The German Question, Part Ten

Rather than any major ruthless annihilation of foreign people (I'm not saying there weren't any killings), the German eastward expansion resulted in many of the various peoples, Slavic and Baltic, simply being absorbed into the German population and losing their “ethnic” identity, including their languages. There were some exceptions to this gradual “Germanization” process, however, and in some locations a few groups retained both their ethnic identity and their language, although there certainly were some influences passed back and forth between these groups and the nearby, or even mixed in, Germans. Much of the area of Prussia had already been occupied by Slavic people for a period, and some of these Slavs, the Kashubians and Masurians, for example, retained a certain amount of their own identity, but with a German influence over time. The original Prussians eventually were completely absorbed into Germandom, and, if I remember correctly, the last known speakers of their language, called Old Prussian (related to Lithuanian and Latvian), died in the 1700s. Further south, below Berlin, another group of Slavs, the Wends, lived in an area called “Lusatia” (“Lausitz,”* in German and "Luzica/Luzyca" in Sorbian Slavic). Over the centuries this Slavic community has been whittled down, but it still exists, even to this day,** as does their language, called Sorbian.

* "Supposedly" the word comes from a Slavic word for “wetlands/swamp.”

** Much of “Lusatia” is in Germany, but a part straddles the border with modern Poland, and even with the Czech Republic. While I can’t confirm this, I’ve read where the people who call themselves Wends is down to like 60-70,000 in Germany. For those interested in further info, the area in question is around the German cities of Forst and Cottbus.

WORD HISTORY:
Shoulder-The overall origins of this word remain unclear and it "might" be a West Germanic invention derived from the Old Germanic ancestor of "shield," which was "skelduz," with the reference being to the "shoulder blade," but this is not a certainty. What is known is that is goes back to West Germanic "skuldro/skuldr" (English is a West Germanic language). This gave Old English "sculdor," and later "shulder," before the modern version. Forms in other Germanic languages are: German has "Schulter," Low German has "Schuller," West Frisian has "skouder" and Dutch has "schouder." One source notes that a form of the word was "borrowed into" North Germanic, as Swedish has "skuldra" and Norwegian and Danish have "skulder." The verb form, meaning to take responsibility, or take on a burden ("shoulder the load or responsibility") came from the noun, perhaps initially in the 1300s, but most definitely was in use by the 1500s.

Paranoia Can Annoy Ya

One evening over thirty years ago I received a call from my next door neighbor, who was a middle-aged woman. She asked me, “Why did you put poison snakes in my house?” At first I thought I’d misunderstood her question, so I said, “Sorry, what was that again?” She repeated the same question. Well, Ole Randy, who wasn’t so “ole” back then, just figured that my neighbor had partaken of too many rum and Cokes, easy on the Coke. If only that had been the case! After a bit of chit chat, all very pleasant, she seemed satisfied that I hadn’t been delivering any of the slithering reptiles into her house, and she seemed to settle down and be less “rattled” (Hey, can you think of a better word to go with snakes?).

Nothing else happened for more than a year, but one day upon my return from an out-of-town trip, my dad told me that the police had come by when he was there to check the mail for me. They said the woman next door had called them saying that I was firing shots (ah, the kind from guns, not the rum ones) at her house. I’m still not sure whether I was right or wrong to do this, but I marched right to her front door and knocked. She came to the door waving a sizeable butcher knife at me. She said that I was stealing her mail, that I had tunnels dug from my basement over to her basement so that I could tap into her utilities, and that I had been dropping poison down her chimney (hey, when poison snakes don’t work, what else can you do?). She proceeded to lambaste the mailman and the family in the house on the other side of her. She said the mailman showed her mail all over the neighborhood and that everyone knew her bills before she even got them. After hearing all of this nonsense, I went back into my house thinking, “Hmm, poison snakes might not be such a bad idea.”

After that, things would quiet down for a few weeks and then she’d call the police again. I had a package missing from my mail area, and the mailman said that he had delivered it. I can’t prove it, and someone else may have taken it, but with her obsession with the mail, I still believe to this day that she took the package. She eventually took out after the mailman with that butcher knife!

I happened to see one of the desk sergeants for the police one day, and he told me he had taken several of her calls about me and other neighbors. He told me that she’d had “issues” for years, and that apparently it was not age-related in any way. He said that one night she called the police to report people stopping in front of her house and looking in at her (she lived further up the street at that time). When the policemen arrived, they found that traffic had been stopped for a train at the railway crossing (right by her house), and that’s why the cars were stopped there. He and other policemen told me that I’d need to go to court and have her taken in for treatment, since her husband and family couldn’t bring themselves to act. I believe the Post Office took some kind of action, too, but they dropped it when she got treatment due to my case. At the hearing, which was conducted at a hospital and in front of a lady from the mental health community, not a judge, she proceeded to tell how the neighbors would enter her home and take her vacuum cleaner, passing the vacuum from neighbor to neighbor until the last one took it back to her house, entered and left it, and “they didn’t even clean it out,” she assured the presiding official.

Now, all of this may sound funny, and most folks get a chuckle out of this kind of behavior, BUT to those who suffer with such afflictions, the “claims” are real. People are really trying to get them and get into their personal possessions and such. To me, this is taking place on something of a much more major level nationally. Groups of Americans are holding rallies and saying how the “government is out to get them,” how “the government is coming to take our guns away,” how “the government is going to lock us up in concentration camps,” how “the government is going to implement a police state,” etc. For some reason, I’m not laughing. When such nonsense gets into the minds of so many people, and it is reinforced further by irresponsible talk from radio, television, and politicians, the obsession and paranoia can take a nasty turn, just as it did with my neighbor who toted and flashed around her butcher knife, even going after the mailman. In her feverish mind, she was only defending herself from the rest of us. Think about it.

WORD HISTORY:
Paranoia-This word, now meaning "delusions of persecution, unsubstantiated distrust or fear of someone or something," seems to date back to the early 1800s in English. It goes back to Greek "paranoos," which literally meant "beyond the mind;" thus, "madness." In more modern times, Latin picked up the word, too, and in Greek it simply meant "madness," not a specific kind of madness. The "para" part goes back to the Indo European root "per/pr," generally meaning, "off, away;" thus also, "contrary, beyond." This gave Greek "para," with the "contrary, beyond" idea coming to mean "irregular, abnormal;" that is, "contrary to normal, beyond normal." The "noos" part in Greek meant "mind," and I could not trace this to another source or origin. Greek paranoos," then became "paranoia."

The German Question, Part Nine

While the German-dominated Holy Roman Empire sounded impressive, in fact, it was basically a loose confederation of “states.” As the famous French writer and philosopher Voltaire noted, it was “neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.”* The rulers of some of the states** even took over lands, by agreement or warfare, outside the borders of the empire; thus establishing their own “little empires” beyond the reach of the German emperor, and the feudal structure of the empire. Often religion lay at the root of some of this expansion (of course "power" was undoubtedly the main driving force), as the Germans sought to “Christianize” people living east of the imperial boundaries, and these ventures into other territories were therefore, at times, supported by the emperor. Further, the old "Marches/Marks" (border areas) I wrote about in an earlier segment had been whittled away in places by non-German elements pressuring from the East. The emperor definitely wanted these areas restored to the empire. A fairly large part of eastern Europe was populated, although seemingly sparsely in many areas, by Slavic people of various names; the forerunners of modern Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Serbians, and Croatians. Also, to the northeast, were the Baltic people, the Prussians, Lithuanians, and Latvians, as well as the Estonians.***

The "Teutonic Knights" was an order established in the Middle East by Christians during the Crusades. Initially the knights were established to help and care for Christian pilgrims and soldiers, but they also provided "protection," and from this element, the order became a military force to be reckoned with. It moved from the Middle East to Europe, and eventually led "Crusades" into northern Europe against non-Christian Slavs, Prussians, and Lithuanians. The core of the Teutonic Knights was a relatively small force of knights, but they often took on volunteers and mercenaries to augment their number. The history of the German eastward expansion is extensive and complicated, so suffice it to say that gradually the Teutonic Knights and some of the German princes gradually took over the Slavic dominated areas known as "Mecklenburg" (named after a castle there) and "Pomerania" ("Pommern" in German, but the name is from Slavic and basically means "land/area along the seacoast," as it borders the Baltic Sea). Then came the area known as "Prussia,"**** named after the Baltic people who lived there. A bit further south, a "Crusade" was launched against the Wends (a Slavic people) in the area of the Brandenburg Mark (modern Berlin area), and not only was it successful in recapturing lost territory, it expanded the German dominated area. All of this activity took place during the 1100s, and the recaptured areas and much of the newly acquired areas, were incorporated into the empire.

*While I’ve more or less covered this, it bears repeating that the empire was not “holy,” except that the Pope crowned the German Emperor after his election, technically he was elected as the German "king." He didn’t become “emperor” until the Pope crowned him. Nor was it “Roman,” as it was German-led, but the term “Roman” was used to symbolize that the Roman Empire’s mantle had been picked up once again. And it wasn’t really an “empire,” but a large-scale feudal structure, with the individual constituent states having tremendous power, and the central authority, embodied by the emperor, being relatively weak, with some exceptions.

**As mentioned previously, the rulers of the “states” were collectively known as “the German princes,” regardless of their individual titles; that is, king, prince, archduke, etc., and I will likely use that term often.

*** The Estonians are closely related to the Finns, and even to the Hungarians. Linguistically they do not speak an Indo European language, but rather they speak a language part of another language family, “Uralic.” Some ethnologists (they study “ethnic groups”) and linguists also believe the Estonians, Finns, and Hungarians are related to other peoples who came out of Asia, like the Turks, and that “theory” was more widely accepted until recent decades when it was contested by a number of ethnographers and linguists; so, I’ll say that aspect is “unresolved.”

**** The name "Prussians" outlived the original Baltic (non-German) people, as the province continued to be called "Prussia" ("Preussen" in German--pronounced proy-sen) and the German people who lived there came to be called "Prussians." Actually, the original Prussians were simply absorbed into the German population and ceased to exist. Many German noble families and aristocrats were given/established large estates in areas there, and they came to be called "Junkers" (a contraction from "junger Herr," literally "young master," with the implicit meaning of someone who had control over others and lands). Later, as you'll see, (German) Prussia expanded tremendously beyond its original borders.

WORD HISTORY:
Knight-Not all is known about the history of this word, but it is "assumed" by "some" linguists to go back to the Indo European base "gen/gn," whose Germanic offshoot, "kun," gave us the basis for "kin" (relative). From that developed the word that gave English "knave" (the "kn" was pronounced back then) and German "Knabe," both originally meaning "young male servant." A variant(?) then gave Old English "cniht" (the "cn"="kn" also pronounced back then), which also meant "boy servant," and sometimes even just "boy," and the other West Germanic languages had closely related forms of the word with the same meaning. It wasn't long before it simply came to mean "male servant," with no connection to age, and then simply to "military servant," a meaning that likewise developed in the other West Germanic languages. During the Middle Ages in England, the word came to be applied to "men who gave military service in exchange for land," and later still, "men who were given nobility status in exchange for military service," and by the 1500s, it became a noble title in its own right in England. Its relatives on the Continent didn't develop that last sense, but the notion of "servitude" remained, and German has "Knecht," which still means "servant, bondsman." Further, the servitude idea even gives the German word a meaning of "slave" in certain situations. In English, the verb, meaning "to knight," developed from the noun and the servitude of a man to the grantor or to the king. The other Germanic languages have: German and Low German "Knecht" (servant, farm worker, can also mean slave), Dutch "knecht" (servant, trade worker under a master), Frisian "knjocht" (servant, worker). The North Germanic languages (Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish) do not use forms of the word. 

The German Question, Part Eight

Very slightly updated/edited July 6, 2015

Just to back track for a moment, for quite some time the German emperors were seen as heads of the German Church, something that caused bitter resentment by the various popes of those times. The Saxon and Frankish emperors gradually established a more centralized form of power, represented by the emperor, by having administrators spread throughout the land. This caused resentment by the nobility. It was therefore not uncommon for the Papacy and the German nobility to act as allies against the emperors from time to time. When the Hohenstaufen family succeeded the Saxons and Franks* as emperors, they eventually turned much of their attention to Italy, often actually even living in Italy, not in Germany (a much broader geographical entity in those times). This neglect of German lands by the ruling Hohenstaufens suited the German nobility just fine, as they gained power at the expense of the imperial throne. Some German emperors tried to regain some of the lost power, and all of this squabbling led to what was really an off and on civil war.

By the mid 1300s, the emperor issued a "Golden Bull;" that is a decree with a golden seal. This edict set more precise rules for the election of the German emperor by giving the vote to seven "electors" (Kurfürsten in German); three Church authorities (the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne) and four secular leaders (the Palatine Count (Pfalzgraf in German), the King of Bohemia,** the Duke (Herzog in German) of Saxony, and the Margrave (Markgraf in German, and a "Graf" is really the equivalent to a "count" or "earl" in English) of Brandenburg***). A majority vote was all that was needed, and any dissenters could not block the wishes of the majority (previously that had not been the case). As you can see, the religious leaders were in the minority, and this further diminished the Pope's already scant involvement in German affairs. While that may have been a good thing for the Germans, the fact that provincial leaders held so much power in selecting the emperor made the emperor's position relatively weak; a condition that essentially lasted until the end of the empire.

Next...the Germans move eastward. (A Word History is below the notes)

* The large Germanic tribe the Franks dominated the area now known as France. Their tribal name even became the name “France,” and their language, Frankish in English, became the term “French.” Not all Franks lived in this region, however, as one branch lived in what became part of Germany; thus the “Frankish” emperors of Germany (Holy Roman Empire). As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, while Frankish gave a number of words to “French,” Frankish was gradually absorbed into, and became a part of, the more extensive Latin-based language already present when the Franks conquered the area. That absorption process took several centuries to complete, and modern French has far fewer active words of Frankish heritage than long ago.

** Bohemia, essentially the modern Czech Republic, and a former part of Czechoslovakia, had been controlled by Germanic tribes going back to the B.C. era. Some of these Germanic tribes moved around, or even moved out of the area, over the centuries, and they were replaced, at least partially, by incoming Slavic tribes. These Slavic tribes also moved around, for instance to avoid the Mongols, and Germanic (or maybe German might now be more appropriate) people moved back in. The area was very mixed, with Germans living basically in a sort of semicircle around the Slavic core, but with some Germans even living within that core area. In the early 1300s, Heinrich of Luxemburg became German emperor, and shortly thereafter, his son Johann was invited to become King of Bohemia, thus making Bohemia an integral part of the empire.

*** Brandenburg is the area that today contains Berlin and the entire area around that city. Back long ago, you may remember from an earlier part, Mark Brandenburg was established as a border defense area, a "Mark," or "March," of the early Holy Roman Empire.

 

WORD HISTORY:

Eke-This word goes back to the Indo European root "aug," which had the notion/concept of "increasing, growing, adding to/supplementing." The Old Germanic offshoot was "aukan." This gave Anglo-Saxon "eacan," likewise with the general meaning of "increase/supplement." There was also Old English "eke/eac," or some form of it, but sources were unclear on the spelling, which meant "also, in addition, besides." There are various forms of the word in the other Germanic languages, as for example: German has "auch," Low German has various forms, including "ak/ok," Dutch has "ook," Norwegian and Danish have "ogsa," and Swedish has "ochsa," all with the same meaning "also/too/in addition." Icelandic has "auka," with the meaning "increase, add to." In American English it is commonly used in reference to just barely achieving something, as in, "Bill and Mary were able to eke out a win by a fraction of a point in the skating competition." 

The German Question, Part Seven

So we're now in the era circa 1000 A.D. and the term "German" is more appropriate for the Germanic peoples living in what are now modern Holland (The Netherlands), two-thirds of Belgium, Alsace, a part of Lorraine, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and about two-thirds of Switzerland. (See this article for more info on Germanic/German meanings:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-do-we-call-them-these-names.html )

As we've seen, following Charlemagne's death, his vast holdings had been divided, thus bringing a demise to his original empire. In 962 A.D., under Otto I, the eastern region of the original empire was revived with the name, "Holy Roman Empire." The name was chosen to show that the mantle of the Roman Empire had been picked up once again, and that the empire would be a protector of Christendom. The Crusades had the Germans sending substantial contingents of men to the Middle East as part of the German-led "Holy Roman Empire." The Crusades brought many heroes to Christendom, including to the Germans. Many warriors returned home and were rewarded for their services with land and noble titles. It was during this general time frame that "feudalism" developed. (See Word History below)

Feudalism was an important part of the history of many European countries, and it certainly had a major impact on the historical development of the Germans, more so to the negative side. Feudalism is a complicated subject, but an important part of it was basically a system where "lords" ruled their lands by providing land to some number of men, "vassals," who then vowed to provide military aid to that ruler. Typically, the land was not granted outright, but "leased" to the vassal, who had the right to earn whatever income he could from that land. With the Germans, the system actually was in place regarding the emperor, as he was dependent upon a large network of "lords" to provide him with military forces. This dependency weakened the role of the emperor, although the power of the emperor, in some cases, was certainly tied to his own personality. Some emperors had forceful personalities that garnered them support, others were much weaker, with the latter being the rule, not the exception. On the other hand, the power of the local and regional nobles increased with this situation, thus forming the basis for a number of "states" within the empire. Some of these "states" eventually came to be called kingdoms (and were thus ruled by "kings"), others were called principalities (ruled by princes), duchies (ruled by "dukes") or arch duchies (ruled by archdukes).* Collectively these various regional rulers came to be called "the German princes," regardless of their specific titles. Throughout this struggle for power, the Papacy was always looming large, looking to expand its power, too. All of this led to a very fragmented power structure, seldom with a central authority.

Otto I and his immediate successors were Saxon emperors and they were followed by Frankish emperors through much of the 11th Century and into the 12th Century, when another Saxon became the emperor. Then followed the Hohenstaufen dynasty, which had developed in Swabia, in southwestern Germany (now known as the home of Mercedes, the famous auto company, which is in the city of Stuttgart). Frederick I, a Hohenstaufen, is perhaps best remembered for his nickname, Barbarossa, which was used later by Hitler as a code name for his invasion of the Soviet Union. The Hohenstaufens eventually came to be deeply involved in Italy, much of which had been a part of the empire. Ever so gradually, however, the Papacy eroded German control over Italy. Due to marriages, some of the Hohenstaufens spent far more time in Italy, namely Sicily, than in the German areas. This further weakened imperial power within the German lands, as governing authority was essentially turned over to the increasingly powerful rulers of the "states."

* Just for the sake of example, Bavaria was a kingdom, while Austria was an arch duchy. The number of these "states" constantly changed, but frequently they numbered in the hundreds, and occasionally in the thousands!!! It was no wonder the Germans remained so divided for centuries, with so many local/regional rulers.

 

WORD HISTORY: 

Feudal-Like the word "fee," covered in "The German Question, Part Four," this word goes back to Indo European "peku," which meant "cattle" and ultimately "property." Latin got the word from Germanic (presumably from Frankish) as "feudum," which meant a type of "estate provided in exchange for service." From this developed Latin "feudalis," which English seems to have acquired in the early 1600s as "feudal." People in the Middle Ages did not see "feudalism" as a form of societal structure, and that term was not applied to the system in those times, but rather came along much later and was used by historians. Feudal is much connected with "fee," and for those interested, here is the link to that article, with the Word History at the end:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/03/german-question-part-four.html