Hobbit Dwellings, Brigands' Lairs, Glacier Mills and Other Fun
My father and I went to Halberstadt and surroundings for a few days to explore a bit more of the eastern Harz mountains and the lands around. Historically, this is the area where the Ottonian and Salian emperors had some of their ancestral lands, and spent a lot of time. Hiking around we came up with more fun than just old churches, though.
A Brigands' Lair - the Daneil Cave in the Huy Mountain
This cave can be found in the Huy mountain, a sandstone ridge now grown with beeches. There is a legend about an abducted maiden who was forced to work for a gang of evil robbers until she managed to escape, alert the village and give the guys their just dessert. The place has been lived in, maybe even by some unsavoury guys, but there are no documents about a veritable brigand gang harrassing the surroundings for years.
The cave houses in Langenstein
Here we got some 19th century Hobbit dwellings. *grin* They can be found in several places in the village of Langenstein. Some of these go back to the 12th century and were successively expanded. The last inhabitant left his cave in 1916. They were actually up to the living standard of the time, cool in summer and warm enough in winter thanks to ovens. The toilets were outside in the (in)famous plank huts.
One of the houses, interior (the kitchen; important in a hobbit hole)
The caves are of varying size; the average is 30 square metres for a family, with a kitchen and larder, a living room, and sleeping quarters. The caves were not poor man's hovels, but respectable housings for the working class. Several of them have been lovingly restored and equipped with old-fashioned furniture.
A very crazy way through sandstone cliffs
This crazy way leads through the red sandstone and musselkalk of the Huy mountain up to the remains of a castle. There are caves here, too, those dating back to the time of the Germanic tribes living here in pre-Roman times. They have been used until the 20th century, but they are larger and less comfortable, with no separate rooms. The last people to live there were some refugees from WW2 (until better places could be found for them).
Remains of Castle Langenstein (pretty much all there is)
At the end of the crazy way are some bits of castle wall. Castle Langenstein was built by the bishop of Halberstadt in the 12th century and once was a large and imposing structure covering the entire plateau of the hill. It was destroyed during the thirty Years War and used as quarry afterwards. Today only a section of a wall with the window opening is left. But the view over the land all the way to Halberstadt is nice.
Outline of a prehistoric longhouse
These are the outlines of a longhouse from the early Bronze Age (2300 - 1800 BC) near Benzingerode. When the new interstate was built, lots of prehistoric finds came up that are now spread to several museums. The area is not so far from the place where the famous Nebra disc has been found - quite a busy place some 4000 years ago. There are several menhirs in the surrounding fields, but no longer accessible. Since people kept stomping over the fields with no regard for the corn, the farmers fenced them in.
A glacier mill in the Huy Mountain
This bit of geological fun can be found in the Huy mountain ridge. Glacier mills are the result of cracks in the ground where glaciers slowly pushed forward. Melting water and small debris would run down those cracks and over time, carve canons, where the small stones washed out kettle shaped holes, the glacier mills. The mills in the Huy date back to the Saalian stage of the Ice Ages (352,000 - 130,000 years ago) and are the only ones to be found in Germany outside the Alps.
A river in the Harz
A typical Harz river, clear and cold, running over boulders.
BTW Don't miss the post below about further photo booty. :-)
Cool Castles, Pretty Towns, and More Churches
Here are some more interesting places we visited during our little autumn tour around Halberstadt in the Harz; a new addition to my ever growing collection of photos for future posts (more can be found here)..
Moated castle Westerburg
The Westernburg is the oldest moated castle in Germany that is still intact. It is first mentioned as fief of the Counts of Regenstein in 1180. When the family died out, the castle changed possession several times until it came into the hands of the administration in Halberstadt. Today it houses a spa hotel, but is still accessible for visitors, and they serve some good ice cream. *grin*
Westerburg, inside view
The ringwall with two water filled trenches encloses an areal of 350x300 metres; the castle itself is 60x80 metres, with the houses built directly to the two metres thick curtain wall, and a round keep in the western part. Later, a square shaped set of buildings was added to the west; used as living quarters since the Renaissance.
Castle Lauenburg, the inner gate (with an Ent at work *wink*)
Much less is left of the Lauenburg, another of our typical hilltop castles. Castle Lauenburg was built by Heinrich IV in 1164 as part of a chain of Harz castles which also included the
Harzburg. One of its functions was the protection of the town of
Quedlinburg (where I've been a few years ago). Friedrich Barbarossa conquered the castle during his war against Heinrich the Lion (1180); it was destroyed already in the 14th century.
Lauenburg, keep of the outer bailey
The entire complex was once 350 metres long (that's coming close to some Norman whoppers like
Chepstow), covering the Ramberg hilltop. The castle is divided in an outer bailey (
Vorbug) sitting on its own peak with a still somewhat intact keep, and the main castle on the promontory, both separated by a natural trench and additional walls. The 140 metres long main castle was again separated into three baileys with two keeps.
Stolberg / Harz
Stolberg is a small town in the Harz where my father spent some holidays as child. It's always nice coming back to it after the debris left behind by years of GDR mismanagement has been turned into beautiful houses again. The town started as settlement connected to mining in the Harz mountains in AD 1000, and was in possession of the Counts of Stolberg since the 12th century. The Stolberg family held the castle (nowadays a Renaissance building on a hill above the town) until 1945.
Wernigerode / Harz, the town hall
Wernigerode is one of those towns full of pretty half timbered houses, and the town hall is particularly beautiful. The origins of the town cannot be traced before it appears in documents in 1121, when the then-to-be-called Counts of Wernigerode took their seat there. The place got town rights in 1229. After the Wernigerode line died out in 1429, the town came into possession of the Counts of Stolberg until 1714 when it became part of Preussen.
The cathedral in Halberstadt
The cathedral in Halberstadt is a predominately Gothic building that replaced an older church which was destroyed during Heinrich the Lion's wars with Friedrich Barbarossa. The main nave dates to 1260 and is influenced by the French style, but shortage of money led to delays, so the cathedral was finished only in the 14th century with the old Romanesque quire still in use until 1350 when it was replaced with a Gothic one. The transepts were added in 1491. Some things never change. ;-)
Halberstadt, Church of Our Lady, main nave
The Church of Our Lady in Halberstadt is a fine example of a four towered Romanesque church, dating back to 1005 albeit with changes in the 12th century (addition of the side naves), and again in the 14th century (cross grain vaulted ceiling to replace the former timber one). Even younger alterations during the 19th century historicism (wannabe Middle Ages style) have partly been deconstructed in the renovations post-WW2.
Benedictine monastery Huysburg
Huysburg Monastery was founded in 1080 as Benedictine monastery by Bishop Burchard of Halberstadt. It fell to the secularization in 1804, but became a monastery again in 1972; the only Benedictine monastery in the GDR. The church is a Romanesque basilica (unfortunately with Baroque bling inside). Other buildings have been added over the centuries; some of them serve as guest houses and meeting rooms today.
Castle Plesse (Part 1) - Rise and Fall of the Counts of Winzenburg
Castle Plesse near my hometown Göttingen is a fine example of a typical Mediaeval hilltop castle. Though pretty large for the area and extended over time, The Plesse as it is called, is not as formidable as the Norman castles in Wales, or the Wartburg in Thuringia, but it's also less tourist infected. The manor of the lord has been reconstructed and holds a restaurant, but it's closed on Mondays, so I chose a Monday to visit the place.
Plesse, the main keep
The rise of the mountain castles falls into a period of internal struggles and changes in Germany. Kings, nobility and high ranking churchmen got into conflicts with each other in the 11th century, which finally led to a stronger position for the latter two, and a weakened king. Castles were not only built for defense, but were status symbols as well. Originally, only the king had the right to build castles; he then gave them to the nobles as fiefs or sometimes allodial possessions, but now whoever had the power and the means built castles. Soon Mediaeval German lords couldn't see a hill without wanting to get a castle up there. *grin* No wonder I have six of them within half an hours driving distance.
Main keep in the centre and the hall to the left
As so often in the Middle Ages, we don't have an exact date when the first castle was erected on the Plesse mountain. The first mention in a charte dates from 1138 and names a
Burggraf (Lord Commander) Robert who was commanding the garrison on behalf of Count Hermann of Winzenburg who held the Plesse as fief, but the origins of the castle likely date back to the 11th century, because it shares many features with other hilltop / promontory castles in Thuringia, Lower Saxony and Northern Hessia that have been built in the second half of the 11th century.
(Left: The so-called Little Tower)
It cannot be verified that the Castle Plesse - '
urbs qui Plesse dicitur' (1)- mentioned in a
Vita of Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn is the same as our Plesse. Meinwerk was a member of the House Immeding, an important noble family in the 10th and 11th centuries (Mathilde, the wife of Heinrich the Fowler and mother of Otto the Great, came from that house) who held land in the area. The
Vita says that in 1015 he gave the Plesse and 1,100 hides of land to the cathedral in Paderborn, but the name 'Plesse' is ambiguous and the
Vita Meinwerci dates from 1160 and therefore could either have confused two places, or deliberately backdated the existence of the castle to cement the claim of the bishopric; it would not have been the first case in history. ;-)
But it seems that Paderborn indeed held rights to the castle. The castle is mentioned in an exchange contract between Emperor Heinrich VI and the bishop of Paderborn dating to 1192, but which was annulled a few years later; and as late as 1326, bishop Bernhard of Paderborn gives "half of the castle and the tower therein" as fief to the Lord of Plesse.
The first owner of the Plesse to appear in a number of chartes was Count Hermann II of Winzenburg-Reinhausen († 1152) who had bits of land spread over a rather large area from the Weser and Kassel, to the lands around Göttingen, and the Harz. His main seat was the Winzenburg near Hildesheim, held as fief from the bishop of Hildesheim. He used the name 'of Plesse' in several chartes which implies that it was one of his more important castles. The above mentioned Lord Commander Robert held the Plesse for him.
Family names in our sense did not exist in the 12th century and the denomination after
one seat of a family became common but later. the chatellain Robert signed as
comes castelli di Plesse as well as Hermann of Winzenburg sometimes did. They often appear in chartes together, with Hermann the first and Robert the second witness; proof for their close feudal relationship. The use of a single name - Hermann of Winzenburg - is a modern construct to make it easier to keep track of the noble families.
Plesse, outer gate
(The white structure you can see gleaming through the foliage is the reconstructed keep)
It is often difficult to trace the rise of a noble family from documents which still exist, so they seem to appear out of nowhere once they become major players and are mentioned in chronicles, chartes and such. The Counts of Winzenburg are such an example. Hermann I of Winzenburg (1083 - 1138) was the son of Count Hermann of Formbach (near Passau / Bavaria) and Mathilde of
Reinhausen (near Göttingen) which casts an interesting light on the scope of marriage connections. When Count Hermann of Reinhausen († 1122) left no male heirs, Hermann of Winzenburg inherited from his mother not only some nice bits of land in Lower Saxony, but also became count of Reinhausen and margrave of the Leine Valley as well as reeve of Reinhausen Monastery. The construction - or, in case the castle is older, a thorough renovation - of Castle Plesse likely falls into this time.
(Right: another view of the main keep)
Hermann of Winzenburg-Reinhausen, educated as boy by his uncle, bishop Udo of Hildesheim, was a member of the close entourage of Emperor Heinrich V (2); he accompagnied him to Italy in 1111, and fought for the emperor during the feud with the rebellious Saxon and Thuringian nobles. I won't go into detail here, but after his coronation as emperor, Heinrich V asserted his power more strongly and alienated several high ranking nobles, among them Duke Lothar of Saxony (3) and
Landgrave Ludwig of Thuringia. Heinrich won an important miliary encounter and accepted their formal submission, the
deditio, during the great diet in Mainz in January 1114 where he married Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England and Normandy. Lothar, barefoot and in a penitent's robe, threw himself at Heinrich's feet and was received back into grace and his possessions. Ludwig of Thuringia was taken prisoner and put in irons - obviously against prior agreements. Several nobles left the diet in protest; a highly significant action in the Middle Ages.
One may wonder what young Matilda (she was 12 at the time) thought about the events. If she learned to be uncompromising there, she missed the second part of the lesson. Lothar of Saxony turned against the emperor the moment he put a foot in his own dukedom, and easily gained followers in Saxony and Thuringia, among them the bishop of Halberstadt. The sons of the landgrave managed to capture some of Heinrich's men and put them in exchange for Ludwig's freedom.
In February 1115, a battle was fought near Mansfeld (south-eastern foothills of the Harz) which turned out a decisive victory for Lothar. Heinrich's commander Hoyer of Mansfield fell, and Hermann of Winzenburg soon thereafter joined Lothar's alliance. The move is understandable since his lands lay in the sphere of influence of Lothar, and Heinrich V was in no position to defend his former vassal. Saxony was effectively lost to him.
Heinrich concentrated his activities in southern Germany and Italy, and one attempt to support his father-in-law in Normandy, which went wrong when his army met with a larger French one and Heinrich went back home (August 1124; 4). Heinrich died in May 1125 and was succeeded by his old nemesis, Lothar of Süpplingenburg Duke of Saxony. The princes of the realm elected him in favour of Heinrich's nephew Friedrich of Staufen Duke of Swabia.
Second gate with gatehouse
Hermann I of Winzenburg seems to have kept a good relationship with Lothar at first. They were distant relations; Lothar's mother Hedwig of Formbach was a cousin twice removed of Hermann. But eventually, things turned sour. The information I could find was not verifiable in detail, so I'll stick to the basics (5). What we do know is that Hermann assassinated - or had his retainers assassinate - Burchard of Loccum, who may or may not have been his a vassal, but who definitely stood well enough with Lothar for the incident to cause major troubles. The reason seems to have been the buidling of a castle on ground that didn't belong to Burchard, at least Hermann claimed it was
his land. What makes it worse is that the murder allegedly took place on sacred ground.
So Lothar called Hermann of Winzenburg to justice at the diet of Quedlinburg in August 1130. Hermann lost most of his fiefs, including the Winzenburg lands which fell back to Hildesheim. Hermann didn't give in so easily and held out against a besieging army in Winzenburg Castle for several months (6). He finally surrendered at the end of 1130 and was held captive in Blankenburg for some time. His sons, Hermann and Heinrich, sought refuge in the Rhineland. That's one of the pieces that didn't become clear to me - maybe they joined Friedrich and Konrad of Staufen who were not happy about Lothar being king (and emperor since 1133).
According to abbot Reinhard of Reinhausen, Hermann was released in 1134 and entrusted with the command of Castle Segeberg in Holstein where he died in 1137/38. Reinhard's text dates to shortly before 1156. There is no other proof for Hermann's activity in Holstein, though, and the unclear date of his death doesn't help.
Plesse Castle, outer curtain wall
But whatever the situation of the family prior to 1138, at that time Hermann II had received at least Castle Plesse back from the bishop of Paderborn, because it is during the following years that he prefers the denomination 'of Plesse' (
Hermannus comes de Plessa) to the name 'of Winzenburg' since that fief had not been returned to him.
Obviously, King Konrad III, the first king and emperor of the House Staufen, needed allies to balance the increasing power of the rival House Welfen, and the Winzenburg brothers were on the rise again. Hermann became a vassal of the archbishop of Mainz, married Elisabeth of Austria, a half-sister to Konrad (in 1142; 7), and was in the entourage of the king at times.
Hermann finally managed to receive the Winzenburg fief back from Hildesheim in May 1150, though Bishop Bernhard is said to have put several 'good behaviour'-clauses in the contract. I wish I could get my hands on whatever documents still exist.
Great Hall (which today houses a restaurant)
The role of Hermann II of Winzenburg in the Northeim heritage troubles can be traced rather well. When Siegfried IV of Boyneburg-Northeim died in 1144 without issue, Hermann's brother Heinrich married his widow Richenza and thus got his hands on the Northeim heritage, the allodial possessions of Boyneburg and the fiefs they held from the archbishop of Mainz. Without that marriage, the next heir would have been Heinrich the Lion, the grandson of Richenza of Northeim (not the same as the widow) and Lothar of Süpplingenburg - their daughter Gertrud had married Heinrich's father, Henrich the Proud of Bavaria.
Heinrich of Winzenburg (also known as Heinrich of Assel after his mother's family) died already in 1146, so Hermann bought the part of the widow's heritage which she could legally dispose of. Which makes me wonder where he got the money from; his own fiefs at the time were not so large. Maybe he had a hand in the salt works in Göttingen or some other source like silver mines. Hermann also was granted the fiefs which Siegfried held from the king (8). The fiefs Siegfried once held from Mainz seem to have been so important to Hermann that he gave the family monastery of Reinhausen in exchange for their grant.
Overall, Hermann II Count of Winzenburg balanced some of the influence of the expanding Welfen in the area which may have been the reason Konrad supported him so strongly.
Gate to the lower bailey
But the return of Winzenburg Castle would not bring Hermann any luck. In January 1152, he and his third wife were murdered in the castle. The men behind it are said to have been the bishop of Hildesheim (one of his retainers was decapitated for the crime) and one Count Heinrich of Bodenburg, who lost a juridical duel and retired, severely wounded, to a monastery. Again, detailed and reliable information could not be obtained.
With Hermann's death, the Northeim-Winzenburg heritage fell to Heinrich the Lion.
The Lord Commander Robert of Plesse had disappeared from the chartes some time ago. At latest in 1150, a Bernhard of Höckelheim had replaced him, first as vassal of Hermann of Winzenburg, but later he held the fief directly from Paderborn. He would found the line of the
Noble Lords of Plesse.
View from the Plesse
Footnotes
1) The Latin urbs can mean 'castle' or 'settlement' in the Middle Ages
2) The interwebs, as so often, gets things wrong and spreads the information that Hermann I of Winzenburg was landgrave of Thuringia in several linked articles. I could not find anything to support that in my research books. At best we find that, according to Warsitzka, the position of Hermann "came close to that of a landgrave" (p. 54).
3) Lothar of Süpplingenburg, the future Emperor Lothar. He had received the dukedom after the Billung family died out in the male line. Obviously, Heinrich V had thought that a man with less land to his own than the Billung family would prove more malleable. Turned out Heinrich was wrong there.
4) Heinrich may have hoped for the English throne for himself or a son with Matilda after the sinking of the White Ship in 1120.
5) Not only is the information about Bernhard of Loccum obscure, there is also a mess about the Hermanns of Winzenburg. Obviously, the death of Hermann of Reinhausen in 1122 has been confused with that of Hermann I of Winzenburg (1137 or 1138), so that some texts wrongly ascribe the events to Hermann II of Winzenburg-Reinhausen; a mistake even shared by Warsitzka. Though due to the way those guys called themselves alternately 'of Winzenburg, of Reinhausen, of Plesse' or any combination thereof, the confusion may be excused.
6) Which implies that he did not appear at the diet in person, but was condemned in absentia.
7) Agnes of Waiblingen was both their mother, first married to Friedrich I Duke of Swabia and then to Leopold III of Austria. One of Elisabeth's sisters, Gertrud of Babenberg, married Vladislav of Bohemia, another one, also named Agnes, married another Vladislav, Władysław of Poland. Geez people, get a baby name book. :-)
8) I could not find out whether he got them as direct successor of Siegfried or of his brother Heinrich. In the first case, the fiefs would have fallen home to the king and I'm not sure he kept them for two years. Fiefs were a common way to reward vassals. Or maybe Hermann had to earn them somehow.
Literature
Gerd Althoff: Heinrich V (1106-1125), in: Bernd Schneidmüller/ Stefan Weinfurter (ed.), Die deutschen Herrscher des Mittelalters. Historische Portraits von Heinrich I. bis Maximilian I. (919–1519), Munich 2003, p. 180-200
Gerd Althoff: Lothar III. (1125–1137), in: Bernd Schneidmüller/ Stefan Weinfurter (ed.), Die deutschen Herrscher des Mittelalters, p. 201–216
Gerd Althoff: Konrad III. (1138-1152), in: Bernd Schneidmüller/ Stefan Weinfurter (ed.), Die deutschen Herrscher des Mittelalters. p. 217-231
Wolfgang Petke: Stiftung und Reform von Reinhausen und die Burgenpolitik der Grafen von Winzenburg im hochmittelalterlichen Sachsen, in: Peter Aufgebauer (ed.): Burgenforschung in Südniedersachsen, Göttingen 2001, p. 65–96.
Wilfried Warsitzka: Die Thüringer Landgrafen. 2nd revised edition, Erfurt 2009