Gau (country Subdivision) - Medieval Period

Medieval Period

The Germanic word is reflected in Gothic gavi (neuter; genitive gaujis) and early Old High German gewi, gowi (neuter) and in some compound names still -gawi as in Gothic (e.g. Durgawi "Thurgau", Alpagawi "Allgäu"), later gâi, gôi, and after loss of the stem suffix gaw, gao, and with motion to the feminine as gawa besides gowo (from gowio. Old Saxon shows further truncation to gâ, gô. The German word is a gloss of the Latin pagus; hence the Gau is analogous with the pays of feudal France.

Old English, by contrast, has only traces of the word, which was ousted by scire from an early time, in names such as Noxga gā, Ohtga gā and perhaps in gōman, ġēman (yeoman), which would then correspond to the Old High German gaumann (Grimm) although the OED prefers connection of yeoman to young.

In the Frankish Empire, a Gau was a subdivision of the realm, further divided into Hundreds. The Frankish gowe thus appears to correspond roughly to the civitas in other Barbarian kingdoms (Visigoths, Burgundians, Lombards). After the end of the Migration period, the Hundred (centena or hunaria, Old High German huntari) became a term for an administrative unit or jurisdiction, independent of the figure hundred. The Frankish usage contrasts with Tacitus' Germania, where a pagus was a subdivision of a tribal territory or civitas, corresponding to the Hundred, i.e. areas liable to provide a hundred men under arms, or containing roughly a hundred homesteads each, further divided into vici (villages or farmsteads).

In the German-speaking lands east of the Rhine, the Gau formed the unit of administration of the Carolingian empire during the 9th and 10th centuries. Similar to many shires in England, during the Middle Ages, many such gaus came to be known as counties or Grafschaften, the territory of a Graf or count within the Holy Roman Empire. Such a count or graf would originally have been an appointed governor, but the position generally became an hereditary vassal princedom, or fief in most of continental Europe.