Note 27 — JORDAN CASTLE

Nothing is known, I fancy, of the meaning of those old place-names like Schlins, Düns, Röns, and so forth. The origin of our Thüringen is held to be different from that of the German province, which has been derived from Turo, a family name; to be Celtic, and allied to Tours and Zürich (which is also marked as Türrig in old maps); to this day our people invariably call the place “z’Türrig.” Schlins is the birthplace of a remarkable man, Magister Bartholomæus Bernhardt, born 1487. He was called Velcurio from the neighboring town of Feldkirch, studied (1504) at the new University of Wittenberg which within twenty years had received over forty students from Vorarlberg; became a monk and (1519) rector of that University; thereafter to the end of his life Prior of Kemberg in Saxony. According to Sebastian Münster (1550) he was the first priest to take to himself a legitimate wife. He died 1551. His brother John, who seems to have been also a monk, wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s “Physics” and was likewise married.