From: Torsten
Message: 66065
Date: 2010-04-09
>I know that the association Low Countries ~ wool trade comes easy to mind to Anglophones, but a slight semantic correction:
>
> Citations in the OED show the word 'pack' radiating from the Low
> Countries to England, France, and beyond in connection with the
> wool trade. The earliest attestation of the noun is the Latinized
> neuter <pac> in an ordinance of Ghent from 1199: "Omne pac, quod
> in curru fertur, sive parvum, sive magnum, si fuerit funiculatum,
> debet quatuor denarios." 'Every pack, which is carried in a cart,
> whether small or great, if it has been bundled with string, owes
> four denarii [in duty].' The verb is Latinized in compound form in
> a contract of 1280 between the Florentine Cerchi and the Cistercian
> monastery of Melsa (Meaux) in Yorkshire: "Et inveniet dictus Abbas
> sarpellarios quolibet anno ad predictam lanam impaccandam et
> sumptibus suis cariandam usque Hulle." 'And the specified Abbot
> shall obtain coarsecloth sacks each year for packing the aforesaid
> wool in, and for transporting it to Hull at his own expense.' (The
> complete sentence is not in the OED, but is cited by A. Schaube,
> "Die Wollausfuhr Englands vom Jahre 1273", Vierteljahrschrift für
> Social- und Wirtschaftgeschichte 6:39-72, 159-185 [1908], p. 171,
> n.2.)
>
> Du Cange has several examples (the earliest from 1177) of <paccare>
> 'to settle a debt, pay' and <paccator> 'debtor, payer' in Pyrenaean
> documents for the usual <pacare> and <pacator>, which of course
> represent classical Latin <pa:ca:re> 'to make peace, settle'. Here
> the geminate appears to be a regional orthographic device having
> nothing to do with our 'pack'. And the Isidorean gloss <pacceolum>
> 'sacculum' (i.e. acc. sg. 'small sack') appears to be a simple
> error for <pasc->, since Nonius defines <pasceolus> as 'ex aluta
> sacculus' (i.e. 'small leathern sack'), and cites Cato for its
> usage. Thus we have no direct relatives of 'pack' attested before
> 1199. The earliest such example in Du Cange, <paccare> 'in fasces
> colligare' (i.e. 'to bind (wool) into bundles'), dates to 1341.
> Subsequent citations of the OED and DC show the extension of the
> sense of 'packing' from wool to other merchandise as the centuries
> wear on.
>
> The Germanic languages have both a strong masculine or neuter and a
> weak masculine noun, <pak> and <packe> in Middle Low German.
> Middle English <packe>, <pakke> (ca. 1225) and late Old Norse
> <pakki> (1337) are apparently borrowed from MLG <packe>. Late
> Middle High German <pack> evidently comes from the strong MLG
> <pak>; Middle Dutch also has <pak> (ca. 1300). The Dutch plural of
> <pak> is <pakken>. The Gmc. verb is weak: MLG/MD <pakken>, late
> MHG <packen>, late ON <pakka>.
>
> Given the connection with wool and the Low German provenance, it is
> plausible to regard 'pack' as borrowed from a Nordwestblock word
> for 'fleece, wool', related to Greek <pókos> 'uncombed wool,
> fleece; tuft of wool; sheep-shearing', from the Indo-European root
> *pek^- (IEW 797). This same noun, IE *pók^os, became Gmc. *fahaz
> and is reflected as ON <fæ´r> 'sheep'. One might expect NWB
> *pakas. However, since the /a/ of the West Gmc. forms has not
> undergone /j/-umlaut, the /kk/ cannot be derived from
> /j/-gemination. That is, we cannot postulate an early WGmc *pakaz
> leading to a Class I weak verb *pakjan, later *pakkjan, for it
> would have become *pekkjan in Old Saxon and Old Dutch, whence
> MLG/MD *pekken not <pakken>. Similarly, the nouns could not have
> arisen from early WGmc *pakja- and *pakjan-. If the source was
> NWB, the gemination very likely occurred in NWB, and a form already
> having *pakk- was then borrowed into WGmc. Without pretending any
> certainty about NWB morphology, I will guess that *pakas 'fleece,
> wool' had the associated adjective *pakyas 'pertaining to wool',
> which regularly became *pakkas, and was borrowed into early WGmc as
> *pakkaz. This adjective was then substantivized as 'bundle or load
> of wool', with a masculine or neuter noun subsumed, and this in
> turn produced a Class II weak verb *pakko:n, later (in Ingvaeonic)
> *pakko:jan, and a wk. m. noun *pakkan- 'woolly mass' vel sim.
> When mercantilism reached the Low Countries, all three nounsMercantilism
> *pakkaz, -am, -an were used more or less interchangeably in the
> wool trade. Of course, other scenarios are possible. I am merely
> trying to establish such an etymology as plausible.