Gau (landscape)
the gau (old-high-German Gouwe, Gouwi (= landscape), related to Aue (country at the water)) originally the name for one was mastermoderate and landschaftlich closed residential area of the Teutons and turns.
Gau corresponds to the English term almost one,today still for the English counties (today usually with county one translates) is common.
To table of contents |
Gau in the antiquity
in the country of the Teutons marked the gau an administered free district with natural borders along watercourses. With own leaders, those by the population were selected and own jurisdiction (called in the Middle Ages still as Gogerichte). Afterthrashing the population by Karl the large one this gau principle replaced of the county principle. The new central ruler used counts as its deputy locally.
(Introduction of “Roman right” - center rule and central jurisdiction)
gau in the Middle Ages
In the Frankish realm the gau district of a count (grafio ) essentially marked the office, gau counts so mentioned. These were at the same time highest judges and leaders of an army spell. Gau tenth marks or groups of one hundred, which were often administered by tenth counts, were assigned to that.In the tenth count court these functioned as jurors.List of medieval gaus.
today's application
ways of the linguistic usage in Hitler Germany (realm gau) is not used the designation gau today any longer in the public administration of Germany. Turnerbünde, Trachtenverbände, Contactor federations (for example with „gau championships “), partially pathfinders and the General German Automobile Association were divided however into gaus.
In Austria Austrian Turnerbund ( ÖTB) has partial an arrangement into turn gaus. The districts from Salzburg are called officially after their principal place, colloquial becomeit however often after their old designation of gaus mentioned.
gau kept landscapes in German-language regions as part of names for landscapes:
- Germany: Ahrgau, Albgau, general-outer, bunting gau, Ardennengau, Auelgau, Bidgau, blowing gau, mash gau, Carosgau, Chiemgau, drain gau (“Drensteinfurt”/cathedral country), gau (Baden-Wuerttemberg), Eifel gau, Ems gau, Hegau, Klettgau, Knetzgau, Kraichgau, Linzgau, May field gau, Moselgau, Nethegau, Nibelgau, Ochsenfurter Gau, Pfinzgau, Rheingau, Ripuariergau, Saargau, Sturmigau, Wasgau, Wonnegau
- Österreich: Flachgau, Lungau, Pinzgau, Pongau, Strudengau, Nibelungengau, Tennengau
- Schweiz: Aargau, Elsgau, Gäu, Prättigau, Sisgau, Thurgau. Historically: Augstgau, book gau
- Luxembourg: Wavergau
- South Tyrol: Vinschgau
- Elsass: Sundgau
- Belgium: Hen gau
- the Netherlands: Ostergau, Westergau, Hunzegau, Fivelgau (into Friesi master is gau, Go: Hunzego )
Etymologie
the name the gau, without umlaut, for a certain landscape is a historian formation 17. - 19. Century, which came by its admission into the vocabulary of the third realm into discredit. In the German dialects and thusalso in the name excessive quantity only gau, or more rarely the gau, is common. The umlaut explains itself by the old Lokativ (local case), ahd. gewi “in gau”. Over the Etymologie of the word Germanic *gawja “gau” one worked intensively, withoutdass eine abschließende Deutung, die alle anderen Vorschläge überzeugend widerlegen würde, vorgelegt werden konnte. The word is testified in the gothical one, in the old high German, in Altfriesi and in the old English as Neutrum. Long time became it out Germanic * ga-agwia “at the waterconvenient (country) “with a meaning extension “open landscape, agriculture area, settlement landscape” interpreted. At present two new suggestions on the discussion stand. 1: the derivation of the indoeuropäischen root * ghew - “yawn, gape”, which by meaning extension “free area, area, landscape” would have become; 2. thoseFeedback on urgermanisch *ga-aw-ja “whole of the dwellings/villages” as Kollektivum too Germanic * awja “dwelling, village” with a old-high-German derivative inouwa f. “Dwelling, domicile”. A decision between these two suggestions does not seem to time possible.
