Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2026
1. OE gycer ‘acre‘ seems to be attested only once. In the Leiden Glossary, gycer is used to translate the lemma of the gloss iugeres · unius diei opus aratoris.
2. This gloss occurs in the section entitled ‘De Eusebio’, and has been traced to the Rufinus translation of Eusebius' Church History, where landed property is described in the following terms: nec haec sibi in pecunia subsistere, sed in aestimatione terrae, quae eis esset in quadraginta minus uno iugeribus constituta, quam suis manibus excolentes uel ipsi alerentur uel tributa dependerent.
1 A draft of this paper was read by Warren Cowgill of Yale University, who made many useful suggestions. For this (and much else) I wish to thank him.
2 H. Sweet, The oldest English texts 114 (London, 1885); J. H. Hessels, A late eighth-century Latin-Anglo-Saxon glossary preserved in the library of the Leiden University 34 (Cambridge, 1906), referred to hereafter as Hessels; F. Holthausen, Englische Studien 50.330 (1917).
3 See Hessels 135.
4 Beatus Rhenanus, Auctores Historiae ecclesiasticae, Eusebii pamphili Caesariensis episcopi libri novem, Ruffino interprete. Ruffini presbyteri Aquiliensis, libri duo 58 (Basiliae, 1539); T. Mommsen, Eusebius Werke: Die Kirchengeschichte. Die lateinische Übersetzung des Rufinus 235 (Leipzig, 1903).
5 Evidently iūger-a (cf. gener-a) was the starting-point for the creation of the singular iūger-um (cf. iug-a: iug-um); see Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch 3 726f. (Heidelberg, 1938).
6 F. Holthausen, Englische Studien 50.330, suggests changing the lemma iugeres to iugeris, but this is hardly justifiable. The emendation, in any case, can have no bearing on the interpretation of the Old English word.
7 Walde-Hofmann, Lat. et. Wb. 3 727 writes gȳcer; Walde-Pokorny, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen 1.202 (Berlin, 1932), has gycer; the short vowel is assumed also in J. Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch 509 (Bern, 1950).
8 Hessels xxxiv thinks that the v is the initial of the word vernacule, which is a very appropriate assumption.
9 In the glossary of his edition Hessels says that OE gycer may be either ‘of Germanic origin and cognate with iuger or else borrowed so early that g became c‘ (135); but the latter alternative is out of the question, as the present discussion will show.
10 In historical forms the mutation of the medial u appears reduced to an indistinct vowel written e, cf. Campbell, OE gr. 82.
11 E.g. OE gædeling: OS gaduling; cf. K. Brunner, Altenglische Grammatik nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers 2 72 (Halle, 1951), but there the succession u+u+i > y+e+i is not mentioned.
12 H. Hirt, Handbuch des Urgermanischen 2.64 (Heidelberg, 1932).
13 By assuming ū as root vowel in Go. jukuzi*, Holthausen, Ae. et. Wb. 142, makes matters even more difficult, since a lengthened zero grade is unheard of in s-stems. Conceivably he was misled by Lat. iūgera; but here ū is, of course, from PIE *eu.
14 H. Güntert, Indogermanische Ablautprobleme: Untersuchungen über schwa secundum, einen zweiten indogermanischen Murmelvokal 84 (Straßburg, 1916).
15 Cf. W. von Unwerth, PBB 31.20 (1910).
16 Cf. also Streitberg, IF 14.494 f. (1903), where he explicitly rejected the s-stem theory for Go. jukuzi*, but again failed to mention OE gycer.
17 Streitberg's explanation of the meaning of *jukuzī, as ‘was zusammengefügt hat’ (Urg. Gr. 58) does not well fit the original stative use of the perfect. Warren Cowgill (private communication) suggests that the meaning might better be given as ‘welche zusammenfügt’ or ‘welche zusammengefügt ist’.
18 P. Romuald Sauer, Zur Sprache des Leidener Glossars 18 f. (Augsburg, 1917), recognizes in OE gycer the nominative plural of an s-stem, and would evidently reconstruct PWGmc. *jukizu. Phonologically this form is acceptable, but as we saw in §3, there is no need to expect the Old English translation to be in the plural. As OE gycer can represent PGmc. *jukuzī (cf. §6) as well as PGmc. *jukizō, it is clear that the decision cannot be made on the basis of Old English; Go. jukuzi* can go back to PGmc. *jukuzī only, and this point tips the balance in favor of the explanation that both represent the same original active perfect participle.
19 The difference z: s in Go. jukuzi*: berusjos ‘parents’ may be regulated by Thurneysen's Law. One cannot therefore be overconfident in Go. jukuzi* as evidence for PIE
accented on the final syllable.
20 In Skt. vidúṣī the accent must have been shifted; cf. T. Burrow, The Sanskrit language 160 (London, 1955).
21 Cf. K. Brugmann, Grundriß der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen 2 2.1.217 (Straßburg, 1906); on Gk. -ia as innovation for -ī see Brugmann, Grdr. 2 2.1.212.
22 OHG iuchart is attested rather late, cf. E. G. Graff, Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz oder Wörterbuch der althochdeutschen Sprache 1.592 (Berlin, 1834–42). It may be due to a remodeling of *juchur, but it does not seem clear enough to be included in the above discussion. How the differently vocalized jauchert can be accounted for is also doubtful.
23 As regards the formation of Go. berusjos it is clear that it must be of feminine gender just like jukuzi*. In Gothic, however, it took the demonstrative in the masculine (cf. John 9.23 þai berusjos, Luke 2.41 þai birusjos), and this is why Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch 3, 4 104 (Heidelberg, 1910), calls it (misleadingly) a ja-stem.