Geusa is a village and a former municipality within the district

Saalekreis Saalekreis is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The district seat is Merseburg. Its area is . It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts Kyffhäuserkreis (Thuringia), Mansfeld-Südharz, Salzlandkreis, Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Nords ...

, in the federal state of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Since January 1, 2010, it is within the town limits of

Merseburg Merseburg () is a town in central Germany in southern Saxony-Anhalt, situated on the river Saale, and approximately 14 km south of Halle (Saale) and 30 km west of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a diocese ...

PSM V52 D077 Germanic village of geusa prussian saxony

Geography

Geusa is approximately 5 kilometres west of

. The

Geiseltalsee Geiseltalsee, literally Geisel valley lake, is at about the largest artificial lake by area in Germany. Once flooding of the Cottbuser Ostsee is complete it will surpass Geiseltalsee in surface area, covering . Geiseltalsee lies in the Saalekreis ...

is found to the south-west. The A38 goes through the neighborhood.

History

The village of Geusa was mentioned as early as 880/890 in the

Hersfeld Tithe Register The Hersfeld Tithe Register (German: ''Hersfelder Zehntverzeichnis'') is a list of the places and castles in the Friesenfeld Gau (territory) and in Hassegau, from which Hersfeld Abbey received tithes. The original document dates from between 881 ...

( German:''Hersfelder Zehntverzeichnis'') as ''Husuw(n)a'', or ''Husiuwa''. Additional nobility maps dating back to 1000 have the town marked as ''Geußau'', ''Geißau'', ''Geusau'', and ''Geußen''. It appears as ''Gusau'' in an August 9, 975 entry in th
''Pago Hassaga''
a record of noble land holdings for the region during the reign of

Otto II Otto II (955 – 7 December 983), called the Red (''der Rote''), was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy. ...

. The town appears as "Geuse" in Willem Blaeu's 1645 edition of

Atlas Novus An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

in the map of

Mansfeld Land Mansfeld, sometimes also unofficially Mansfeld-Lutherstadt, is a town in the district of Mansfeld-Südharz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Protestant reformator Martin Luther grew up in Mansfeld, and in 1993 the town became one of sixteen places in ...

entitled Mansfeldia Commitatus.

Origin of name

The von Geusau family of Geusa maintains that the name derives from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''gans'' for "goose." However, while this cannot be ruled out, no salient documents exist to support this claim. It is equally probable that the name Geusa shares its origin with the Geisel River Valley, but since both names date back to the days of the

Carolingian Empire The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lom ...

, the original spelling and etymology have been lost. There are several equally valid possibilities:

Proto-Germanic origin

Due to its age, the name is likely related to the

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...

roo
hūsą
meaning "house" or "home." The first documented mention of the village was in a tithing document created between 881 and 899 in

Hersfeld Abbey Hersfeld Abbey was an important Benedictine imperial abbey in the town of Bad Hersfeld in Hesse (formerly in Hesse-Nassau), Germany, at the confluence of the rivers Geisa, Haune and Fulda. The ruins are now a medieval festival venue. History H ...

where the place name was listed as ''Husuuua'' in the district of Friesenfeld. This is likely to mean ''House by the meadow''.Spring, Bernhard: ''Welche Rolle spielt die weiße Gans?'' In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 21. Januar 2013

Old High German origin

The name may also derive from

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

''gewi'', (from the

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

''gavi'', (neuter) or ''gaujis'' (genitive)), a medieval term for a region within a country, often a former or actual province. Another possibility is it come from the OHG ''gīsl'' o
''gīsal''
meaning "

hostage A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized, such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or ref ...

References

{{authority control Former municipalities in Saxony-Anhalt Merseburg