names of Saints, though this process is not homogenous or synchronous in the German language area. When the data is transferred to a map (KUNZE 2004: 40, fig. A) it is clearly visible that Christian personal names spread from West to East. In the area between the Weser and the Elbe Christian personal names were more widespread than Germanic personal names only in the 15th century. We see three patterns concerning the distribution of Christian personal names. 1. Women were given Christian per-sonal names earlier more often than men, because, in the case of men, the principle of naming a person after someone else was practised longer. 2. The direction of spread is from towns to the countryside. 3. Christian personal names were first given to socially high-ranking people, rather than to middle and lower class members. KOHLHEIM sees the following reason for the change in personal name choice: “This change in nomenclature is an indication of a decisive change in mentality in medieval society in Europe. It has to be seen in conjunction with those subjectivist-individualistic tendencies in thought and feeling that surface more and more from c. 1100.” (1996: 1051).
22 Anstedt in the district of Diepholz can be found as Annenstede in 13th century records (GOV Hoya Nr. 62), although it does not have a church.
Although women were baptized and given Christian names earlier than men, there are only a few such names as part of place names. Generally, female names in place names are infrequent until the end of the medieval inland colonization. EDWARD SCHRÖDER only states that the ratio cannot be estab-lished easily. He gives an upper limit of about 20%, though this is based only on one single written document—the Vita Meinwerci—which does not give all the names for an only roughly defined area (1944: 252). An area that has been analysed comprehensively is Southern Lower Saxony. Here, only 1% of all place names had a female name in them. There is more evidence that the number has to be quite low from the first volumes of the Westphalian place name inventory. The percentages are between 0.5 and 1.7%. The relatively small number of male Christian personal names in place names is also easily explained, because the inland colonization took place before the growth in Christian personal names. Moreover, it was the populace of the cities who first took to the new naming and they did not usually participate in the local inland colonization. In fact the rural population was responsible for it and in their case, naming after Saints started only afterwards.