Acceso usuarios
Wolfgang Schweickard
Germ. Kartaune ‘a siege gunʼ is based neither on Italian cortana nor on Italian or Medieval Latin quartana, as has been unanimously assumed up to now in German historical lexicography. In actual fact, it is a borrowing from the synonymous French courtal, pl. courtaux. The earliest German evidence appears – in the context of the Burgundian Wars – in the form kortauwen and cortauw in 1475 and in the form curtal and curtan in 1476. The variant with the final -n, which is limited to southern Germany, constitutes the basis for the later German standard form Kartaune. In the late 15th century, the term also passed from French into Italian, where the types cortaldi < French courteaux and cortale < French courtel can be distinguished.
