Bishop names and kinship in the early medieval Libri memoriales. Comments on the social origins of the bishops in the Carolingian Empire. – The following article deals with kinship and social origins of bishops in the Carolingian Empire. Based on selected entries in the Libri memoriales of the early Middle Ages it especially asks for how much bishops came from the highest aristocratic ruling class. Using the entries in the Libri vitae it has to be noted that the bishops of the Carolingian Empire not only came from the aristocratic elite. Obviously, the climb to a bishop was conceivable and possible for a serf through personal excellence too, even if only rarely and in exceptional cases. Nevertheless, however, the majority of the bishops is not to relate to the “Hocharistokratie” as Schulte and later on others asserted. As far as the entries in the Libri memoriales make clear, the identifying of people is often difficult; but in the cases in which the identification is possible, they can certainly provide valuable information on the relationship of bishops and thus contribute to their social origins. As the studied items with their name material let see, bishops like Salomon III. of Konstanz, Hunfrid of Thérouanne or Hartbert of Chur belong to the nobility. However, apparently their families did not belong to the “elite” of the aristocracy, the so-called “Reichsaristokratie”. Rather, the memorial book entries at the most indicates a very extensive relationship to nobility, which were active in a leading position. For this reason the frequently encountered statement, the bishops of the Carolingian period were primarily attributable to the highest nobility must be reviewed and modified. Certainly bishops among in very much cases from the nobility, but obviously they came not from those families, who were very closely related to the king.

Ansegis(el), Anschis(us) and Anchises – A name and its uses in early carolingian genealogies and frankish historiography. – The first Carolingian genealogy Commemoratio Karoli names one Anschisus as father of Pepin (“of Herstal”), thus connecting the Carolingians with the antique myth of Troy – Aeneas’ father was named Anschises and Rome. In a later version of the same genealogy, Commemoratio Arnulfi, this same person is mentioned with his germanic spelling Ansegis(el) as the son of Arnulf of Metz, with whom the genealogy begins, placing the family in the context of the Frankish aristocracy. The article focusses on these mechanisms as well as on their relations to Carolingian self-perception and their perception in 9th century historiography.

Introduction. – This contribution lays out the core questions that connect the following papers read at a conference in Tübingen in 2014 and briefly summarizes their main arguments. These contributions address two major problems: They offer a foundation for productively overcoming the „genealogisch-besitzgeschichtliche Methode“ (a method based on similarities of names and proximity of property for analyzing family connections) which was widely used by historians of the middle ages until the 1980s for analyzing questions of social history with the aid of personal names. The papers also show how far secondary names (of very different types) influenced the practices of naming already in the so-called single-name period.

Gleicher Name, verschiedene Dinge. – Die vorliegende Arbeit, die etwas verspätet dem Andenken von Prof. Dr. Ernst Eichler gewidmet ist, beschreibt die zwei gegensätzlichen Tendenzen in der Namengebung, einerseits in der identischen Namengebung in den ursprünglichen sorbisch/polabisch/pomoranischen Gebieten Deutschlands, andererseits in der heutigen Umbenennung hauptsächlich britischer Ortsnamen in die ursprünglichen Namen der Erstnationen in Kanada zur Zeit der europäischen Landnahme. Unsere Untersuchung stützt sich vorwiegend auf die Namen im sorbischdeutschen Interferenzgebiet Deutschlands sowie auf die Namen in der Provinz British Columbia in Kanada. Diese Umbenennungstendenz hat damit gleichzeitig auch eine Angleichung der onomastischen Wissenschaftsmethodologie in Kanada an die Methodologie speziell der deutschen Namenforschung in Leipzig zur Folge.

The Nomen Augusti of Charlemagne and the Carolingian imperium. –The Nomen Augusti of Charlemagne is on a first view taken from the byzantine custom and in this respect is a pure title for an emperor. But for the Carolingians and Frankish elites it does mean more than this. The regular title for an emperor there is caesar or imperator, but augustus evokes remembering Octavian-Augustus himself too. That is shown by the Carolingian poets. The key for this conviction lies in the selfconsciousness of the Frankish empire as one of the big players in the Mediterranean that is for its own a part of a culture of remembrance of the ancient world. Carolingian view on themselves and on the empire, the franks and especially Charlemagne have erected, needed a name declaring the role of Frankish super-kings. Beside David as a telling cognomen of Charlemagne there is a second that he got with his name of emperor, telling very similar as David, used not instead of but complementary. So the Nomen Augusti of Charlemagne is a name for a new Augustus, exactly 800 years after the edict that went out to count the world.

Das Digitale Ungarische Ortsverzeichnis. Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojekts. – Im Sommer 2010 wurde unter dem Namen Digitales Ungarisches Ortsverzeichnis ein Forschungsvorhaben begonnen mit dem langfristigen Ziel der Aufnahme und Analyse des vollständigen Ortsnameninventars des Karpatenbeckens. Das Programm wurde in Zusammenarbeit mit Experten verschiedener ungarischer und ausländischer Einrichtungen aufgenommen, es möchte die Geschichte der Ortsnamen von den Anfängen bis heute untersuchen. Das Digitale Ungarische Ortsverzeichnis dient wissenschaftlichen Zwecken, kann aber gleichzeitig für ein allgemeines Publikum von Interesse sein. Die Datenbasis besteht aus zwei Teilen: das Moderne Ortsnamenverzeichnis enthält hauptsächlich Ortsnamen des 18. bis 20. Jahrhunderts, das Historische Ortsnamenverzeichnis erfasst Ortsnamen aus der Zeit bis 1350. Die zugrundeliegende Software-Architektur wird durch das 4D Datenbank-Management-System realisiert, das unter anderem über eine GIS- Komponente verfügt und damit die Visualisierung toponymischer Daten auf Karten ermöglicht: moderne toponymische Daten werden auf Fotografien von Google Earth projiziert, während historische Daten auf rekonstruierten mittelalterlichen Karten eingetragen werden. Dieser Beitrag möchte die allgemeinen und wissenschaftlichen Zielsetzungen des Digitalen Ungarischen Ortsverzeichnisses beschreiben und auf die bereits erreichten Resultate hinweisen. Das Ortsverzeichnis ist verfügbar unter http://mdh.unideb.hu.

Der Autor gibt einen Überblick zum Forschungsstand sowie zu Vorarbeiten für ein Historisches Ortsnamenbuch von Thüringen. Damit verbunden ist ein knapper Abriss zur Forschungsgeschichte und insbesondere zu den Arbeiten des Verfassers sowie zu Studien von anderen Autoren aus den letzten Jahrzehnten. Eine umfangreiche Anlage bietet die für ein Historisches Namenbuch wesentlichen Titel aus Toponomastik, Landesgeschichte und Geographie. / Historical Toponymicon of Thuringia. Current state of research. – The article has the aim to give a review about the already existing results of researches with regard to a historical dictionary with explanations of toponyms in Thuringia. This aim is connected with a special summary about the history of onomastic researches in Eastern Thuringia with special attention to the publications of the author as well as to those of other scientists during the last decades. And there is added a detailed index of important literature considering toponomy, history, and geography of the region.

The Slavic district Besunzane in the light of toponymy. – With the help of Slavic place-names Hans Walther was first in localizing the tribal region of the Besunzane in the area of the Neiße river between Görlitz and Ostritz. Based on this research the present article presents the previous findings with the aid of typology and stratigraphy of place-names more precisely. The quality values of the soil are thereby also taken into consideration. On the accompanying map with older and more recent Slavic place-names the region of Besunzane appears as a ca. 8 kilometer wide strip along the Neiße river, almost throughout on land with soil quality values lying over 50 points. In the west it is sharply separated by a broad unpopulated zone from the tribal region of the Milzane. By evidence of place-names, the strips of land to the east of Besunzane were sparsely populated, if at all, likewise in the south. To the north of Görlitz there are solely more recent types of place-names.

A Small Slavonic Region called Nice? A reply to Walter Wenzel´s paper about “The provincia Nice”. – The present essay on the early-medieval settlement areas at the River Neiße/Nysa Łużycka in Lower Lusatia, deals with the issue of the provincia Nice, a name which appears among the toponyms of the region and has been the subject of a joined study together with Ernst Eichler. The only written evidence documenting Nice is the chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg. Its localization is unknown, and all attempts to localize it remained as yet unconvincing. The proposition of the aforementioned study is, that this name may be referring to the only known settlement area at the lower Neiße river which went by the name Selpuli, thus assuming that Nice was effectively a quasi- synonym for Selpuli. Walter Wenzel contradicted this and localized Nice in a smaller area around the present-day town of Forst. For his reconstruction he used place names, archaeological findings and personal names. In this article all of his arguments are revisited (parts 2–4) and, as a result it is found, that not all of them can be accounted for as indicative of an early medieval settlement. Therefore Wenzel’s theory yields no evidence which would invalidate the proposition that Nice geographically coincides with Selpuli. Finally (parts 5 and 6) this assumption is discussed in the context of settlement geography, including a short analysis about the use of the terms pagus and provincia in Thietmars chronicle.

„Conclusio“ – Versuch einer Zusammenfassung der Zusammenarbeit zwischen Geschichtswissenschaften (z. B. Historical Sciences) und Namenforschung (onomastics). Problemfelder sind Funktion (Sozialgeschichte) vs. Interpretation (Namenforschung), Zeitpunkt und Umstände der Namengebung (naming), Verschriftung vs. Namengebrauch im Alltag, Namengrammatik und Adaptation fremder Namen. / “Conclusio” – Attempt to summarize the cooperation between Historical Sciences and Onomastics. Problem areas are function (Social History) vs. linguistic interpretation (Onomastics), time and circumstances of naming, transcription/ transmission versus name usage in daily life, name grammar vs. adaptation of foreign names.