לותּיר
'Loter, Lotharingia; earliest area of Jewish settlement in German lands along the Rhine river'

ETYMOLOGY

The early Ashkenazim used the name לותּיר to refer to the large territory briefly ruled by King Lothair II (855-869), which included modern Belgium and the Netherlands as well as parts of Germany and France. The name is first documented in a Hebrew manuscript from Parma from 1001-1023, and mostly went out of use by the fourteenth century. Max Weinreich revived the name in order to identify a original homeland for the Ashkenazim and for the Yiddish language. He suggested that the name offered proof that Jews had settled in the territory by the time of Lothair II's reign. {M. Weinriech, Geshikhte, 1: 336, 347}