boyers

Early Use of the Boyer Name

This account of the early evidence of the Boyer family and name owes a great deal to research originally developed in the book American Boyers, published by the Association of American Boyers, which was first published in 1915 and is now in its seventh edition. That research has been augmented and updated in this presentation.

The more distant beginnings of the Boyer family have been traced to the Celtic tribes who wandered through Europe near the beginning of the Christian era. One of these tribes, known as the "Boii," settled in the area known as Cisalpine Gaul. In 2005 this was northern Italy, Austria and southern Germany. Along with their allies the Helvetians, the Boii were conquered by the Romans; some attribute the work to Julius Caesar in 58 B.C., others to Augustus in 15 B.C. Apparently the Boii were then allowed to settle in the land of the Aedui, who were other allies of the Helvetians, in what is now the area of central to eastern France. Then they moved eastward, and in 488‑520 A.D. they were reported along the valley of the Danube, possibly in what were known as the Roman provinces of Vindelicia and Noricum.[1]

One account of the Boii says they "were certainly a new and composite social aggregate." Most likely they were descendants of the Marcommanni, Quadi and Narisci, tribes of the Suevic or Swabian race, with possibly an intermixture of Gothic or Celtic elements. They were called the Boiarii, Baioarii, Baiowarii, Bawarii, or Baiuwarii, words probably derived from Baja or Baya, corruptions of Bojer, and given to them because they came from Bojerland or Bohemia.[2] Of most lasting significance, it is said that the Boii gave their name to Bavaria. The Bavarians and the Bayer are regarded as the same.

In the fighting over western Europe over the centuries, the Boiarii were said to owe allegiance to the Ostrogoths, then the Franks, then Charlemagne, and after his death to the kings of the Franks and the Germans. The first mention of the Bavarians occurs in a Frankish document of 520 A.D.

In the ultimate dispersion of the Boiarii, the family name was given various spellings which continue down to this day. In Germany, the spellings include Bayer, Baier, Beyer, Beier, Byer and others. In Austria, it is Boiar. The Russian is Boyar, although that word appears to have referred primarily to the highest stratum of Russian nobility up to the 18th century and does not seem to have been a family name.[3] In England, it is usually Bowyer. In Scotland, it is Boyers. In France, it is usually Boyer.

A different analysis of name origins contends that Boyer is a variant of Bowyer, an occupational surname originally denoting a bow‑maker, and that the name came from the Middle English boghyere.[4] Another view is that the name derives from the Old French boyer, which was a cattle‑drover or ox‑herd.[5]

Historians report that the Boyer name appeared in various prominent places, including these reports: Normandy in northwestern France provided a number of Boyer soldiers for the battle of Hastings in 1066. Some Boyers were in the army of William of Orange in the battle of the Boyne (1690) in Ireland. In France, many Boyers belonged to the nobility. Cardinal Jean Pierre Boyer (1829‑1896) was Archbishop of Bourges. And Prince Lucien Bonaparte incurred the displeasure of his brother Napoleon by marrying a beautiful girl named Boyer.

The "Palatinate"

Most of the Boyers who settled in Pennsylvania are believed to have come from the Bavarian Palatinate region of western Germany, basically the area between the Rhine River and the border with France, near the cities of Frankfurt, Mannheim and Heidelberg. Today it is the general location of the state of Rhineland‑Palatinate.
The "Palatinate" developed in the 12th century as a large principality which combined the authority of the "counts palatine," or the chief administrative officers, of the Lorraine and the Rhine. In 1214, the area was acquired by the dukes of Bavaria. As one of the many kingdoms and duchies that were part of and surrounding the Holy Roman Empire at one time or another, the Palatinate was the object of numerous intrigues and fighting. In fact, throughout the 1600s and 1700s, there was serious conflict between the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns, or Prussians.
The Bavarians in the Palatinate, in fact, were largely surrounded by Prussians, and thus began a rivalry that exists down to the present day, although in muted form. A common automobile bumper‑sticker dealing with the Bavarians (the Bayer) and the Prussians (the Preiss) seen in Munich in the early 1980s provided this bilingual play on words:
It is nice
To be a Preiss
But even higher
To be a Bayer.
Besides the political rivalries of the 17th century, a prominent factor in emigration was the desire for religious freedom. The Palatinate was near the home of the Reformation, and most of the people there were Lutheran or Reformed. The counter‑Reformation, stimulated by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, caused thousands of French Huguenots to flee to France and put great pressures on the rest of western Europe.

Louis XIV also had designs on the territory of the Palatinate itself. Frustrated in his attempts at conquest, it is said that he systematically destroyed the area. One report says that "Louis XIV carried fire and sword into the Palatinate and across the Rhine again and yet again, culminating in the holocaust of 1689 when, for instance, the great palace and castle and indeed the whole town of Heidelberg (the capital of the Elector of the Palatinate) went up in flames."