Brink (settlement)
Brink is a common Germanic word that has been used in geographical names since the early Middle Ages to denote a slightly elevated point, edge or coast.
etymology
The word Brink comes from the Germanic word ᛒᚱᛁᚾᚲᚨᛉ ( * brinkaz ) and the Urindo-European root * bʰren- for "increase". In the dictionary of the Brothers Grimm it says that Brink is a Low German word meaning the High German Anger, related to the Swedish and Danish brink from the Old Norse brecka. It goes on to say “in Cassel, a hilly square in the city of Brink is called”. In English today the word means: edge. The word is part of many field names in the former Germanic settlement area and has also been used as a designation for a hill, mountain or slope through Low German in local parlance, for example in East Westphalia .
Examples are:
- Heidbrink (mountain) ⊙
- Hobrink (village on a slope) ⊙
- Kesselbrink (central square in Bielefeld ) ⊙
- Brink municipality , today the Brinker Hafen district of Hanover
Johann Christoph Adelung describes a Brink in his “Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect”, published in the last quarter of the 18th century:
- a Lower Saxon word which means both a green hill overgrown with grass and the narrow green border between the fields, in Upper German a rain, yes, finally, every green place, in Upper German a field. In the Swed. and Danish, this word is also Brink, in Iceland. but Breckur. If one regards the k at the end as a random letter, then the old Brynn, a hill, Rand, and the Upper German Rain, can claim to be related to this word.
Germany
The Brink was in northern and northeastern Germany in many villages a slightly elevated position near the village . These settlement areas were inferior in terms of the soil and were mostly unprotected. The Brinksitzer or free people did not count as farmers and had no share in the better arable land, the so-called Eschland . However, they had little land ownership and therefore also had the right to vote in the community . Most of the time they also worked as artisans in the village, as it was possible in the country to practice a craft outside of the strict regulations of the guilds . Today's surname »Brink« can generally be traced back to the fact that ancestors lived near or on a Brink and this name was applied to the bearers of the name as a more precise localization of the place of residence.
Example: Vlotho
In the Weser town of Vlotho , certain sections were and are called Brink. Among other things, they were along today's Long Street. The city had developed in the narrow valley of the "Vlothe" (later also called Linnenbeeke or Mühlenbach, today Forellenbach ). The hillside situation meant that some houses were about one storey higher than the street floor. In front of it was the walled-up sidewalk as a connection to the street. As a side effect, you were safer from the frequent floods of the “Vlothe”. As a counterpart to this, in the area of today's Sommerfelder Platz there was the so-called “Grund”, a section with houses that were about half a storey lower than the street floor on the side of the street facing away from the slope. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lange Strasse was adapted as one of the main streets in Vlotho to accommodate the development of traffic technology, removing such "traffic obstacles" and adding one storey lower to the affected houses. The Brink in the lower Langen Straße has been preserved as a special urban development feature.
Example: Harlingerode
⊙ Coordinates Kirchenbrink in Harlingerode
The term “Brink” is also used in field names in Harlingerode , a church village near Bad Harzburg in Lower Saxony , located in Ostfalen and the Harz Mountains . In addition to the Finkenbrink, which describes a hill on the Langenberg , there is also a Kirchenbrink in the village. The nucleus for the development of the round village was here at the earliest since the 10th century . There were and still are farms on the hill, which were split up into smaller farms over a period of almost a millennium and have always been in the narrowness between the streets Brunnenstraße , Meinigstraße and Viehweide , which still exists today. To the left of the Kirchenbrink flows the Hurlebach , which was piped in the 1960s and forms a boundary to the Rupen klint further west .
Netherlands
In the Netherlands , especially in the Saxon province of Drenthe , brink is the name that has been used since time immemorial for a smaller communal meadow on the edge of the village for collecting cattle, where there was often a drinking trough for the cattle and later also the church. The village's farms were mostly grouped on two sides of the often triangular brink . Originally the third side was open, facing the communal fields (heather or meadows). Villages could have several “brinken”, depending on the size of the village and / or the direction of the fields mentioned. Later many “brinken” were enclosed by expanding the village. Until the end of the 20th century it was believed that the “brinken” was the central village center from the beginning, from the Carolingian era. Scientific research has shown that this was not the case. Small settlements often still have the “brink” on the edge of the village. One of the brinken , often partly planted with oaks or linden trees , became the center of the village, where many community activities of the villagers took place. Many villages in Drenthe, including Zuidlaren , the museum village Orvelte , Dwingeloo and many others, can still be recognized today. Orvelte is a special case. When Orvelte was designated as a museum village in the 1960s, it had no “brink”. According to the belief at the time, it should have a “brink” in the middle. That's how it was done. Also in the provinces of Overijssel , Gelderland and Utrecht there are places with the name Brink, u. a. in Deventer and in the village of Bathmen, which belongs to this town, respectively Bennekom and Schalkwijk. In the south-eastern part of the province of Noord-Holland , “Het Gooi”, next to the “Utrechtse Heuvelrug”, there is the mostly western, originally preserved “brinken” in Laren (NH) and Muiderberg. Brinkdörfer were mostly on the edge of de essen (the Eschflur ). The Eschflur is called “narrow” outside of Drenthe.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Duden . 9th edition. Biblical Institute Leipzig, 1926
- ↑ Reconstruction: Proto-Germanic / brinkaz # Proto-Germanic (English)
- ↑ Brink. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 2 : Beer murderer – D - (II). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1860 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
- ↑ Adelung, Volume 1, Col. 1200, in: Woerterbuchnetz.de
- ^ K. Grossmann: History of the city of Vlotho. Vlotho 1971.
- ^ Theo Spek: Het Drentse esdorpenlandschap. A historical-geographical study . PhD thesis. Matrijs, Utrecht 2004.
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