In Picardy.

Passing on to the Continent, very similar evidence, but of earlier date, is afforded for a small district surrounding St. Omer, in Picardy, by a survey of the [p256] estates of the Abbey of St. Bertin, taken about the year 850. The 'villas' there mentioned as 'ad fratrum usus pertinentes,' and which were distinctly manors, are twenty-five in number, and the names of fifteen of them ended in 'hem.' [343]

Similar evidence is given for various districts in Germany in the list of donations to the abbeys, the abbots of which possessed estates in different parts of Germany—sometimes whole manors or villages, sometimes only one or two holdings in this or that place.

In the various abbey cartularies.

Heims most numerous in the Roman province of Germania Prima.

On the accompanying map are marked the sites of places mentioned in the cartularies of the Abbeys of Fulda,[344] Corvey,[345] St. Gall,[346] Frising,[347] Wizenburg,[348] Lorsch,[349] and in other early records, ending in heim in the various districts of Germany. The result is remarkable. It shows that these heims were most numerous in what was once the Roman province of Germania Prima, on the left bank of the upper Rhine, the present Elsass, and on both sides of the Rhine around Mayence—districts conquered by the Frankish and Alamannic tribes in the fifth century, but inhabited by Germans from the time of Tacitus, and perhaps of Cæsar, and so districts in which German populations had come very early and continued long under Roman rule. In this district the heims rose in [p257] number to 80 per cent. of the places mentioned in the charters.

Distribution in Europe of Local Names Ending in 'ham', 'heim', 'ingen', 'ingahem', or without further suffix.
German patronymic village names in France.

See Larger: [ Ending in 'ham" or without further suffix]. [Ending in 'heim', 'ingen', or 'ingahem', with German names in France].
Go to: [List of Illustrations]

There were many, but not so many, heims in the valley of the Neckar; but everywhere (with small local exceptions) they faded away in districts outside the Roman boundary, except in Frisia, where the proportion was large.