Origin and Meaning of the Name Beutler as Family Name, 
Parcel of Land Name, Place Name and District Name

In this section you will find

• A chronology of written material
• Explanations on the geographic distribution of the place, parcel and family name of beud
• Exegesis on Beutel estates in fee in Bavaria and Austria
• Findings on the origin, emergence and meaning of the family name of Beutler

A chronology of written material

The Geographic Propagation and Distribution of Place, Land and Family Names with beud

Toponyms ending at -beud, -bad, -büd can be found in the entire German linguistic area and beyond. The Sorb Budysin (Bautzen), the Polish Bytom (Beuthen in Upper Silesia) and the Czech and Moravian Budovice (Budweis and Budwitz) illustrate the propagation, similar to the North German place name suffixes at -büttel (e.g. Wolfenbüttel, Isenbüttel, Hankensbüttel, etc.).

In the French-German transition zone from Botrange in the High Venn Mountains to Bethoncourt in the southern Vosges Mountains the prefixes at büd- and bed- can be frequently found in place and area names. Field names can frequently be traced back to abandoned dwellings. Place names include, among many others, Bitburg and Bettingen in the Eifel Mountains, Bettembourg/ Bettemburg and Petange/ Petingen in Luxembourg, Püttlingen in the Saarland, Puttelange/ Püttlingen near Diedenhofen, Puttelange aux Lacs/ Püttlingen and Bitche/Bitsch in Lorraine.

This list alone shows a concentration of place names and not an even distribution. In Bavaria and Baden- Würtemberg, too, such concentrated groups of place names can be proven, where also the family name of Beutler originates.

Such concentration areas are particularly in the Algäu, in Hohenlohe, along the middle and upper course of the River Neckar. The area of the Swabian Jura, except for the places called Böttingen near Ulm and near Spaichingen as well as Buttenhausen and Nitz, does not seem to be included.

The Hainricus dictus Biuteli/Biutelär mentioned already 1257/65 seems to stem from the following list of places in Upper Swabia and Algäu. Places spread from Aulendorf in the north-west to Grossholzleuten in the south-east, with centres being the districts around Ravensburg-Weingarten and Wangen-Leitkirch-Isny:

The group of place names around Wangen-Leutkirchen-Isny is in a remarkable vicinity to the co-operatives of freemen farmers of Egolfs and on the Leutkirchen Heath. This free legal form can also be observed with the Bavarian feudal tenures of Beutel.

The Ulrici Buitiezzi mentioned around 1220 can be assigned to the relatively small group aroud Ulm with Butzental, Böttingen, Bettighofen and Beutelreusch.

Larger groups can be found in the valleys of the Rivers Kocher, Jagst and Tauber between Heilbronn and Würzburg including the mentioning of the corresponding family names. Immediately to the south a large group of places is situated along the middle course of the River Neckar and the Rivers of Zaber, Enz, Murr and Rems.

On the eastern side a group of places is situated in the area of Spraitbach, Gaildorf and Rosenberg, which might have a connection to the freemen of the Waibelhube and the judicial district of the so-called Siebzehner. The group of places around Großbettlingen and Kleinbettlingen, the abandoned Bütensulz, Betzenberg near Waldenbuch and Betzingen near Reutlingen could be responsible for the emergence of the names Püttel and Püttelin at Neuffen.

A large group of places is situated along the upper course of the River Neckar including

To this group also belongs the area around Herrenberg with the mill of Beutenmühle mentioned around 1326 and the area around Oberjettingen, Rotfelden and Rohrdorf.

North of Freiburg/Breisgau the family names of Buttel and Büttinen mentioned in the Tennenbacher Estate Book can be traced back to the freemen in the district of Biederbach.

Finally there is the Hegau group with Bittelbrunn near Engen, Bittelschieß near Krauchenwies, Bietingen near Gottmadingen and Bettmaringen near Stühlingen grouped around the Carolingian imperial palace of of Bodman.

The Beutel Free Tenures in Bavaria and Austria

In Upper Swabia, East Swabia and in the Breisgau district the names of Beutel can be found frequently and noticeably in the vicinity of old co-operatives of freemen with their own jurisdiction. This observation is substantiated by the so-called Beutel free tenures.

While Eugen Haberkern and Joseph Friedrich Wallach characterised the Beutel free tenures absolutely insufficiently and unfoundedly as free farms (Hilfswörterbuch für Historiker 1, 7th edition, Tübingen 1987, page 63), they were much more exactly defined by Wilhelm Abel (included in: Friedrich Lütge, Geschichte der deutschen Agrarverfassung vom frühen Mittelalter bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1963, Page 61/2). Abel was able to fall back on the publications of L. Hauptmann, Colonus, Barschalk and Freimann (included in: Wirtschaft und Kultur, Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Alfons Dopsch 1938) and W. Fresacher, (Der Bauer in Kärten, 1st Part: Die persönliche Stellung des Bauern in Kärnten 1950).

Wilhelm Abel writes about the Beutel free tenures: "Since the 12th century Beutel free tenures had developed in Bavaria and the adjacent areas as far as Carinthia. They were considered initially as former estates of inferior knights and nobles that became farms, later as originally knightly estates granted to peasants with elevated jurisdiction. Probably they can be interpreted as later developments of ... (other free) forms, probably all these forms coexisted. However that may be, the Beutel free tenures are interim forms between knightly tenures and possessory rights of peasants, found also in other areas of Germany. Obviously they have nothing to do with the right to make clearances in forests, at least not in Bavaria proper. In old settlement areas particularly good privileges of peasants can be found occasionally, such a Beutel free tenures or free tenures, while in adjacent new settlement areas elevated jurisdiction is lacking. The former cannot or not generally be traced back to privileges of Franconian kings."

What Abel discusses here for the Bavarian Beutel free tenures is principally also true for the Beutler estates in the Swabian area around Horb, Nagold and Dornstetten. The Beutler used to be neither handicraftsmen nor simple farmers. They counted among the rural or town honourables, a somewhat elevated social class. This is why they held, for instance, the office of village mayor in Rohrdorf and Rotfelden. The citizen of Horb Klaus Butler, mentioned in documents in the years 1432 and 1455, married to Katharina Auldörfin, did not possess his own seal, but was nevertheless considered as an honourable and unpretentious citizen.

Origin, Emergence and Meaning of the Family Name of Beutler

Bahlow and Grimm count the family name of Beutler among the modern names of handicraftsmen. They take it that the name is derived from the craft to make purses, bags, pouches, mostly made of leather, as well as bolters and sifters, as Fischer includes.

He objects to the assumption made by Buck that Beutenmühle is derived from felting, milling beating and drumming, where he is certainly right. Beutenmühlen differ from other mills such as Ödenmühlen not by their technical equipment but by their other social and judicial allocation. This can be very well illustrated using the Rotfelder Ödenmühle.

The wide spreading of the name of Beutler from Lorraine to Carinthia shows that its historical connections date far back. From these ancient origins the name of Beutler came into existance at many places between the 14th and 16th century as an inheritable family name. The beares of the sur names need not be related to each other. In the course of our geographic scout it became obvious that wherever there was a concentration of the name of Beut, ancient legal forms based on the principles of freedom and liberty prevailed. The legal form of the Bavarian Beutel free tenures confirms this observation.

If the completely different modern word forms in the area of Rotfeld, such as Büttinen Graben, Betschle, Pittels Wald, Bettenberg, Beutelsteig and Beutlerholz refer to the same social and legal historical origins, it becomes obvious that the legal and social forms involved must be very old. They are contained in the Medieval legal language, in Gebot and Verbot (demand and prohibition), in Büttel and Gebüttel (bailiff and court servants), in Bieter and Gebieter (master and ruler), and finally in Biet = Gebiet (area), whereas Biet and Büttin originate from a female person as lady-ruler and mistress.

The very ancient matriarchal legal form of the so-called family as a domestic community is also contained in the name of Zebanasch. Zeban, Züban or Zuppan corresponds to the Slavic Supan (landlord). Zupania is a lord ruling over a community of charges, pleading their courses before a court.

The Beutler families and their ancestors, the Ungericht and Zebanach families, performed legal and administrative duties for the Monastery Stein/Rhein in Rotfelden, Rexingen and Oberiflingen.