An old route to Bohemia with an early tax collecting station. Zöblitz as a customs post administered by Slavs in the 12th centur

Abstract

From the 8th/9th century onwards Slavic people crossed the mountains between their settlements in the regions of Plisni and Rochelinzi in the North and Bohemia in the South. The routes taken were documented in the Middle Ages, one of them, for example, being the semita antiqua Boemorum. In this article one old route is described in connection with an early customs post in the (nowadays) small town of Zöblitz in Saxony near the border with Bohemia. By reference to 1323 Zcobelin the following new conclusion is proposed and discussed: By order of a German sovereign a Slavic (Old Sorbian) person called Sobela (their full name may have been Sobesłav) may have been installed as the first customs officer on this old route used mainly by Slavic travellers. Even today there is a group of Old Sorbian names for little short runs around Zöblitz. These names are analysed and can only be given by the first Old Sorbian families with duty-orders in the middle of the 12th century, that is, in the period prior to German settlement.