Mecklenburg (castle)

Monument on the ramparts

Simple attempt to reconstruct the castle

The Mecklenburg was (in the Middle Ages Michilin- / Michelin / Mikelinburg = "great castle") in the 10th and 11th centuries the headquarters of abodritischen princely bad the nakonids . It was in the area of today's village of Mecklenburg, south of Wismar . An earth wall still testifies to the castle that has not been preserved . Her presumed name Wiligrad led to the romantic, transfigured naming of Wiligrad Castle .

construction

The facility extended over an area of 23,196 m², the greatest external length was 234 meters, the greatest external width 185 meters and the maximum height 12.75 meters. The protected, elliptical interior of the castle complex had a size of about 1.4 hectares. Seven construction phases can be distinguished, which are designated A to G. The dendro data available for phase C are dated from 929 to 945 AD. The first two construction phases A and B are only slightly older, so that construction before the first half of the 10th century can be ruled out. Early Slavic ceramics of the Sukow type are completely absent. Ceramic finds from the layers behind the castle wall can be assigned to the Feldberg type . According to scientific calculations, the movement of 25,000 m³ of earth and the procurement of 9,400 solid meters of wood were necessary to build the first wall of phase A in a box construction made of oak planks and driven piles .

history

Current condition of the castle ramparts, view from the west

The first castles in the vicinity of the Wismar Bay are already attested in the Franconian Reichsannalen for the year 808. Thereafter, the Danish prince Göttrik conquered a number of Abodritic castles until he suffered heavy losses in the siege of a larger castle and had to retreat. The long accepted equation of the besieged castle with the Mecklenburg is now increasingly doubted due to the available dendro data from the 10th century.

Since the 10th century, the castle complex has been documented in written sources as the seat and main castle of the Abodritic princes. The Jewish-Andalusian traveler Ibrahim Ibn Jacub referred to it as Nakon's castle in 965 . The castle served the Nakonid princes Nakon, Mistiwoj and Mistislaw as a central seat of power and a place of representation. At the end of the 10th century there was a church consecrated to the Apostle Peter on or near the castle with an attached nunnery, which was headed as abbess by the Abodritic princess Hodica . From 991/992 Mecklenburg served as the de facto bishop's seat of the Hamburg Slavic diocese: The Mecklenburg Bishop Reinbert (991 / 92-1013 / 14) and his successor Bernhard (1013 / 14-1023) resided here. King Otto III. first mentioned the name of Mecklenburg in a document dated September 10, 995. The Slavic name of the castle is not known. Possibly it was Veligrad , which would mean "Great Castle". The German name Mikelenburg would then be a translation. The name Mikelenburg then changed over time in Mecklenburg . In the 11th century the Mecklenburg served again as a residence for the Naconid prince Gottschalk . After that the castle lost its importance as an Abodritic central place. During a punitive expedition by Henry the Lion against his peace-breaking vassal Niklot, he set the castle on fire in 1160. The Duke of Saxony then set up a base there under Heinrich von Schaten, which was overrun by Niklots son Pribislaw in 1164 and abandoned by the Saxons.

The castle, which was rebuilt by the Niklotids, was demolished by Johann I von Mecklenburg in 1256 in order to use the material for the construction of the castle in the then flourishing city of Wismar . After the castle was rebuilt in 1277 during the guardianship dispute during the imprisonment of Heinrich the Pilgrim for the Mecklenburg princes and the rulers of Werle , who carried out their raids from here, it was destroyed again 45 years later - now for good. The village of Mecklenburg emerged from the settlement of the bailey in the middle of the 14th century. After the superficial removal of the rubble, the wall was used for agriculture by farmers. The first reforestation with oaks took place in 1856. In 1870 the village cemetery was laid out on the still clearly recognizable, up to seven meters high castle wall. The street name Am Burgwall reminds of the castle today .

Excavations

Friedrich Lisch carried out the first excavations and measurements on the site from 1839 to 1841. In 1854 the wall was declared a ground monument by a grand ducal decree. Renewed extensive excavations with a cutting length of 52 meters on the south wall and on an area of 1175 m² in front of the castle were carried out in the years 1967-71 under the direction of Peter Donat from the Academy of Sciences .

literature

Friedrich Schlie : The art and history monuments of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Volume II: The district court districts of Wismar, Grevesmühlen, Rehna, Gadebusch and Schwerin. Schwerin 1898, reprint Schwerin 1992, ISBN 3-910179-06-1 , p. 276ff.
Ulrike Sommer : Mecklenburg, the place that gave the country its name. Homilius, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-931121-14-3 .
Joachim Herrmann : The Slavs in Germany. History and culture of the Slavic tribes west of Oder and Neisse from the 6th to 12th centuries. Academy, Berlin 1985.
Peter Donat : The Mecklenburg - a main castle of the Obodrites. Berlin, Academy 1984

Individual evidence

↑ Joachim Henning: The Slavic settlement area and the Ottonian expansion east of the Elbe: history of events, archeology, dendrochronology. In: ders. (Ed.): Europe in the 10th century. Archeology of a New Age. International conference in preparation for the exhibition "Otto the Great, Magdeburg and Europe". von Zabern, Mainz 2002, pp. 131–146, here p. 136.
^ Joachim Herrmann: The Slavs in Germany. History and culture of the Slavic tribes west of Oder and Neisse from the 6th to 12th centuries. Akademie, Berlin 1985, p. 32.
^ Peter Donat : Mecklenburg and Oldenburg in the 8th to 10th centuries. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher. Vol. 110, 1995, ISSN 0930-8229 , pp. 5-20, here p. 11
↑ Jürgen Petersohn : King Otto III. and the Slavs on the Baltic Sea, Oder and Elbe around the year 995. Mecklenburgzug - Slavnikid massacre - Meißen privilege. In: Early Medieval Studies. Vol. 37, 2003, ISSN 0071-9706 , pp. 99-139, especially pp. 106-113.
^ Joachim Herrmann: The Slavs in Germany. History and culture of the Slavic tribes west of Oder and Neisse from the 6th to 12th centuries. Akademie, Berlin 1985, p. 235.

Web links

Commons : Mecklenburg Castle - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

53.837222222222 11.471111111111Coordinates: 53 ° 50 ′ 14 " N , 11 ° 28 ′ 16" E

[1] Joachim Henning: The Slavic settlement area and the Ottonian expansion east of the Elbe: history of events, archeology, dendrochronology. In: ders. (Ed.): Europe in the 10th century. Archeology of a New Age. International conference in preparation for the exhibition "Otto the Great, Magdeburg and Europe". von Zabern, Mainz 2002, pp. 131–146, here p. 136.

[2] Joachim Herrmann: The Slavs in Germany. History and culture of the Slavic tribes west of Oder and Neisse from the 6th to 12th centuries. Akademie, Berlin 1985, p. 32.

[3] Peter Donat : Mecklenburg and Oldenburg in the 8th to 10th centuries. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher. Vol. 110, 1995, ISSN 0930-8229 , pp. 5-20, here p. 11

[4] Jürgen Petersohn : King Otto III. and the Slavs on the Baltic Sea, Oder and Elbe around the year 995. Mecklenburgzug - Slavnikid massacre - Meißen privilege. In: Early Medieval Studies. Vol. 37, 2003, ISSN 0071-9706 , pp. 99-139, especially pp. 106-113.

[5] Joachim Herrmann: The Slavs in Germany. History and culture of the Slavic tribes west of Oder and Neisse from the 6th to 12th centuries. Akademie, Berlin 1985, p. 235.