Figures / Data / Facts about Spiesen-Elversberg

I came across the renewed attempt to research the name of our village Spiesen when I read in our monthly journal "Unser Echo" the gloss with the photo of a reader about the "Spieser lifts" near Oberjoch, municipality Bad Hindelang in the Allgäu. The name of the mountain station comes from the mountain "Der Spieser" (1641 m) in the skiing area there.

After I had written to the municipality of Bad Hindelang to learn something about the mountain name "Der Spieser", I was referred to a local historian from Bad Oberdorf, who deals with field names on behalf of the municipality. The volunteer employee in the local history service who I wrote to could not help me, however, and referred me to an Allgäu field name expert who used to live there, who might be able to help me, but who lives at Lake Constance in the meantime.

The written down field name expert, Mr. Thaddäus Steiner, tried to help with some interpretations. He referred to the Old High German words: der spiz (spit), or die spizza (pile, summit). Of the Middle High German words, the names: der spiz, spitz, spitze continued the old meaning of pointed objects such as: spit, stake, palisade, pile. With the information of Mr. Steiner, who as an Allgäuer, as he wrote, also has no regional knowledge, likewise no local and historical development of Spiesen, thus no progress in the interpretation of the name Spiesen was to be won.

But in one thing the connection with him was successful: through him as an experienced capacity in matters of field names I learned afterwards that there is already an interpretation of the place name Spiesen in the German Place Name Book, ed. Manfred Niemeyer, in Walter de Gruyter-Verlag, Berlin/Boston 2012, namely by the author Dr. Christa Jochum-Godglück at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken.

After contacting Dr. Jochum-Godglück I received the following letter from her:

Regarding your inquiry about the name Spiesen, I can explain the following: in the first mention of 1195, the name of Spiesen already denotes a settlement. Before that, however, the name initially referred to a field. When a settlement finally developed there, this field name became - secondarily - the name of a settlement. The name Spiesen is therefore older than the settlement. However, it is not possible to say when the settlement came into being. The name certainly refers to the shape of the surrounding area. In our archives of the settlement and field names of the Saarland and the Germanophone Lorraine, we have the field name "Di Spitz" which has been handed down in dialect. Perhaps the name can also be related to the geographical location of the present settlement. I hope I could help you with this information.

Here the extract from the "German place name book" about Spiesen-Elversberg, page 598, by Dr.Christa Jochum-Godglück :

• - Spiesen: 1195 (Kop.15. Jh.) Spize, 1295 apud Spizzen (Or), 1486 Spiszen (Or); Spiesen (1490 Or).
• Spiesen: ahd. (bi thera) spizzun, dat. to ahd. spizza "point, spike, palisade, mound, summit". Spiesen belongs to the secondary SiN (settlement names), where names that served to identify field names became SiN.

A personal visit to Dr. Christa Jochum-Godglück in Saarbrücken did not bring any further findings, but a renewed confirmation of her results in the said article in the German Place Name Book.

The result of my research is that the name "spize" could only be a field name at the first mention of our village. The inhabitants had given this already existing field name to their settlement as a settlement name. In the case of Spiesen, the interpretations pile point, palisade and summit are out of the question, because nothing is known of an early defensive structure and there can be no question of a mountain peak. Therefore, it can be assumed that the interpretations mound or slope are more likely. If one looks at the topography of Spiesen and assumes that the place of origin of the settlement was the church with cemetery and its immediate surroundings, as is the case in many settlements, one comes closest to this interpretation. The catholic church (in former times with cemetery) and the houses, which can be seen in old views irregularly and directly around the church, are actually situated on a small hill respectively on the slope in front of the steep Butterberg. Since the settlement was also in desperate need of water, this spot was exactly the place in front of which the two mother streams, coming from Hintereck and Elversberg, flowed together.

Published in the November 2014 issue of the Spiesen-Elversberg monthly magazine "Unser Echo".