Theophoric Place Names: A Comparative Study of Sacral Place Names in the German-Speaking World

There is an air of mystery that surrounds the concept of place names. Questions revolving around their historical background and meaning have naturally been raised by mankind over time. This thesis contains a study of theophoric place names in the German-speaking area, a subject which has received comparatively little attention in recent years. Due to their high age and origin in a period of oral history before the onset of literary records, place names have been shown to serve as important contemporary sources for early cultural developments, and not least those that seem to have a background in myth and/or religion as manifestations of religious concepts within the landscape. Following a brief outline of the methodologies that have been established for analysing such place names in recent years, the thesis starts by outlining how this field of study has developed in the Nordic and Germanic countries over the last centuries. It goes on to consider the cultural and historical background of Germany during the Iron Age and early medieval period, before conducting a critical examination of the early written sources and etymological background of each of the alleged theophoric place names in Germany. These are then compared to similar place names that derive from a similar cultural background in Scandinavia, England and Holland. Local archaeological evidence is also considered in order to provide an overall understanding of their cultural context and their social relationships. In each case an attempt is made to draw conclusions about their potential authenticity. In short, this study will attempt to provide a critical examination of the place name evidence in the pre-Christian Germanic landscape considering the geographical, topographical and historical context of these names, and not least why the evidence might be more limited in nature than that found in Scandinavia