Toponyms in the Deed From the Year 1347 at the Chotěboř Area – A Problem of Identification Cover Image

Toponyma ve smlouvě z roku 1347 na Chotěbořsku – problém identifikace
Toponyms in the Deed From the Year 1347 at the Chotěboř Area – A Problem of Identification

Author(s): Zdeněk Pehal
Subject(s): Language studies
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro jazyk český
Keywords: German colonization in the 13th century at the Chotěboř area; mill in Stavenov; cultivation of landscape; medieval names of German origin and their location in the landscape; extinct medieval villages Kroměšín; Stavenov and a mill Bezlejov

Summary/Abstract: The possibility of settling the country near Chotěboř by ethnic Germans in Middle Ages has not yet been considered. With a detailed analysis of rare documents from 1347 dealed with the mill in today abolished Stavenov where German proper names occur, it seems that the German settlers lived in the area around Nová Ves at Chotěboř for a certain time cultivating the partially desolate country. Excepting one single document only sparsed traces in the form of place names and minor place-names were left after them that we succeeded to identify as originally German. These traces were revealed only by the analysis of the text of the deed, and by the explanation of the then realia, including their location in today’s region. These names outstay here though in Czech forms (one of them – Truncheyn – wholly extinguished). Therefore it seems that the ethnicity of the German settlers who founded new villages and ponds had relatively quickly scattered in the Czech surrounding. Present research shows that the settlers from German speaking countries pursued primarily agriculture, not at all mining silver. In the vicinity of Nová Ves near Chotěboř facing Habry we find more such names, although they became nearly extinct. Similarly they sporadically occur in the environs of Vilémov and Světlá nad Sázavou. They are treated as onomastic traces of the great German colonization of the 13th century.

  • Issue Year: LIII/2012
  • Issue No: 53
  • Page Range: 219-236
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Czech