Sint-Kwintens-Lennik

The lawyer F.J. De Gronckel is the "inventor" of the term Pajottenland. Mr. De Gronckel was from Sint-Kwintens-Lennik. He used the word Pajottenland, under the pseudonym Franciscus Josephus Twyfelloos, in a romantic and playful writing, entitled 't Payottenland als het van onheugelyke tijden gestaen en gelegen is. The text first appeared as separate issues in 1845, but the best-known collection was published as a 3rd edition in Brussels in 1852. The mischievous lawyer invented the word as a counterpart to Kerlingaland, which was known among Leuven students around 1840 and even plagiarized the Kerelslied for it. The name payot already existed in 1789 and meant mercenary in the Austrian army. Payot was originally the Walloon name for a soldier from the local region, as opposed to the foreign Austrian soldiers. The word is a derivation of pays streek with the French suffix -ot and thus means fellow countryman and by extension fellow countryman in the army. The meaning roughly coincided with piot, a well-known regional word for an infantryman or common soldier.

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