Langobardisch-fränkische Ortsnamen in Oberitalien: zu den toponymischen Typen Stuttgart, Gamundio und Herstall / Wardstall

Abstract

The article deals with three types of Germanic toponyms found in Northern Italy. The type *stôde-gardôn ‘studfarm, horse breeding’, widespread in the Padanian plain between Torino and Verona, seems to have been in the beginning a Langobardic loanword in the regional Italo-Romance idioms. In contrast the place name Gamundio, denoting a royal fisc near Alessandria, has many early parallels in the Frankish regions of the Rhineland, of Lorraine and Belgium, like Sarreguemines/Saargemünd (F, Moselle), 711 Gamundiis < *ga-munthja ‘ground about the mouth of a river’. Also Guastalla north of Reggio- Emilia, 864 Wardi-stalla ‘watchtower, guard’, name of a royal court again, has narrow parallels in the regnum Francorum. So most probably these two toponyms had their origins in the terminology of the Franks.