Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (839 – 923) was a Persian scholar writing in Arabic. His History (History of the Prophets and Kings) is a multi-volume work which, in vol. 31 (“The War Between Brothers”) describing the events of 808 – 814 mentions Slavs.  The work is written in poetic form so the historical significance of these mentions appears debatable.  Nevertheless, the reference is to actual historical events – the battles between the succesors of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid, his sons al-Amin (aka Muhammad ibn Harun al-Rashid) and al-Ma’mun (aka Abū Jaʿfar Abdullāh al-Maʾmūn ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd) as well as al-Qasim (aka Al-Qasim ibn Harun al-Rashid). Apparently, their father decided that al-Amin would succeed him but that al-Ma’mun would have sovereignty over Khurasan and, that, afterwards, al-Ma’mun would take over. Al-Ma’miun also got himself a large portion of the Baghdad army. Al-Qasim could not alter this.  After Al-Ma’mun it was to be al-Quasim although al-Ma’mun could replace him as successor. 

The below relates to events taking place after the death of al-Rashid in 809 when al-Amin was supposed to take over but soon fell out with al-Ma’mun who won their civil war in 813. Al-Amin was killed (head was placed on the Anbar Gate in Baghdad) and al-Qasim (who had already been arrested by al-Amin) was deposed (only?). 

The mention below is to al-Jaradiyyah – the Slav guards of al-Amin – and to Slavs. Note that there were apparently two guard units – the Slavic “white” one (named after locust or falcon species) and an Abyssynian “black” one (named after ravens – the al-Ghurabiyyah). 

Here are those mentions in the translation by Michael Fishbein (from the SUNY edition).  The notes are his and he is also the source of much of the background given above. 

Details and Results of the Siege of Baghdad (812 – 813)

“…At Zandaward and al-Yasiriyah,
      and on the two river banks, where the ferries have ceased,
At the mills and Upper al-Khayzuraniyyah,
whose bridges were lofty,
And at the Palace of ‘Abduyah, there is a lesson and guidance
      for every soul whose inner thoughts have become pure.
Where are their guards, and where is their guardian?
Where is he upon whom benefits were bestowed, and where is their bestower?
Where are their eunuchs and their servants?
Where are their inhabitants and their builder?
Where are the Slavic al-Jaradiyyah* guards gone,
and the Abyssinians, with their pendulous lips?
The army disperses from its parades;
its lean [horses] run there at random –
Carrying men from Sind and India, Slavs,
and Nubians with whom Berbers have been mixed –
Like birds in flights, they have been sent forth to no avail,
  their fair-skinned troops preceding their blacks.
Where are the virgin gazelles in the garden
      of the kingdom – the young ones who walked so gracefully?
Where are their comforts and their pleasures?”

*note – “The Jaradiyyah corps of guards may have been given this name in reference to the pale color of the locust (jarad) or to a species of falcon (saqr al-jarad or al-jaradi). See ed. Leiden, Glossarium, CLXII; also the explanation given below.”

Some Aspects of the Conduct and Mode of Life of the Deposed Muhammad bin Harun (813 – 814)

“According to Humayd bin Sa’id, who said: After he became ruler andter al-Ma’mun wrote to him and gave him his allegiance, Muhammad sought out eunuchs and purchased them, spending inordinately on them. He appointed them to [attend on] his private quarters by night and by day, his provisions of food and drink, and his decisions commanding or forbidding. Some he enrolled into a special unit [fard] that he named “al-Jaradiyyah,” and other, Abyssinians, he enrolled into a special unit which he name “al-Ghurabiyyah.”* He forsook both free women and slave girls, so that they were sent await. Concerning this, a certain poet said:

O you who stay long at your residence in Tus,
far from your family, who cannot be ransomed by [other] lives:
You have left behind a husband for the eunuchs –
someone who has endured the bad luck of Basus from them!
As for Nawfal, he is a person of importance.
What a companion Badr is!”

*note – “Cf. the reference to the two groups in the poem quoted above, where the Jaradiyyah are identified as Saqalib, or Slavs, and the accompanying note, explaining the possible origin of the name. “Ghurabiyyah” is derived from the word of raven, ghurab, with reference to their black skins. See Abbott, Two Queens of Baghdad, 210 – 211. On fard, troops not on the regular muster roll and paid contractually, see ed. Leiden, Glossarium, CDI; also Baladhuri, Futuh, glossarium, s.v.”

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Having looked at Jachna, let’s look at other river names in Germany.  Here is the Jeetzel:

Looking at the Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch it seems the river is German.  Specifically, the author, Albrecht Greule, claims that the root is the Old West German:

• osa ‘in heftige Bewegung setzen’ meaning that is “to set about in rapid motion.”

This, in and of itself, should be interesting.  Why?  Because that is the Polish and Slavic word for a wasp:

Indeed, this should also be of interest to some readers since at least Brueckner thought that the word changed as follows having had a “w” upfront:

• *wopsa > *opsa > *osa

The proof of this is supposed to be the Lithuanian wapsa and the German Wespe as, of course, also the English wasp or latin vespa.

(The insertion (or retention?) of the frontal “w” is present in northwest Slavic languages.  Thus, the Polish jaszczurka which also used to exist in the form jeszczerzyca becomes wieszczerzyca in Kashubian and wiestarica in Polabian).

In any event, the Jetzel flows, as Greule himself notes, through the so-called Wendland.  The Wendland refers to the Wends meaning Slavs.  The name itself was first used at the beginning of the 18th century.  This was because, at the time, there still lived Slavs in the area and a local priest took an interest in their customs, beliefs and language.   Note that this Wendland is west of the Elbe. 

Note too that the entire area to the northeast, labeled Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the above picture was Slavic as well.  As a few points of interest, the Elde, in Slavic was Leda (same as Elbe or really Alba vs Laba) and note too Neu Kaliss (first mentioned in 1431) which is yet another Kalisz type name in Slavic lands (if you had any doubts about Ptolemy’s Calissia being Slavic).

But back to the Jeetzel which is also visible flowing through the Wendland. Greule lists the following names for it in the following years:

• Jesne (1014)
• ultra Yesnam (1258)
• vltra Yesnam (1268)
• Yhesene (1303)
• iuxta Gysnam (1339)
• Gisne, Gysne (1341)
• Gysna (1344)
• by der Iesne (1362)
• Jetze (1392)
• an der Yetze (1452)
• in de Jetzen (1531)
• Jetza (1652)
• Jeetzel (1702)

There is also a town nearby in Kreis Lüchow and Greule shows its name’s historic development too – obviously the two are relate:

• Yesne (1330 or 1352)
• to Getzene (1360)
• to Yesne (1360)
• to dem Iesne (1360)
• to Jesene (1368)

All this is great record keeping.

Given the Wendland connection and the obvious Slavic etymology:

you would think that the matter of the name of Jeetzel would be easy for Greule to resolve.

To be sure you understand this, remember that jasny is a masculine adjectival ending.  For a river name which is necessarily feminine in Slavic (rzeka/reka), the adjective ending would be -a as in jasna.

But what happens next is strange.

Greule observes that there are other place names/towns with such names, states that their etymology is Middle Low German and decides that, therefore, the above must be German too in the form Jesene, Jesne!  The root is a reconstructed (of course) *jesa-/*jeso.

Let’s see how that reasoning holds up.

What are those other town names?

• Niedernjesa and Obernjesa
  • Gese (1022 or 12th century)
  • Gese (1142)
  • Yese (1196)
• Jesuborn
  • geseborn (1368)
  • Yesebirn (circa 1450)
  • Jheseborn (1465)

You can see these town and their relation to the Jeetzel of Wendland on this map.  Jeetzel in Wendland is in the Northeast.  Niedernjesa and Obernjesa in the middle and in the south, near Goettingen lies Jesuborn.

The problem with these other names is that – were they Slavic – they would indicate Slavic presence far to the West of where it is permitted by official historiography.  Since the names of these places exhibit a similar development and, therefore, etymology and since these other names “cannot” be Slavic, the obvious answer as to the origin of Jeetzel is also that it is not Slavic.

But this is only true so long as we desperately defend the assumption that Slavs could not have lived in Niedernjesa/Obernjesa and at Jesuborn.  Is that assumption defendable though?

Niedernjesa and Obernjesa

What about Niedernjesa and Obernjesa? The lower and upper Jesa were once one.  The name appears in annals as Gese/Jese/Iese/Jese in the years 1022, 1100, 1142, 1168, 1189, 1197 and 1269. In 1269, for the first time we have in Minori Jese presumably referring to the “minor” or maybe “lower” Jesa.

According to Die Ortsnamen des Landkreises Göttingen which was put out by, among others, Juergen Udolph of the Slavic hydronymy fame, the origin of the name Jesa is not entirely clear. The supposition is that the name goes back to jesan (gären, schäumen meaning “to boil” or “to gush” or “to simmer”) which may have been replaced by the word Leine which, the writers, guess could have been even older.

Well, the Jesas are located near a river and the river’s name – Leine – appears old.  In the old documents several versions of the name appear – most often Loine, Legine, Leine but also Laina.  The Polish version of the name is Lejna. The obvious Slavic etymology would be from “lac” that is “to pour”.  Beyond that the name appears in three other contexts.  There is a Leine which is a tributary of the Helme and then of the Solawa (that is the Thuringian Saale).  That one appears first as Lina.  Then there is Leine which is in Sachsen Anchalt.  Finally, further East  you have the Leine that is a tributary of the Mulde.  This last one Greule thinks may (but not necessarily) have been of Sorb origin (certainly all the associated towns appear Slavic).  The first mention of this Leine is in 1185 as fluvius Lynaw.

What about town names?  Most of the town names around the Jesas appear German.  But you also have some oddities such as:

• Bovenden (Bowenden)
• Weende (Wenden)
• Weenderode
• Potzwenden

In Gottingen itself which is the main town in the area, as last as the 15th century one of the gates was called Wender-Thor since right next to it there apparently was an old Slavic village: antiqua villa [?] Wendensis. There apparently was a Wenderwald near Ziegel-Huette and a river Wenda and even a Wender-Spring fountains.  In Heilgenstadt there was even a Windischgasse.  The other nearby river – Garde (earlier Garthe) – reminds one of the Slavic gardina.

Check out too the Urkundenbuch der Stadt Göttingen and Dietrich Denecke’s Göttingen: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Dreissigjährigen Krieges:

There is a town nearby called Grone which, I confess, brings to mind the Slavic grono (as in wino-grono) meaning roughly “a bunch”.  It is true that Gronau is another place name in Germany but to be honest that name appears in the area on the Dutch border where such suspicious names as Vreden, Borken, Velen, Reken, Gescher pop up.

In any event, according to Wilhelm Boguslawski, in the 18th century, between Grone and Lauenstein, there were discovered 52 funerary urns suggesting a pagan ritual similar to the one that the Slavs used in historic times. Boguslawski’s claim is based on the Descriptio salae principatus Calenbergici locorumque adjacentium by Daniel Eberhard Baring from 1744.

Of course, all of this could be nothing and yet, I think there is enough here for a deeper investigation of the topic.

For more in Polish see pages 244-266 of volume 4 of Boguslawski’s Dzieje słowiańszczyzny północno-zachodniej do połowy XIII wieku (“The History of North Western Slavic Lands Through the First Half of the 13th Century”).

Jesuborn

As regards Jesuborn, a Slavic etymology is more than possible.  The town lies between Pennewitz (clearly Slavic) and Gehren (which spelling is identical to Gehren in the East Sorb country which was a German rendering of Thietmar’s urbs quaedam Jarina).  Just to the east is Ilmenau (compare with Lake Ilmen?) which seems to have been founded by Slavic Sorbs.  So Jesuborn is quite easily a Slavic name – at least as regards the prefix.

Officially, the name is (first mention in 1368 as das dorf czu deme geseborn) to be derived from the “Indogermanic” (!) word jesen, which, as alleged above, meant “to boil” or “to gush” or “to simmer”.  That is the name refers, as per the above, to the “springs” that surface there.

This is not impossible as indicated by the Slavic jazda, jechac/jechat and so forth.  But the Slavic etymology is more likely for two reasons.  First, there are two Slavic etymologies – that of “bright” or “light” being the second.  And, moreover, the Slavic word forms exist today whereas the Indogermanic  Indoeuropean etymologies have to be reconstructed.  The same word “jasion” or “jesion” is the name of the ash tree in Slavic today. Jezioro/ozero means “lake” to this day and so forth. Compare this too to the Persian rulers Yazdegerds – supposedly meaning “made by God” with “Yaz” being the Persian name for God – this too indicates a connection to Jassa – perhaps through the Slavic way of worshipping fast moving streams.

Incidentally, it is more than curious that the Slavic jazda should have the same suffix as the Persian Mazda or that the suffix -t should be similar to the Old Indian -ti.

Of course, Born is a bit of a problem here unless one wants to look at Borna as a Dalmatian/Croatian name (the placenames Borna appear principally in Saxony – if you don’t count India). In any event, it may well be that “Jesu” comes from one language but “born” from another – that is, “born” being Germanic.

Conclusion

All in all there does not seem to be a reason to assume that Jeetzel/Jesna does not have a Slavic etymology.  Whether or not the same is the case with Niedern- and Obernjesa and with Jesuborn is another matter.  However, even here a Slavic etymology seems a reasonable possibility.

Incidentally, the idea that there was a Germanic word jesan and that it meant “to simmer” and so forth, seems to have come from Karl Brugmann and later Jan Pieter Marie Laurens de Vries (altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch and Nederlands Etymologisch Woordenboek).

De Vries had a bit of a checked past but I don’t think he was overall biased.  I just doubt he knew much about Slavic languages – I will only note that the word jaga there is derived from “hunt” (jagen) which, I suppose means that Baba Yaga was an evil huntress. A similar view is expressed by Pokorny but is hardly the only one.  Here is Alois Walde in his Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in a slightly different context): 

The Sprachgeschichte: ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung (edited by Werner Besch) suggests that the Jeetzel was a Slavic name but that it was formed from a prior Germanic name:

This is indeed possible but is hardly necessary since Jasna would refer to a bright, light river.

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The Polish capital’s name is Warszawa.  No one suggested that this name is German.  And yet, why not?

Take a look at the river Warsbach.  As early as 633 it was referred to as Warspach:

ad meridianam plagam super Warspach, et inde ad Bodemlosestompha

Even if the above is a forgery, it is probably a forgery of no later than the 10th century.  In any event, the river to this day is called Warsbach.  But if you have a Warsbach then why not a Warsaha or Warsawa? After all, isn’t -awa supposed to be the (reconstructed) German suffix meaning “water”?

What is the official explanation of Warsaw’s name?  It supposedly comes from the name of:

• a knight named Warsz (hence the legend of Wars and Sawa)
• the Czech family of Warszowcy (or, in Czech, Vršovci) who fled from Bohemia to Poland in the 12th century – you can read all about them in the Czech Chronicle of Cosmas

But even if this were true, it just pushes the question further and deeper: who were these Warszowcy? Who was Warsz?  Or rather, why was he called Warsz?

Incidentally, the Polish “sz” represents the “sh” sound and, not surprisingly, the river Warsbach has also been spelled (and therefore pronounced) Warschbach (the German “sch” corresponds to the Polish “sz” and the English “sh”).

So where is Warsbach or Warschbach? Right here: