Gero von Alsleben

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Gero von Alsleben († August 11, 979 in Magdeburg ) was an East Saxon count who was executed at the instigation of Emperor Otto II after a lost judicial duel .

Gero was probably a nephew of Margrave Gero and married to Adela. With this he had a daughter Adele / Ethela, who later became the wife of Count Siegfried II of Stade . In 979 Gero founded a canonical convent in Alsleben in honor of John the Baptist.

Probably because of disputes over rights and possessions in the districts of Northern Thuringia and Morizani, the Magdeburg Archbishop Adalbert moved an otherwise unknown Waldo to accuse Gero of infidelity to the emperor. Adalbert and Dietrich von Haldensleben had Gero arrested in Sömmeringen. On a farm day in Magdeburg, a judicial duel between Gero and Waldo should decide. Gero lost, but the previously injured Waldo died on the battlefield. At the urging of Adalbert and Dietrich, Gero was sentenced to death by beheading, the punishment of a traitor. The sentence was carried out on August 11, 979. Gero's daughter Athela received her father's severed head from Adalbert only after transferring various goods.

The punishment was regarded by contemporaries as deeply unjust and accordingly caused a great stir. With the son of Liudolf , Otto , the most prominent descendant of the former supporters of Margrave Gero protested to the emperor against the dishonorable sanction. The punishment found a remarkable echo in the medieval chronicles . No fewer than seven chronicles report the event.

swell

  • Robert Holtzmann (Ed.): Thietmari Merseburgensis episcopi chronicon. = The chronicle of Bishop Thietmar von Merseburg and its Korveier revision (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores. 6: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum. Nova Series Vol. 9). Weidmann, Berlin 1935, ( digitized version ).

literature

  • Dietrich Claude : History of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg up to the 12th century. 2 volumes. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1972–1975, (at the same time: Marburg, University, habilitation paper, 1969/1970); Volume 1: The history of the archbishops up to Ruotger (1124) (= Central German research. 67, 1). 1972, ISBN 3-412-90072-9 ;