Batimodus tombstone
The Batimodus tombstone (or tombstone of Batimodus , Batimodus stone ) is an early Christian tombstone of the Germanic Batimodus , which was found in Xanten and dates from around 400 AD. The stone is an important late antique testimony for the regional religious history and for the early Christianity of the Merovingian period in the Lower Rhine area of the former Roman provinces Germania inferior and Germania secunda .
Discovery
During archaeological excavations in 1953 under the Xanten Cathedral , or in the area of the inner aisle adjoining the canons' choir (location Matthias Altar), the almost square stone was found as a spolia (as the top wall of a plate coffin) in a Franconian woman's grave from the early 6th century. It comes from a late antique layer of a burial ground (on both sides of the old Limes road) that was operated until the beginning of the 5th century. Today the stone is in the exhibition of the Römer-Museum Xanten .
Inscription and description
The stone made of sandstone has the dimensions in height, width and depth of 67 × 62 × 16.5 cm. It bears an inscription in capitals , which takes up about three fifths of the area. Below the inscription, three Christograms in the form of the crux monogrammatica are placed side by side , the middle one being more than one and a half times larger than the other two. It is also drawn with a fine double line and set in a circle. " Alpha and Omega " are inserted into the circle segments on the right above the crossbar of the cross . The re-use in the women's grave testifies that at that time the Latin script was no longer understood and only the Christian symbolism was meaningful and therefore useful.
The six-line inscription is clearly legible and made in thin lines. In form and shape, it represents a transitional form between the usual Capitalis monumentalis of the Roman period and the following Frankish period with coarser and simpler typefaces.
"[I] N PACE HIC RE / CEPTVS EST BATI / MODVS QVI / VIXIT ANNOS / QVINQVAGIN / TA ET RECESSIT // XP (ICTOC) // A // XP (ICTOC) // ω // XP (ICTOC)"
“Batimodus, who lived 50 years and (then) passed away, was welcomed here in peace. Christ Alpha Christ Omega Christ "
The formula in pace receptus is only documented here for the region and time. The forms of the Christograms allow a date from the end of the 4th century to the beginning of the 5th century.
Surname
The name Batimodus is a two-part Germanic male personal name with a Latinized final. For the first member bat- can be Germanic * battery- start, for example, in gothic gabatnan for gaining advantage , Old English Batian , Old High German bazan , Old Norse batna "better," is occupied. The second term -mod-us belongs to the common Germanic appellative gothic moþs , old English. Old Frisian, Old Saxon mōd , Old High German, Old Lower Franconian muot , Old Norse Móþr with the meaning "understanding, heart, sense, mind". According to Heinrich Tiefenbach, there is a morpheme with the meaning "beneficial, healing, good". The same etymon appears in the tribal name of the Batavians "the good or the excellent" here according to Tiefenbach in a younger i-stem inflection form. The form Batimodus therefore denotes the character trait of someone “who has a good disposition” or “who has the heart / courage of a Bataver”. A funerary inscription from the northern Italian Concordia Sagittaria with the precisely corresponding personal name Batemodus of a high officer of the Heruler division , which formed part of the auxilia palatina , dates from the same period . Tiefenbach sees in Batimodus a Christian from the regional Chattuarier tribe .
See also
literature
- Paul Ley (ed.): The inscriptions of the city of Xanten (= The German inscriptions of the Middle Ages and the early modern times (DI), Vol. 92 / D. 9). Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-95490-144-9 .
- Andreas Kakoschke: The personal names in the two Germanic provinces. A catalog volume 2.1 - Cognomina. Publishing house Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2007, ISBN 978-3-89646-033-2 , p. 163, CN 476.
- Hermann Reichert : Lexicon of Old Germanic Names , Volume I, Part 1: Text Volume, Part 2: Register. (= Thesaurus Palaeogermanicus , 1,1,2) With the collaboration of Wilibald Kraml and Robert Nedoma. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1987–1990, ISBN 978-3-7001-0931-0 , ISBN 978-3-7001-1718-6 , p. 126.
- Heinrich Tiefenbach: The Batimodus stone under the collegiate church of St. Viktor in Xanten. In: Contributions to Name Research NF 21 (1986), pp. 19-47 .
