Hercynian Forest
TheHercynian Forestwas an ancient and dense forest that stretched across Western Central Europe, fromNortheastern Franceto theCarpathian Mountains,including most ofSouthern Germany,though its boundaries are a matter of debate. It formed the northern boundary of that part of Europe known to writers of Antiquity. The ancient sources[1]are equivocal about how far east it extended. Many agree that theBlack Forest,which extended east from the Rhine valley, formed the western side of the Hercynian, except, for example,Lucius of Tongeren.According to him, it included many massifs west of theRhine.[2]
Across the Rhine to the west extended theSilva Carbonaria,the forest of theArdennesand the forest of theVosges.All theseold-growth forestsof antiquity represented the original post-glacialtemperate broadleaf forestecosystemof Europe.
Relict tractsof this once-continuous forest exist with many local names: theBlack Forest,theArdennes,theBavarian Forest,theVosges,theEifel,theJura Mountains,theSwabian Jura,theFranconian Jura,thePolish Jura,thePalatinate Forest,theTeutoburg Forest,theArgonne Forest,theMorvan,theLangres plateau,theOdenwald,theSpessart,theRhön,theThuringian Forest,theHarz,theRauhe Alb,theSteigerwald,theFichtel Mountains,theOre Mountains,theGiant Mountains,theBohemian Forestand theSudetes.In present-dayCzech Republicand southernPoland,it joined the forestedCarpathians.[3]TheMittelgebirgeseem to correspond more or less to a stretch of the Hercynian mountains. Many present-day smaller forests were also included like theBienwaldand theHaguenau Forest.The Hercynian Forest maybe extended northwest to theVeluweand east to theBiałowieża Forest.
Etymology[edit]
Hercynianhas aProto-Celticderivation, fromɸerkuniā,latererkunia.Julius Pokorny[4]lists Hercynian as being derived from *perkʷu-"oak" (comparequercus). He further identifies the name asCeltic.Proto-Celticregularly loses initial*ppreceding a vowel, hence the earliest attestations in Greek asἈρκόνια[5](Aristotle,thee~ainterchange common in Celtic names), later Ὀρκύνιος (Ptolemy,with theounexplained) andἙρκύνιος δρυμός(Strabo). The latter form first appears in Latin asHercyniainJulius Caesar,inheriting the aspiration and the letteryfrom a Greek source.
TheGermanicforms appear with anffor*pbyGrimm's Law,perhaps indicating an early borrowing from Celtic before it lost the initial consonant:Gothicfaírguni= "mountain, mountain range",Old Englishfirgen= "mountain, mountain-woodland".[6]Still the Celtic and Germanic words could also be old relatives, or the Celtish word could be borrowed from Germanic.[7]
The assimilated*kwerkwu-would be regular inItalo-Celtic,and Pokorny associates the ethnonymQuerquerni,found in Hispania inGalicia,which features an Italic-Venetic name.[8]In fact, it is not directly associated to the Hercynian Forest's name. Proto-European *perkʷu-explainsɸerkuniā,latererkunia,with regular shiftkʷ>kuthat occurred before the assimilation*kwerkwu-.[9]
The name of the Hercynian Forest is also considered to be etymologically related toLithuanianthunder godPerkūnas.He is also known asPērkonsinLatvian;PerkūnsorPerkunosinOld Prussian;ParkunsinYotvingianandPārkiuņsinLatgalian.
It is possible that the name of theHarz MountainsinGermanyis derived from Hercynian, asHarzis aMiddle High Germanword meaning "mountain forest." Also, the Old High German nameFergunnaapparently refers to theOre MountainsandVirgundia(cf. modernVirngrundforest) to a range betweenAnsbachandEllwangen.
Hercynewas theclassicalname (modern Libadia) of a small rapid stream inBoeotiathat issued from two springs nearLebadea,modern Livadeia, and emptied intoLake Copais.[10]
Ancient references[edit]
The name is cited dozens of times in several classical authors, but most of the references are non-definitive, e.g., the Hercynian Forest isPomponius Mela'ssilvis ac paludibus invia,"trackless forest and swamps" (Mela,De Chorographia,iii.29), as the author is assuming the reader would know where the forest is. The earliest reference is inAristotle's (Meteorologica). He refers to theArkýnia(orOrkýnios) mountains of Europe, but tells us only that, remarkably in his experience, rivers flow north from there.[11]
During the time ofJulius Caesar,this forest blocked the advance of theRoman legionsintoGermania.His few statements are the most definitive. InDe Bello Gallico[12]he says that the forest stretches along theDanubefrom the territory of theHelvetii(present-daySwitzerland) toDacia(present-dayRomania). Its implied northern boundary is nine days' march, while its eastern boundary is indefinitely more than sixty days' march. The region fascinated him, even the old tales ofunicorns(which may have representedreindeer).[13]Caesar's references tomooseandaurochsand of elk without joints which leaned against trees to sleep in the endless forests of Germania, were probably laterinterpolationsin hisCommentaries.[14]Caesar's name for the forest is the one most used:Hercynia Silva.
Pliny the Elder,inNatural History,places the eastern regions of theHercynium jugum,the "Hercynian mountain chain", inPannonia(present-dayHungaryandCroatia) andDacia(present-dayRomania).[15]He also gives us some dramaticised description[16]of its composition, in which the close proximity of the forest trees causes competitive struggle among them (inter se rixantes). He mentions its giganticoaks.[17]But even he—if the passage in question is not an interpolated marginal gloss—is subject to the legends of the gloomy forest. He mentions unusual birds, which have feathers that "shine like fires at night". Medieval bestiaries named these birds theErcinee.The impenetrable nature of theHercynia Silvahindered the last concerted Roman foray into the forest, byDrusus,during 12..9 BCE:Florusasserts thatDrusus invisum atque inaccessum in id tempus Hercynium saltum(Hercynia saltus, the "Hercynian ravine-land" )[18]patefecit.[19]
The isolated modern remnants of the Hercynian Forest identify itsfloraas a mixed one;Oscar Drude[20]identified its Baltic elements associated with North Alpine flora, and North Atlantic species with circumpolar representatives. Similarly,Edward Gibbonnoted the presence of reindeer—pseudo-Caesar'sbos cervi figura—andelk—pseudo-Caesar'salces—in the forest.[21]The wildbullwhich the Romans named theuruswas present also, and theEuropean bisonand the now-extinctaurochs,Bos primigenius.[22]
In the Roman sources, the Hercynian Forest was part of ethnographic Germania. There is an indication that this circumstance was fairly recent; that is,Posidoniusstates that theBoii,were once there (as well as inBohemiawhich is named for them). It is believed that before theBoiitheHercuniatestribe inhabited the area, later migrating toPannoniainIllyria.[23]By the middle of the first century BC, the Hercuniates were a minor tribe that was located along a narrow band of Celtic settlement close to theDanube,on the western side of the river a little way west of modernBudapest.Their name comes from an ancientproto-Indo-Europeanword for anoak.The tribe is referred to byPlinyandPtolemyas acivitas peregrina,a wandering tribe that had travelled to Pannonia from foreign parts. Little else is known of them save that they were issuing their own coins by the second century BC.[24]By AD 40 the tribe was eventually subdued by Rome.
Medieval period[edit]
Monks sent out fromNiederaltaich Abbey(founded in the eighth century) brought under cultivation for the first time great forested areas ofLower Bavariaas far as the territory of the presentCzech Republic,and founded 120 settlements in theBavarian Forest,as that stretch of the ancient forest came to be known. The forest is also mentioned inHypnerotomachia Poliphilias the setting for the dream allegory of the work.[25]
Modern references[edit]
The German journalHercynia,published by the Universities and Landesbibliothek of Sachsen-Anhalt, pertains to ecology and environmental biology.
Some geographers apply the term Hercynian Forest to the complex of mountain ranges, mountain groups, and plateaus which stretch fromWestphaliaacrossMiddle Germanyand along the northern borders ofAustriato theCarpathians.[26]
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^Aristotle,Meteorologiai.13.20; Caesar, vi.25;Tacitus,Germania28 and 30 andAnnalesii.45; Pliny, (as "Hercynius jugum",) iv.25, as"Hercynius saltus"x.67; Livy, v.24; Ptolemy, ii.11.5; Strabo, iv.6.9., vii.1.3, 5, etc.
- ^de Tongres, Lucius.Histoire du Hainaut.
- ^Walter Woodburn Hyde noted these designations in, "The Curious Animals of the Hercynian Forest"The Classical Journal13.4 (January 1918:231-245) p. 231. <https:// jstor.org/stable/3287817>
- ^Pokorny,Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch(Indo-European Etymological Dictionary) 1959, 1059:822-23.
- ^Koch, John T.Celtic Culture: G-L.Volume 3. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC/CLIO. 2006. p. 907.ISBN1851094407
- ^Winfred Philipp Lehmann, Helen-Jo J. Hewitt, Sigmund Feist,A Gothic Etymological Dictionary,p. 104, "F.11 fairguni".
- ^Guus Kroonen,Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic.Brill, Leiden and Boston, 2013, p. 136, s.v.*fergunja-"mountain".
- ^Quarqueni,aVeneticethnicon, appears in M.S. Beeler,The Venetic Language(University of California Publications in Linguistics4) 1949.
- ^Xavier Delamarre,La langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux celtique continental.Errance, Paris, 2003, pp. 164–165:*perkʷu->*perku-> Proto-Celtic*(h)ercu-and not*perkʷu->**kʷerkʷu->**perpu-.
- ^John Lemprière, Lorenzo Da Ponte, John David Ogilby,Bibliotheca classica,or a dictionary of all the principal names and terms relating to the Geography, Topography, History, Literature...,(1838)s.v."Hercyne".
- ^The only north-flowing river familiar to Greek and Roman geographers was theNile.
- ^Caesar, Julius."De Bello Gallico".Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. pp. Book 6, Chapters 24 and 25. Archived fromthe originalon 2002-12-30.
- ^Everything of his description fits thereindeerexcept that the animal should have only one antler ( "a media fronte inter aures unum cornu exsistit" ).
- ^The evidence for the credulous passage's not being Caesar's was first presented by H. Meusel, inJahresberichte des philologischen Vereins zu Berlin(1910:26–29); the passage is often bracketed. "Then, as now, the local inhabitants would obviously say anything that came into their heads to a reporter in search of copy who failed to check his sources," remarks Miguelonne Toussaint-Samat (A History of Food,2nd. ed. 2009:74) whose concern is with elk as game.
- ^Pliny, iv.25
- ^The threatening nature of the pathless woodland in Pliny is explored by Klaus Sallmann, "Reserved for Eternal Punishment: The Elder Pliny's View of Free Germania (HN. 16.1–6)"The American Journal of Philology108.1 (Spring 1987:108–128) pp 118ff.
- ^Pliny xvi.2
- ^Compare the inaccessibleCarbonarius Saltuswest of the Rhine
- ^Florus, ii.30.27.
- ^Drude,Der Hercynische Florenbezirk(Leipzig) 1902 identified the plant societies in the relict forested areas.
- ^Gibbon, Edward."The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".pp. Chapter IX, 3rd paragraph.
- ^Hyde 1918:231–245, pp 242ff.
- ^John T. Koch,Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia,ISBN1-85109-440-7,2006, p. 907.
- ^Hercuniates (Gauls)– The History files
- ^Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,Thames and Hudson, 1999. trans. Joscelyn Godwin. P. 14.
- ^Gilman, D. C.;Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905)..New International Encyclopedia(1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.