medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Otfried,
Thanks for this.
On Monday, June 13, 2005, at 3:53 am, you wrote:
> I don't mean to challenge your expertise in agriculture,
You may challenge it all you wish. I see this as an issue in
semantics, not agriculture (or viticulture, for that matter).
> but as I
> understand it a 'driesch' is simply a piece of land that is either
> permanently uncultivated or supposed to be recultivated after a
> regular interval of normally -- I believe -- four years.
Yes. The recultivation interval changes over time: medievally, I would
have expected the rotation to be either every other year (two-field
system) or every third year (three-field system).
> The verb 'drieschen' (not to be confounded with 'dreschen')
Not that I have so confounded it. 'Driesch', a word which I associate
with the Rheinland, is North Frankish and is thought to have entered
Middle High German from Middle Dutch. The etymology of this word is
unclear, as is also that of Gothic 'thriskan', OHG 'drescan' ("to
thresh"); they may, as I've said, have a common ancestor. But that's
etymology, not semantics.
> means to plow a
> fallow, and 'drieschhafer' is oat or other seed to be sown on a
> fallow.
Yes, but both of these are clearly derivatives of 'Driesch' and, as
such, are not terribly useful if the meaning of 'Driesch' has already
been established.
> See Grimms Woerterbuch der deutschen Sprache:
>
> http://www.dwb.uni-trier.de/
Though considerably older, the nineteenth-century Grimm (which of
course was the very first thing I consulted once I started thinking
about 'Driesch' several years ago) has the advantage of
allowing 'permanently uncultivated' as one part of this word's semantic
field (no pun inended!). The revised Grimm put out in 1970ff. by the
Akademie der Wissenschaften der [damaligen] DDR and more recently by
the academies of Berlin-Brandenburg and of Goettingen reduces this
to "_zeitweise_ ungebautes ... ackerland, auch ruhender Weingarten"
(Bd. 6, Sp. 1391; emphasis mine). But the word's use in toponyms
(which is very old) implies that in these instances the land referred
to is either permanently or at least ordinarily uncultivated.
The new (2001) Pijnenburg et al., _Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek_,
s.v., 'driesc' (Dl. 1, blz. 1092), also does not specify a temporal
component in the word's meaning.
> So I would say that there is no real difference between a fallow
> and a 'driesch'.
And with that we come to our major difference. According to the online
_Oxford English Dictionary_, a 'fallow' in this sense (there's also a
very obsolete meaning of "ploughed land") is:
"2. Ground that is well ploughed and harrowed, but left uncropped for a
whole year or more; called also summer fallow, as that season is chosen
for the sake of killing the weeds. green, cropped, or bastard fallow:
one from which a green crop is taken."
That's very hard to square with permanent lack of cultivation, the
aspect of 'Driesch' that I (along with the Brothers Grimm) infer from
the latter's use in toponymy. The closely related English
adjective 'fallow' (adj. 2, after 'fallow' the color, as in "fallow
deer") is given a general sense "b. Uncultivated". But the OED is more
restrictive in its definition of the noun; for that reason I
find 'fallow' misleading as a translation for 'Driesch' in toponyms
(where permanent lack of cultivation is implied).
Best again,
John
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