Schornsheim

Schornsheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.GeographyLocationThe winegrowing centre lies in Rhenish Hesse and belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Wörrstadt, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.Neighbouring municipalitiesSchornsheim’s neighbours are Gabsheim, Udenheim, Undenheim and Wörrstadt.HistoryName’s originsThe name Schornsheim is formed with the placename ending —heim, as are most Rhenish-Hessian placenames. The other root in the name, however, is something of a peculiarity. It is not a traditional Germanic personal name, nor a word for a natural feature, but rather a title, and only became a personal name through transference. Scoran was a word used for priests and monks and was given boys as a name who were destined for the clergy, for whom the tonsure had long stood as a defining mark. It could well be that a clergyman of this time gave Schornsheim its name. It is assumed that one or more Frankish settlements had already arisen in the area of what later became Schornsheim, and the unknown priest or monk only later gave the village his name, after he himself had settled there and founded a church and perhaps also a monastery.