From: greg@silver.lcs.mit.edu (Hossein Ali Qomi (mka Gregory F. Rose))
Subject: Re: Persona question
Organization: The Rialto
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 04:39:34 GMT

AElfgar recently wrote:

>Since my persona was based in 8th century Charlemange's Empire, I
>was wondering there anything that could be called 'germany' at the
>time?  An area of german speaking people?  Charlemange's Franks
>seem to be the precursors to the French, so I don't know where exactly
>the germans fit in, if they're all barbarians still, settling down,  . . .?
>What is the state of the German language at this point?  My
>consternation arises from the unease I get from saying AElfgar von
>Echternach from Germany, if indeed there really wasn't a germany per
>se yet, or people who would be using 'von' for of.

An interesting question.  Clearly there were cultural and philological
differences between East Francia (what is today much of
Germany/Austria/Bohemia) and West Francia (what is today much of
France/Catalonia) in the Carolingian period.  The East Frankish
language is called Old High German, and we have literary works dating
to the reign of Louis the Pious (e.g., _Heliand_) in that language.  The
problem is with West Frankish.  The earliest extant example of West
Frankish is the oath taken by Charles the Bald in Strasbourg (the Oath
of Strasbourg taken by Charles and his brother Louis the German
against their brother Lothar during their struggle for the imperial
throne after the death of Louis the Pious).  It shares a number of
similarities with Old High German, but is also very Latinate.  With so
relatively late a first example of West Frankish, we are hard put to
identify the point of branching.  Certainly some substantial brachiation
had taken place by ca. 840 and, I would think, rather earlier.  There is a
further problem in that use of the preposition "von" is a Middle High
German phenomenon carried over into modern German.  It is not a
Carolingian onomastic practice.  

If you are interested in doing some serious research I would suggest the
prosopographical literature on the Carolingian period.  Karl Ferdinand
Werner's work is prominent in the field.  Most of it is in German, but a
delightful article by Werner -- "Important noble families in the
kingdom of Charlemagne -- a prosopographical study of the
relationship between king and nobility in the early middle ages" -- is
available in English translation in Timothy Reuter's edited volume _The
Medieval Nobility_ (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1978), 137-202.  Other
important sources include:

G. Tellenbach, _Zur Bedeutung der Personenforschung fuer die
Erkenntnis des Frueheren Mittelalters_ (Freiburg, 1957).

G. Tellenbach, ed.,  _Studien und Vorarbeiten zur Geschichte des
grossfraenkischen Adels_ (Freibach, 1957).  This has several seminal
studies which are rife with discussions of East Frankish names.

K. Schmid, "Zur Problematik von Familie, Sippe und Geschlecht, Haus
und Dynastie beim mittelalterlichen Adel," _Zeitschift fuer die
Geschichte des Oberrheins_, 105 (1957), 1-62.

E. Hlawitschka, _Franken, Alemannen, Bayern, und Burgunder in
Oberitalien (774-962)_ (Freiburg, 1960).

I. Dieneman-Dietrich, "Der fraenkische Adel in Alemannien im 8.
Jahrhundert," _Vortraege und Forschungen_, 1 (1953), 149-192.

E. Klebel, "Bayern und der fraenkische Adel im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert,"
_Vortraege und Forschungen_, 1 (1953), 193-208.

F. Prinz, "Herzog und Adel im agilulfingischen Bayern," _Zeitschrift
fuer bayerische Landesgeschichte_, 25 (1962), 283-311.

Sorry it's all in German, but German scholars are the main ones
working in the field.

As an alternative, you might try Latinizing your name for registration
purposes (since the vast majority of Carolingian onomastic evidence is
in Latin sources), e.g., "AElfgarus Ecternaciensis" (AElfgar of
Echternach).  I don't know if Echternach existed in 9th century
Francia, so you'd have to document that it did.  The other common
Carolingian practice would be to append the phrase "filius [name of
father in genitive case]".  If your father was Ludwig, you would be
"AElfgarus filius Hludowici".

I hope this is helpful.  I'm rather pleased to see serious persona work in
the Carolingian period.

Hossein/Greg
(who mundanely thinks prosopographical research is one of the sexier
areas of research in early medieval studies, but he's like that...:-)