Dobin Castle

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Sketch of the location and structure of Dobin Castle

The castle Dobin is a former Slavic castle wall in Dobin am See on the northern end of Lake Schwerin .

The fortress, first mentioned in the Slav chronicle of Helmold von Bosau as Dubin , was built in 1147 instead of a trading post by the Abodritic prince Niklot as a refuge and destroyed again in 1160. The Wismar Chronicle lists another castrum Dubin for the year 1278 . After the castle wall was localized by the Mecklenburg state archivist Lisch in the 19th century, extensive archaeological investigations followed from 1999 under the direction of the prehistorian Ettel , the results on the structure, appearance and use of the castle as well as statements on the time of construction and the manner of destruction the fastening provided.

history

Originally, Dobin was an unfortified Abodritic border trading center between the Slavic castle districts of Schwerin and Mecklenburg. Goods were transshipped here that were to be transported by land to the Baltic Sea via the Stör and Schweriner See. When Niklot learned that a Saxon army would march into the Abodritenland as part of the Wendekreuzzug , he began to prepare for a defense. The strategically favorable location of the trading center on an isthmus between Lake Schwerin and Döpe could have been the decisive factor in his decision to build a refuge against the crusader army at this location. Helmold reports that Niklot had called his entire tribe (“ universam gentem ”) together in order to complete the fortress in the shortest possible time.

The castle withstood the subsequent siege of the castle by Danish and Saxon crusaders for three months, despite the use of siege works. The attackers took up positions opposite each other at the northern and southern ends of the land bridge, separated by the ramparts on the land bridge, which could not be avoided because of the two lakes. If the Abodrites failed, the Danes suffered considerable losses, without the Saxons being able to rush to their aid because of the special local conditions. In the end, the besiegers and the crew of the castle, which was about to fall, concluded an agreement: while the Abodrites consented to a mass baptism and the release of the Danish prisoners, the crusaders lifted the siege and left.

In 1160 Niklot destroyed the castle in front of an advancing Saxon army Henry the Lion . Since the castle, unlike the fortresses Mecklenburg , Schwerin and Ilow , which were destroyed at the same time , was not rebuilt afterwards, it can be assumed that it was not used for representation or rulership and that the castle was not the center of an administrative district.

A Wismar chronicle reported in 1278 that the Lords of Werle and the Count of Schwerin had invaded the Land of Meklenburg with the Margrave Otto von Brandenburg and had rebuilt "Dobe Castle" in order to plunder the land as far as Wismar from there.

archeology

Surveys , aerial photographs, geomagnetic prospecting and probe sections in 1999 and 2000 in connection with pedological and dendrochronological investigations yielded initial results on the structure, appearance and use of the castle as well as statements on the time of construction and also on the manner in which the fortification was destroyed. According to this, the facility has a base area of ​​three hectares and is divided into a main and outer bailey . The fortification was built according to the dendrodata in connection with the archaeological findings in 1147/48 and was probably destroyed by fire in 1160 - this shows that historical and archaeological sources rarely match.

literature

  • Peter Ettel : Dobin - a Slavic princely castle on Lake Schwerin in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In: 19th Château-Gaillard Conference for medieval castle studies, Graz (Austria) 1998 Caen 2000 pp. 69–73.
  • Peter Ettel / Cornelius Meyer: The castle of Dobin. Preliminary report on geomagnetic prospecting and exploratory excavation 1999/2000. Archaeological reports from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 7, 2000, 139–150.
  • Peter Ettel: The Slavic princely castle of Dobin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In: A. Wieczorek / H.-M. Hinz (Hrsg.): Europes Mitte um 1000. Handbook for the exhibition. Stuttgart 2000 730 f.
  • Peter Ettel: The castle of Dobin. In: Hauke ​​Jöns, Friedrich Lüth (Ed.), Mecklenburgs Humboldt: Friedrich Lisch. A researcher's life between barrows and throne room. Lübstorf 2001, pp. 67-72.
  • Peter Ettel: Historical and archaeological tradition on the Slavic princely castle of Dobin in Mecklenburg. In: P. Ettel / R. Friedrich / W. Schier (Ed.): Interdisciplinary contributions to settlement archeology. Memorial letter f. Walter Janssen Rahden / Westf. 2002, pp. 53-64.
  • Ralf Wiechmann: Coins and coin brooches from the late Slavic Dobin Castle in Flessenow, district of Northwest Mecklenburg. in: Hauke ​​Jöns, Friedrich Lüth (Hrsg.): Bodendenkmalpflege in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. (Vol. 53), Schwerin 2006, pp. 155-182.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch: The Dobin Castle and the Döpe at Hohen-Vicheln. In: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology, Volume 5 (1840), pp. 123-134.
  2. ↑ Fred Ruchhöft: From the Slavic tribal area to the German bailiwick. The development of the territories in Ostholstein, Lauenburg, Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania in the Middle Ages. (= Archeology and history in the Baltic Sea region. Vol. 4). Leidorf, Rahden (Westphalia) 2008, ISBN 978-3-89646-464-4 , p. 133 f.
  3. ↑ Helmold I, 62.
  4. ↑ Helmold I, 65; On the duration of the siege Annales Magdeburgenses 1147: Fere tres menses peragrando omnia vastaverunt.
  5. ↑ Fred Ruchhöft: From the Slavic tribal area to the German bailiwick. The development of the territories in Ostholstein, Lauenburg, Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania in the Middle Ages. (= Archeology and history in the Baltic Sea region. Vol. 4). Leidorf, Rahden (Westphalia) 2008, ISBN 978-3-89646-464-4 , p. 134.
  6. ↑ Karl Christoph Heinrich Burmeister: Wismarsche Chronik about the guardianship of Princess Anastasia of Meklenburg from 1275 to 1278, from the Wismarschen city book from 1272. In: Year books of the association for Mecklenburg history and antiquity. , Volume 3 (1838), pp. 37-49, here p. 47.

Coordinates: 53 ° 46 ′ 36 ″  N , 11 ° 31 ′ 29 ″  E