Matronae Ratheihiae
The Matronae Ratheihiae are matrons that are only attested by an inscription on a lost votive stone from Euskirchen from the Roman Empire and the core time of Rhenish matron worship from the 2nd to 3rd centuries.
"Matronis Ratheihis / Verecundini [u] s Super / l (ibens) m (erito)"
The votive stone was found in Euskirchen in 1663, along with two other votive stones dedicated to the Caiminehi matrons . and gratichehis . All three stones were lost after they were found. Hermann Crombach recorded the find in his "History of the City of Cologne and the Surrounding Area".
The first part of the epithet is put by Helmut Birkhan , turning away from Gutenbrunner's explanations, to Germanic * raða = "wheel". In the functional interpretation of these matrons, a Celtic influence on the Germanic naming is seen, based on the borrowing of religious ideas about the wheel as a symbol for the general fate of people (wheel of fortune), which is originally missing in the Germanic cultures. Furthermore, a Roman influence is considered through their belief in the Parzen as a possible starting point for some manifestations of the specific Rhenish matron worship. Birkhan therefore interprets the Ratheihiae as goddesses of fate.
Günter Neumann interprets the nickname differently as a possible derivation from a river name. With Gutenbrunner he puts Germanic * raþa- = "fast" ( Gothic * raþs from raþizo , Old High German rado , Middle Low German rat , also in New High German straight ). He compares the traditional form of the name of the Rappbode from the year 1209 as Ratbode = "the fast Bode".
Theo Vennemann rejects Birkhan's interpretations as “appellative fantasy names” based on his strict method of reconstructing the epithets as Germanized forms on the basis of Gallo-Roman hydronic (water-related) place names. His place name construct Raþiacum is not found in ancient and post-ancient (to this day) regional place names. At most he sees Rehder matching the root of the matron's name.
See also
literature
- Helmut Birkhan : Teutons and Celts up to the end of Roman times. (= Philological historical class session reports, 272). Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1970, ISBN 3-205-03653-0 , pp. 524 f., 528.
- Wilhelm Brambach : Corpus inscriptionum Rhenanarum. Friderichs, Elberfeld 1867, No. 561-563, p. 126.
- Siegfried Gutenbrunner : The Germanic god names of the ancient inscriptions. Max Niemeyer, Halle / S. 1936, pp. 172, 224.
- Günter Neumann : The Germanic matron names . In: Matronen und related deities (= supplements to the Bonner Jahrbücher 44). Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne / Habelt, Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-7927-0934-1 , pp. 103-132 = Astrid van Nahl, Heiko Hettrich (eds.): Günter Neumann: Name studies on Old Germanic (= supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanic Antiquity, Vol. 59). de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020100-0 , pp. 253-289; here 276 ( fee-based Germanic antiquity online at de Gruyter ).
- Rudolf Simek : Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X , pp. 266-271, 343-344.
- Theo Vennemann : Morphology of the Lower Rhine matron names . In: Edith Marold , Christiane Zimmermann (Hrsg.): Nordwestgermanisch (= supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde ). tape 13 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 1995, ISBN 978-3-11-014818-3 , pp. 272-291; here 287 f . ( Fee Germanic archeology online by de Gruyter).