A Priori

Lentia was a river or a place in what is today’s Germany. The name is supposedly Celtic. The Teutons changed it to Linz and hence we now have Linzgau.  Linzgau is just north of the Bodensee (Lacus Venetus). When the Teutons powered into those lands they took over portions of Noricum and portions of what used to be Suevia. The Suevia name remained – now as Suavia – later Swabia. But the inhabitants now became the Alemanni – a Teuton name.  So what does this have to with Lentia?

There is the always very interesting Ammianus Marcellinus who mentions the Alamannic tribe of the Lentienses and their king Priarius (in Book XV, chapter 4 and Book XXXI, chapters 10 and 12):

• Lentienses Alamanni a Constantio Aug. pars caesi, pars fugati.
• Et Lentiensibus, Alamannicis pagis indictum est bellum conlimitia saepe Romana latius inrumpentibus…
• et iam Lentiensis Alamannicus populus, tractibus Raetiarum confinis…
• quibus avide Lentienses acceptis…
• inter complures alios audaces et fortes rege quoque Priario interfecto, exitialium concitore pugnarum…
• hocque urgentibus aliis super alios nuntiis cognito, Lentienses aerumnis populi sui ad internecionem paene deleti…
• Isdemque diebus exagitatus ratione gemina Valens, quod Lentienses conpererat superatos…

The above references are the only mentions that we know of such a tribe. They appear in 355 A.D. and disappear by 378 A.D.

And yet…

almost 500 years later, in the Bavarian Geographer, we have the following statement Lendizi habent ciuitates XCVIII. This is commonly understood as a reference to a Suavic tribe of the Lendians (Lędzianie). This tribe also appears in Josippon (Lz’njn), De administrando imperio (Λενζανηνοί) and Masudi (L’ndz’n’h).

Further, if Lentia really refers to a river (Linzer Aach) and it was the river that gave the name to the Lentienses, this itself would be unusual for a Teutonic tribe. For a Suavic tribe not so much though…

Lędzianie‘s name supposedly comes from lęda meaning, in Suavic, a fallow piece of land. For the Linzgau see here.

For Prior, well for every Prior there is the Posterior or, should we say, Pazterior.

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