Christenberg

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The 387 m high Christenberg (formerly Kesterburg) is a mountain , castle site , former settlement and church location in the castle forest , in the north of today's Marburg-Biedenkopf district in Hesse ( Germany ).

Martinskirche , southeast view

The Christenberg is a red sandstone hill about 2 km (as the crow flies ) east of Münchhausen . On its summit, at the site of the Celtic and later Franconian fortifications, in the middle of a cemetery, stands the Martinskirche. There is also a local restaurant nearby. In the western area of the summit were tumuli found the burial places of the settlements once located on the mountain could be. From the highest point of the Christenberg you can see the cellar forest .

history

Wall and ditch around the Christenberg
Remains of the castle wall from the Frankish period
The so-called south gate on the Christenberg

The Lützelburg: First Celtic settlement

In the late Hallstatt period , the first known settlement was built on an elevation about 500 m northwest of the plateau on the summit of the Christenberg. A Celtic fortification, which is called Lützelburg after the current district name, was built on approx. 1.5 hectares . From this time onwards, there is evidence of a dense settlement in the area around the Christenberg.

Fortification of the mountain plateau

In the early La Tène period (around 420 BC) the Celts took the approximately 3 hectare plateau of the mountain, protected on three sides by slopes and a source of fresh water, on the only easily accessible side facing east a box wall made of tree trunks, earth and stones and later secured by a trench in front of it. Presumably it was the builder of the Lützelburg. Archaeological finds inside the fortification indicate a dense development with wooden buildings. Former stores and storage pits for food were also discovered during the excavation work carried out between 1964 and 1970. Other artifacts point to local handicrafts and connections to Celtic settlements in the Balkans and in present-day Bohemia . Around 200 BC The settlement was abandoned after a fire.

Franconian fort at the time of the Saxon Wars

Only in the time of the Carolingian rule in Franconia was the place fortified again, this time with an enclosing wall and a double wall on the east side. The system was subsequently expanded several times with ramparts, pointed trenches and a round tower in the northwest of the site. Remnants of the wall are still visible today or were partly laid out according to the old route. Finds suggest a primarily military use. The fact that the battle of Laisa and Battenberg took place very close to the Christenberg in 778 during the Saxon Wars supports this thesis.

It is widely assumed that the missionary and later Saint Boniface worked on the Christenberg, but it cannot be proven.

In the 13th century referred to as Kestelburg (1227) in the regests of the Haina monastery , the name changed onomatopoeically to Kestelberg (1240/49), Kesterborg (1309) and Kestirburg (1393), and then (presumably when the church was built) in the 15th century in Crustenberg (1453), Christenburch (1462), Crystenberg (1577) to become today's Christenberg. The Kesterburg, named in the early Middle Ages, is often compared with the Büraburg .

Deanery Kesterburg

The Martinskirche

In 1227 the name "Kesterburg" was first found in a document. From the Middle Ages to 1522, the Kesterberg dean's office of the Archdiocese of Mainz together with a monastery existed as the nucleus of today's district of Münchhausen (formerly Munichehusen , Monchehusen ).

The religiously significant history of the place is probably related to the wrong, folk etymological formation of today's name Christenberg (documented since 1625). “Kesterburg” was probably derived from the Latin castrum = castle. During the time of the Christenberg as a spiritual center, the expansion of the Martinskirche also took place , the previous building of which was built around the turn of the first millennium after Christ.

Martinskirche

Sexton's house

Today's Protestant church made of the locally available red sandstone was built in the Romanesque architectural style and is the successor to a presumably Carolingian church at this point. Its single-nave nave and the defense tower (left background) date from around 1000. The choir building , which closes the nave on the east side, was added in 1520. Another special feature is an outer pulpit on the south side, which was built around 1500. The church is still used today by the parish of Münchhausen for funeral services and a candlestick on Christmas Eve. The church received its St. Martin's patronage very early, probably as early as the 7th century as a predecessor of today's church.

Close to the church there is a historic sexton's house in half-timbered construction , for which previous buildings are also documented. Today it houses a museum run by the Förderkreis Christenberg eV with a permanent exhibition on the history of the Christenberg. The living rooms of the sexton's house can be viewed on the upper floor, as they looked around 1920.

The key to Martinskirche and the historic sexton's house can be borrowed from the Waldgasthaus Christenberg.

The cemetery that extends around the Martinskirche is still used for burials today.

legend

There is a legend that the church on the Christenberg was actually the oldest church in Hesse, and that the pagan Hessians built a temple to the idol Castor and worshiped this god in it , hence the name Kastorburg / Kesterburg. Boniface is said to have preached here and introduced Christianity , to which his footprint about two hundred paces from the church bears witness.

Another legend about King Grünwald deals with the scene of Christenberg as the center of a royal rule and how surrounding places got their names.

swell

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170106101524/http://home.germany.net/100-108816/html/christenbg.html ( Memento from January 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Christenberg, Marburg-Biedenkopf district. Historical local lexicon for Hesse (as of July 12, 2014). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on March 2, 2016 .
  3. ^ Rolf Gensen: Christenberg, Burgwald and Amöneburg Basin in the Merovingian and Carolingian Period, p. 191
  4. ^ Götz J. Pfeiffer: Martin von Tours in Hessen. Traditions, examples and profanations since the Middle Ages (with a catalog) . In: Yearbook of the Hessian Church History Association . tape 68 , 2017, p. 266-282 .
  5. ↑ Waldgasthaus Christenberg ; Retrieved July 4, 2017
  6. ^ Johann Georg Theodor Grasse: Book of sagas of the Prussian state: Second volume , in it: No. 871: Der Christenberg in Oberhessen , new edition of the first edition from 1868/71, Berlin / Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-8430-4534-6 . P. 477
  7. ^ A b Karl Lyncker: Deutsche Sagen und Sitten in Hessischen Gauen , Verlag Oswald Bertram, Kassel 1854, Sage # 266 p. 190 (Bonifazius) / # 225 p. 152 f. (King Grunwald) ( Online )
  8. ↑ King Grünewald , legend with scene Christenberg

literature

  • Hessian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments : Department of Archaeological and Paleontological Preservation of Monuments: The Christenberg near Münchhausen: Guide booklet to the early Celtic castle and the Carolingian Kesterburg in the Burgwald, Marburg-Biedenkopf district (Volume 77 of Archaeological Monuments in Hesse), Verlag der Archäologische Denkmalpflege, 1989.
  • Walter Holzapfel, Armin Weber: Celts and Franks on the Christenberg (ed.) Förderkreis Christenberg eV, Marburg 2013
  • Rolf Gensen: The Christenberg near Münchhausen and its meaning . Special print from: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte, Vol. 18, Marburg 1968.
  • Rolf Gensen: Christenberg, Burgwald and Amöneburg Basin in the Merovingian and Carolingian times . In: Walter Schlesinger (ed.): Althessen im Frankenreich , Vlg. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1975, pp. 121–172.
  • Ulrich Reuling (edit.): Historical local dictionary Marburg . Marburg 1979. ISBN 3-7708-0678-6 , pp. 54-56.

Web links

Commons : Christenberg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 57 '  N , 8 ° 45'  E