APPENDIX IV 



THE 'GEKICHT' AND ' GENOSSENSCHAFT ' 

 A. On 'Gericht.' 



THE basis of gericM itself is Teutonic rak, Aryan rag, rez, and this 

 may, with some slight boldness, be connected with the series of ideas 

 we have found in the malial and the kin-group. All the notions 

 of regal, rich, right, Tighten, reach, rig, are associated with the root. 

 The primitive notion in many Aryan tongues is stretch out, 

 straighten, erect. Thus Greek o/aeyco is to stretch out, grasp, opyvia, 

 for opeyvia, is span. I think the idea of setting up a mark, fence, 

 or similar erection is also primitive. Thus we have Icelandic rett, 

 to pen, O.N. rett, an inclosure for cattle, 1 and the Latin erigo, with 

 the notion of build, erect. The term regere fines, to mark the 

 boundaries, is also very suggestive. The root does not seem free 

 from the notion of the hag or fence placed round the site of the old 

 mahal. The Gothic reks, as in Ureks, signifies the inclosed or shut 

 in. Just as the fenced land of the kin led us from cyneland to the 

 kingdom, so we find in Gothic reiU, O.N. riki, O.H.G. rihhi, A.S. 

 rice, Danish rige, Modern German reich, the lordship. The kin- 

 alderman becomes the Gothic reiks, chief, lord ; Sanskrit rdjan, 

 Gaelic rig, Latin rex, chief or king. But just as the kin-chief does 

 not always get further than the master or parent, so we find that 

 while Irish ri is king, Welsh rhi is doininus and nobilis (p. 135), 

 while rhiant is parent. Further, while Irish rigan is queen, Welsh 



1 In Landsmaal rett is a straight flat markstraekning, and langrett is used 

 in the same sense. But rett is also used for teig in the sense of a fenced piece of 

 land, whether meadow or tilth. I would venture to compare it with opyds for 

 opeyds, which, exactly like rett, may include meadow, tilth, and even wood. 

 The rett, like the opya's, may very probably have originally been sacred to a 

 mother-goddess, i.e. a hayngarten. 



