early. This conclusion notwithstanding, we have in front of us a unique document of the final 11 th Century, listing fourteen regional population groupings. Among these, two cases mclude very old and possibly pre-Slavic collective names (Lemuzi and Chorvati), whatever they may have meant in the llth Century. Two other names may mention individual sites (Tuhosf and Sedlec), two other have the character of the -ici names (Ljutomefici and DSdosici) while the remaining seven are characterized by the suffix -ane (LuCane, Decane, Psovane, Slezane?, Trebovane, “Pobarane” and MilSane). These -ane names (on which cf. Proforn - Svoboda - Smilauer I960, 631 — 632) usually consist of non-personal substantives (apellatives) or of toponyms compounded with the -ane suffix. Personal names turn up among them only exceptionally and this makes them clearly different from the -ici names. The historical development of these -ane names is most clearly exemplified in the manuscripts of the foundation charter of the LitomSfice chapter of canons the most ancient Version of which dates to c. 1057 (CDB 1: 55 pp. 53 — 60). The original text A has no such names at all, only a later marginal note refers to a village called “Dolany” by an archaic locative case “Dolas”. Text B, confirmed by king Premysl Otakarl in 121P, has five such toponyms {CDB 1:55, 57 : 7; 57; 13; 57 : 15; 58 : I; 58 : 10). Two names of this type are contained in the foundation charter of the HradistS-u-Olomouce monastery of 1078 {CDB 1:19, 84 : 1, 84 : 3). Other texts likely to contain reliable infor-mation mention -ane names in times of SpytihnSv II (1055— 1061: CDB I: 56, 60 : 16) and VratislavII (1061 to 1092; CDB 1:91, 98 : 33, cf. also CDB II; 359, 381 : 30, 381 : 33), Such names first occurred en masse in the large charter of bishop Jindrich Zdik for the church of Olomouc of 1131 (21 cases: CDBI: 115 pp. 116—123). In relation to the 1169 toponyms, documented by Charters of the first CDB volume, their representation lies far below that of the -ici names, amounting to 74 cases equal to 6.3% of the total of all toponyms. At the end of the 12th Century, population groups inhabiting such villages are referred to as “vicinatus” {CDB 7:311, 284:21-22, year 1186, text quoted by Profous - Svoboda - Sntilauer 1960, 631). This may imply that unlike the -ici groups, likely to have been cemented together by (qua$i?-)kinship links, the main unifying agent of the -ane groups could have been represented by the factor of common residence. Even the -ane groups did, howevcr, hardly represent a unified phenomenon. Settlements established in Bohemia after 1039 by re-settlement of some population groups from Poland taken away by duke Bretislav I and bearing -ane names (Hed£any, Krusicany: Släma 1985, 336) were noted by Cosmas the chronicler as having retained the laws and customs of their homeland. This made them un-doubtedly different from other -ane groups of the same age. The relation between the regional and local settlement units bearing -ane names may perhaps be described by the term of atomization. The original -ane names of the llth Century referred to sizable segments of the Bohemian landscape together with their population. After 1100, when these natural units were replaced by the provinces instituted by the Premysl-dynasty administration, the -ane names denoted localized Settlements, possibly sheltering population groups United by the sole factor

of the proximity of their past or present residences. The earlier and extensive -ane settlement units probably in-cluded a number of viilages and hamlets bearing -ici names. Their disintegration following the introduction of division of Bohemia into provinces administered by ducal officials after 1100 both “bared” the basic settlement tissue of the land, consisting of -ici settled places, and limited the further use of the -ane names to sites probably differing in their structure from the -ici groups.

Having at our disposal no means for distinguishing between the “well-born” and commoner lineages and Population groups resident in the Bohemian countryside, we must limit our observations to features likely to have been of general significance. One of these features is quite definitely the role of kinship ties within society which seems to have been not negligible. In addition to the oft-quoted relations of individuals towards their ancestors, patemal and maternal uncles, the role of cognatic ties is emphastzed by the existence of a personal name “Nesvaöil” (i.e. one without male marriage-related kin: Hosäk - Srämek 1980, 139; Profous 7957, 213—214; Svo-boda 1968, 385; on the underlying substantive “svakM cf. Nemee et cd. 1980, 78—79). Again, such relations must have been so typical that their absence was conspicuous enough to mark the individual in question in the manner of a personal name. Most instructive examples of village lineages named after their ancestors by means of the -ici suffix, patrilocal and patrilinear with inheritance exclusi-vely along the male descent lines, are supplied by the Ksiega Henrykowska from the borderland between Silesia and Bohemia (Grodecki 1949 Liber 1.2 p. 252, 31; Liber 1.8 p. 278, 84; Liber T.10 p. 299, 113; ibid. p. 300, 113; ibid. p. 307, 120).

A number of inhabitants of the countryside of early medieval Bohemia are referred to in our sources as “he-redes” (the inheritors: Sasse 1982, 249—250; Modzelewski 1987,110— 111). Against the background of all the evidence presented above, this term, likely to be indigenous to the rural strata of the Bohemian population, seems to denote individuals integrated into the economic and social structure of their communities by means of their blood rela-tionships to the earliest ancestors of these communities (in Czech, the term “d&dic”, the inheritor, is derived from the substantive “ded”, meaning “ancestor” at that time, with the patronymic suffix -ic; the inheritor is thus the descendant of the ancestor). Some of the “heredes” at-tained such social Status that they were invited to act as wittnesses on Charters (CDB 7:308, 278:32, year 1185: CDB II: 378, 422 : 25 to 423 : 5, a transaction of the inci-pient 13th Century recorded in the second half of the same Century). The last-named instance even includes a “heres” with a patronymic (Stepän Radostic), attesting thus to the homogeneity of genealogical usances percolating through “well-born” and commoner strata of Contemporary Bohemian society. In fact, the use of the term “heres’’ need not have been confined strictly to lower social ranks and it could have denoted groups of various social Standing (so in Poland: Modzelewski 1987, 110— 111, on the term also Trawkowski 1980). Groups of inhabitants of freshly asserted lands seem to have been referred to in the Charters as “bospites”. The internal structure of these groups is entirely elusive save for the fact that they