Aventinus 62

Johannes Turmayr's 1520 History of Bavaria, Chapter 60, 61 - translated and annotated by Ras Feqade, AD 2020.

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## 62. Of the part of King Baier, the youngest son of the German and Bavarian Hercules.

The area, east of what is now called Helvetia, fell to the younger son of King Alman, by the name of Baier for his inheritance, who also called such land and people after him Bavarian, from then also Bohemia had the name, where he and the Bavarians built the city of Baierbing (later Marboding, now Prague): it means the whole of Baiernheim, that is Bavarian home, the common one speaks briefly, for ease of the tongue (as in other words more) Behaim [Bohemia] for the whole word Baiernheim, as well as Baybrun above Munich for Baigerbrun, and Abensperg Alastorf, Ösenbach, Aunkofen for Adalhungesdorf, Oryzbach, Abenshoven, as they are called and written in the old letters. And after the ancient Roman and Greek writers of history and land referred to the Danube and Behamerwald in the common Hermenia, which people call Hermiones, the forest Hercynia, the common saying is that the Bavarians come from Hermenia, that is Bohemia and Behamerwald, around and partly in which they still live. And it was called Old Bavaria, stretching as far as the Main and Babenberg, as I have also indicated above, between the Wernitz, Altmül, Redniz and Danube, where from King Baier and his descendants the Bavarians are castles and spots, as Baiersberg Baierstorf Baierreit. There is also the Viechtelberg, on which four rivers rise against the four winds: the Sal flows to the north, the Main to the west, the Eger to the east, the Nab to the south. After the Bavarians moved to Italy out of Bohemia, for a long time the Marcomanni, a Swabian people sat (in Bohemia), whom the Winds, called Zächi [Czech] in their language, drove out, they now inhabit Bohemia. Afterwards in the third book, if there is the time, such events will be written out.

The above-mentioned king Boiger or Baier built the city on the Danube, Ilz and Inn, Boiersdurn called Boider for short, is in Latin Boiodurum and Bathavia, now Passau; so it still retains such a name, but, as it happened, changed somewhat from time to time.

What I am saying now is also written by Julius the First Caesar, Strabo, Pomponius, Mela, Pliny, Cornelius Tacitus, and Paterculus the Roman Captain.

Several have written Bavarian chronicles before me, that say how King Baier after the Deluge came across the sea from Greater Armenia, and only long after him did Norein, a son of the Greek Hercules. Such confusion makes and shows that often more than one king lived with one name, also the countries do not have vastly unlike names from each other; accordingly the uneducated often take one country for another and one king for many. So it is with Hercules, Hermenia and the flood for the unlearned and inexperienced in such matters; if they read in the old books, heard about the old ones and still did not understand correctly that King Baier was in the flood in Hermenia and Norein a son of Hercules, they have not known more than one deluge, one Armenia, one Hercules, but also the third flood, called of Deucalion, is also great, land and people (as told above) destroyed, at what time king Alman, the German Hercules, lived. Likewise Bohemia and the same area in Latin, also in German in common are called Hermenia and Hermansreich, where the aforementioned king Alman held court, who had two sons Baier and Norein, who lived not during the first but the third flood in Hermenia, that is in Bohemia and not in Greater Armenia beyond the sea in Asia, and they were not the sons of the Greek Hercules (so long afterwards) but this king Alman’s son. Such confusion still daily rebukes our inexperienced preacher monks, who preached the holy scriptures: make three out of one person, forge three into one at a time, as the story with Sibylla, St. Dionysius, Kaiser Henry, St Anna daughter, St Mary Magdalene. The wise, one likes to speak, refuses no small folly. The people read nothing, learn nothing, want to fly before they have feathers, want everyone to be right about their point of view, don't want to be learned, let nothing be said. That is why I want to stand idle for them, be uncomfortable with them and wait out this matter.

## 63. Of Mied and Math, the sons of the German Hercules.

Kings Mied and Math settled in the country, now Alsace, beyond the Rhine, the same river as goes up as far as Metz, called Mied- and Mathreich after them, as it was called before the birth of Christ and by the Romans, in Latin and Greek Mediomatrices. Their father, king Alman the Bavarian Hercules (as one still sings) drove the giants out and strangled them. King Alman still had a son named Theuer or Thauer, who fell in love with his search for a foreign country.