Liska András - Szatmári Imre: Sötét idők rejtélyei. 6-11. századi régészeti emlékek a Kárpát-medencében és környékén - Tempora Obscura 3. (Békéscsaba, 2012)
Kiss Gábor - Zágorhidi Czigány Balázs: Antecedents of the settlement history of region Őrség (County Vas)
GÁBOR KISS - BALÁZS ZÁGORHIDI CZIGÁNY ANTECEDENTS OF THE SETTLEMENT HISTORY OF REGION ŐRSÉG (COUNTY VAS) (Summary) We hardly have any archaeological material of Árpád Age (1 lth-14lh cc.) from the territory of the Őrség (meaning ’’border-guards’ region”) situated in County Vas. Beside the deficiencies of research this can be explained mainly by the fact that the system of settlements formed in the Middle Ages at this densely forested territory, practically has not changed up to our days. That is to say, villages founded earlier, nowadays are situated at the same place as they used to be in the past. That means that most of the archaeological sites are covered. Despite of all these circumstances, we are lucky because, due to the relatively good collection of written records of Western Transdanubia, we have enough historic and linguistic data at our disposal to reconstruct the process of population and formation of the settlement system of this territory. In the early approach of the Hungarians toward the landscape, a name of a river meant its whole drainage basin. The border guarding took place in this system, judging from the fact that guarding units were named after water names according to the river they lived or served by. Smaller waters of larger water systems (Zala and Kerka) earlier named in a uniform name, after some time got a special name serving as basis of for the names of some valleys, and later of properties and settlements founded there (so-called water eponymy). In the process of dividing the landscape, after the period characterised by place names formed on the basis of water names, new settlements were named after the protecting saints of the newly built churches (so-called patrocinium eponymy). After that new villages separating from earlier properties were named after the proprietors of the settlements (so-called personal name eponymy). The last period was characterised by settlement names ending with -laka (dwelling of...) and -háza (house of...). All these in the western part of the territory was supplemented by the Slavonic eponymy of Slovenian settlers starting from the 13th century. By the end of the Árpád Age, the latter completely replaced the earlier Hungarian names. The impacts of this process spread also to the territories with Hungarian language. The Őrség itself, as territorial unit is a relatively late formation. Both the affix -ság, -ség appearing in the territorial names only in the 15th century, and the territorial extension known from a document of 1463, but in reality existing already from 1391 refers to this fact. It was----------------- A VAS MEGYEI ŐRSÉG TELEPÜLÉSTÖRTÉNETI ELŐZMÉNYEI ----------------5 37
