Tam Teutisci quam et Langobardi: Sprache und Identität im frühmittelalterlichen Alpenraum am Beispiel von Trient.

Among the documents most widely cited in etymological studies of the word thodiscus is the notitia iudicati of a placitum held at Trent in the year 845. In shaky Latin, the text refers to ‘vassi domnicis (sic) tam Teutisci quam et Langobardi’. My paper aims at a better understanding of this passage by way of a reconstruction of the specific history of the territory of Trent, notable from the Gothic period onwards for the presence of diverse ethnic and linguistic groups. On this basis I have tried to show how, beginning with its language, the placitum of 845 sheds important light on the perception in Carolingian Italy of recently immigrated royal vassals (the Teutisci); and indeed how it enables us to reconstruct – if only partially – the social and linguistic dimension of a local community, whose liberi homines were in the mid-9th century united by a common spoken language, notwithstanding the subsisting distinct onomastic traditions in their personal names.