Schornsheim

Schornsheim
Coat of arms
Schornsheim
Location of Schornsheim within Alzey-Worms district
Coordinates: 49°50′45″N 8°10′30″E / 49.84583°N 8.17500°E / 49.84583; 8.17500Coordinates: 49°50′45″N 8°10′30″E / 49.84583°N 8.17500°E / 49.84583; 8.17500
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Alzey-Worms
Municipal assoc.	Wörrstadt
Government
• Mayor	Edwin Henn
Area
• Total	8.91 km2 (3.44 sq mi)
Elevation	160 m (520 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	1,593
• Density	180/km2 (460/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	55288
Dialling codes	06732
Vehicle registration	AZ
Website	www.schornsheim.de

Schornsheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

The winegrowing centre lies in Rhenish Hesse and belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Wörrstadt, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.

Schornsheim’s neighbours are Gabsheim, Udenheim, Undenheim and Wörrstadt.

The name Schornsheim (in 782 Scoronishaim, in 815 Scornesheim, about 836 Scoranesheim, about 1230 Schornesheym, about 1520 Schornsheim) is formed with the placename ending —heim (cognate with English home), 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 (cognate with English shorn, and with much the same meaning, referring to a tonsure) 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.

In one of Charlemagne’s documents from 28 July 782, the king named Schornsheim’s church and estate as his property. The “estate” at that time meant the whole of the kingly holdings or a part thereof. How the ruler acquired it is unknown. Whatever it was that happened, it is known that the successor to the estate was the Scoran who had once founded the church.