Talk:Raffelstetten customs regulations

Old talk

"Raffelstetten" redirects to "Asten" (a town in the Netherlands) at the German wiki.

I couldn't figure out what a Toll-Bar is. --Fang Aili ^talk 15:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding deprodding

[question moved from User talk:Uppland]

Uppland, you seem to believe there is some importance to this, but nothing links to this page. Is there some reason I should not WP:AFD it. meatclerk 21:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It is a real place attested since the early 10th century and known for the Raffelstetten Customs Regulations (Raffelstettener Zollordnung) from that time. It already has an decent reference (a book by Georges Duby). Here is another one: Raffelstettener Zollordnung in the Encyclopaedia of Austria (Österreich-Lexikon). I don't know enough about this to expand the article, but I recognize it as a valid topic. That nothing links to the article is a result of Wikipedia's lack of coverage of the wider subject of medieval trade. This may be a merge candidate, but I see no need to delete it. up+land 06:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I see what is going on now. Apparently some cleanup was done on the article, but no one thought to remove the cleanup or catneeded tag when the stub was placed. I have an idea of what is happening. Can you please check that the stub instruction page is correct, and I'll make sure when I see a stub and it is marked cleanup that the page is cleaner and remarked to expand. Others don't seem to be aware of this, I'll inform others doing cleanup, as I can.

Does everything I said seem okay? Can you handle the stub thing? meatclerk 05:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

redirection

I was redirected to this page from Trade route from the Khazars to the Germans on Kievan Rus. This page doesn't really fit that context very well: who are the Khazars, what was the trade route about, etc? Bhudson (talk) 18:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Raffelstettenský celní řád

See also cs:Raffelstettenský celní řád. --Methodios (talk) 18:01, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

• Fixed. --Ghirla^-трёп- 12:06, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Alleged Kievan Rus' connections

As pointed out above back in 2007, the redirect from Trade route from the Khazars to the Germans doesn't really make sense, and seems WP:OR.

More broadly, it seems as if some earlier Russian historians and at least one Wikipedian have really tried looking for connections with Kievan Rus' everywhere, even though the text itself and other (more recent) scholars never mention this. At most, we've got some references to Bavaria, Bohemia, Moravia, and some undefined "territories in the east". All of these could be referring to Austria ("Eastmark") itself, from the perspective of the rest of East Francia (at the time centred in Bavaria). It also seems that every toponym of customs house is somewhere on the Danube or a tributary of the Danube in Austria, between Linz and Vienna. The only exception would be the marchata Marahorum, commonly translated as "market of the Moravians", which, if it was a real place, would probably be located in modern-day southeastern Czechia.

As far as I can see, Kievan Rus' or Rus' traders are neither mentioned directly or indirectly. We could speculate a lot, of course, which is fun, but not very helpful. E.g. an WP:UNSOURCED footnote claiming that the word Ruzaramarcha, in a completely different text from half a century earlier, must absolutely unquestionably mean (literally, "the march of the Ruzari", i.e., of the Rus), is untenable. It doesn't explain the "-ara" part, it doesn't explain how the Rus' supposedly ended up in Austria in 862 without anyone else noticing, it doesn't consider alternatives, etc.

Similarly, although a footnote in the 1897 critical edition by Boretius and Krause suggests that we should understand Rugis to mean Russia, they don't provide reasons why. Considering the fact that pretty much all toponyms are located on or near the Austrian Danube, I would more likely connect it to "Rugiland" or something else to do with the Rugii than to jump to conclusions that this must also definitely refer to Rus', let alone Russia (that word didn't even exist yet).

That said, there is no consensus on the identification of all toponyms. It might be worth making a list of it, which options discussed by scholars. NLeeuw (talk) 16:01, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Walter Pohl (2003) indeed suggests that the word "Rugis" in the text may have had something to do with the Rugii, see Rugii#The continuation of the name. NLeeuw (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

It is unclear what Rotalariis refers to. König 2022 and dewiki both call it Rodel, which made me think they possibly meant the de:Rodl river, which flows into the Danube at Ottensheim, or the namesake village of Rodl (coordinates 48.33954923515982, 14.153639296464364) on that river, located in the adjacent municipality of Walding. But, honestly, it could be anything. There are lots of villages on the Große Rodl and Kleine Rodl, such as Zwettl an der Rodl, or Ottensheim itself, or Walding, or Rottenegg, Upper Austria (that should become a meme, just like Fugging, Upper Austria), etc.

Moreover, Boretius and Krause 1897 footnoted it as Die Bewohner des Rotthales. Rotthal or Rottal is a very common toponym. It literally means "red valley", or a "valley with a de:Rotte (Siedlung)", that is, a village with scattered buildings rather than closely built together. (Apparently related to the military term Rota (formation)). Whatever it means, it has countless possible applications in this context.

• e.g. de:Rottal (Gemeinde Haugschlag), on the Austro-Czech border.
• More likely, however, it has something to do with the de:Rottal (Bayern), the valley of the river de:Rott (Inn, Neuhaus am Inn), which nowadays constitutes an Austro-German border river. The Rott flows into the Danube at Passau, the very place where the Passau manuscript was found, and which is mentioned 3 times in the text (Pataviensis 2x and Patavicam 1x). Geographically, that may not be close to Reodariis (probably Ried in der Riedmark), but maybe these reflected areas with a similar legal status? The Rottal was the region around Passau, and the Riedmark was the region around Raffelstetten?

It's all possible, but speculation isn't going to get us very far. So I've removed the footnote identifying Rotalariis with de:Rodl for now. Because we just don't know at this point. NLeeuw (talk) 18:37, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Alright, let's try this Ruzaramarcha thing. The 863-06-16 charter by Louis the German (source 1; source 2; source 3; 2 + 3 are Dagmar Bartoňková 1969) contained the following passage:

Fuerunt namque investitura praedicti monasterii [monasterium Althaha] quaedam loca nomine Scalcobah, sicut ipse rivulus fluit in occidentalem partem usque in Dagodeosmarcha et inde in ori[en]talem plagam usque in Ruzaramarcha, atque in locum quem vocant Cidalaribah in saltu Enisae fluvii, qui coniacet inter Danubium et Ibisam atque Hurulam in meredianam partem usque in verticem montis.

That shouldn't be too hard. With a modified Google Translate, that is

For there were certain investitures of the aforesaid monastery (Niederaltaich Abbey) in a place called Scalcobah, as the river itself flows in the western part as far as Dagodeosmarcha and from there in the eastern quarter as far as Ruzaramarcha, and to a place called Cidalaribah in the gorge of the river Enisa, which lies between the Danubius and Ibisa and Hurula in the southern part as far to the top of the mountain.

Those rivers are easy

Danubius = Danube (Donau), at the top.

Enisa = Enns (river), on the top left.

Ibisa = Ybbs, in the middle and at the bottom.

Hurula = Url (river), at the centre left.

Here we've got a pretty good reconstructed map of the historic area.

However, Dagmar Bartoňková says in a footnote on Dagodeosmarcha and Ruzaramarcha: Obě území, která ohraničovala na západě a východě Scalcobah, nelze blíže určit. The two territories that bordered Scalcobah to the west and east cannot be further defined.

But he identified Cidalaribah as Zeillern, a village west of Amstetten, Lower Austria. Not sure I buy that, because Cidalaribah is "in the gorge of the river Enns", which is about 40 km to the west of Zeillern. NLeeuw (talk) 21:19, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

The "lazy" interpretation would be to say that "the river itself" must mean the Danube, which flows as far east as the Black Sea, and therefore, somewhere at its mouth we should locate this Ruzaramarcha. The question is why this very local charter would make such an observation. The purpose of the charter is not to teach European-scale geography to the reader, but to identify the places where the Niederaltaich Abbey has or will receive possessions (investitures) from the king. As long as we don't know what Dagodeosmarcha means, it doesn't really seem to matter either. It might be the source of the Danube, or it might not be. Because that is silly. Of course the river flows from its source to the sea; we wouldn't expect anything else. It has no purpose in this document.

At any rate, Bartoňková drew the towns of Scalcobah and Cidalaribah between the rivers Url, Enns, Danube and Ybbs. If these marches existed, they were probably located in this area as well, within Upper and Lower Austria. There is no reason to assume the Rus' had anything to do with this. NLeeuw (talk) 21:35, 23 November 2024 (UTC)