LANTZ GENEALOGY

          Letters pertaining to name of Lantz and received by
     W. T. Lantz, East Bank, W. Va.:
                                                Munichen,
                                            February 25, 1929.
     Rector of University of Munichen,
     Mr. W. T. Lantz,
     East Bank, W. Va.
          In answer to your inquiry of January 3, 1929.
          Dear Sir: Enclosed we are sending you the explanation
     of the name Lantz, as it has been given us upon request by
     Dr. Otto Mauker of our University.
                                   Yours truly,
                                              RECTOR YANCE.

     Dr. Otto Mauker's opinion:
          The family name Lantz, also Lanz, has come through
     many changes from the word Landsknecht.  That word
     Landsknecht ..... and from what I can learn, it was proven
     authentic for the first time in the year 1486  ... is also
     middle high German of a rather late period.  The word
     means a hired soldier, drafted in the imperial kingdom; a
     similar word in the Swiss language is a soldsoldat, or a sol-
     dier drafted in Switzerland.  The form Landsknecht has
     come down with this point of distinction in meaning.  The
     writing of the word Lanzknecht first appears in the year
     of 1503, then very soon after, the final form Lantz appeared.
     The writing of the word in this way rests first on the one
     hand upon a derivation from the middle class, if one starts
     from the fact that whoever was drafted in the imperial
     kingdom was a soldsoldat a Landsknecht or a Fossaldat,
     (infantryman) and had to fight with the Lanze (Lances),
     this is a middle high German word borrowed from the Latin,
     second on the other hand the writing Lanzknecht might
     have automatically changed itself from the word Lands-
     knecht, if so the sound arrangement ds must have changed
     on the account of the similarity of sound to ts, and then
     another phonetic change, which simplified the letter com-
     bination ts finally to just the letter Z. Thus the spelling of
     the old word Landsknecht was changed to Lantzknecht.
          Lantzknecht was shortened to Lanz or Lantz as early as
     the sixteenth century.  The abbreviation did not take place,
     however, in Germany, but if this is any interest to you, in
     Italy and Sparin where during the progress of war-like
     developments the German Landsknecht came now and then.

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