History of the city of Calbe (Saale)
This article deals with the history of the city of Calbe .
Neolithic
Numerous urns and tools that have been found show that the area around today's town of Calbe (Saale) was settled in prehistoric times. People settled here as early as the Neolithic Age (around 2000 BC) . This was proven above all by the vineyard finds from the Cord Ceramic Culture and the Calbens hoard (house urn culture ) from the early Iron Age (approx. 700 BC) from 1956.
At that time, people settled mainly on the western high bank of the Saale , because there they could take advantage of the river without being exposed to the dangers of the recurring floods . One of the most fertile soils in Europe , the Magdeburg Börde , began here. At the site of the high bank, which was already inhabited in the Neolithic period, was, according to later sources, a sun cult -Stätte that miracle or Troja Castle in the south of modern Calbe. In a spiral corridor that has since disappeared , resurrection and awakening rites were celebrated in spring in honor of the Germanic fertility goddess Ostara . The name Wunderburg has remained to this day.
Great Migration
At the end of the migration period (in the 5th century) the area of Calbe, which at that time was called Northern Thuringia , was settled by the Thuringi (Thuringians), a West Germanic tribe. After the Thuringian empire had been smashed by the politically and socially increasingly dominant Franks in league with the Saxons in 531, the Saxons, with the consent of their allies, settled in the former Thuringian areas and paid an annual tribute for it. The name Nordthüringgau remained for several centuries.
The rule of the Saxons was also ended by the victory of Charlemagne in the Saxon Wars in 804. Even more important than the military subjugation of the Saxons was their moral and ideological commitment to a common faith, Christianity . The first bishop of Halberstadt , Hildegrim , established 35 churches in his district , which were consecrated to the first martyr of the Roman Catholic Church, St. Stephen . One of them, the Carolingian St. Stephen's Basilica, was the predecessor of today's town church in Calbe. With the Franconian hegemony in the 9th century, crystallization nuclei were laid for the settlement that soon followed , especially for the Calbe settlement.
To the east of the Elbe - Saale line lived the tribes of the Slavs , who also belonged to the Indo-Europeans , and where the feudalization process was slower to prevail. They mainly engaged in fishing, breeding of small animals and agriculture. Charlemagne established a system of reinforced security along this natural boundary, a series of administrative and military bases; Royal courts, castles and churches emerged. In 806 Emperor Karl founded the main castles Magdeburg and Halle . In the same year the emperor called an army show in Staßfurt . The Carolingian military road ran between the two castles via Nienburg and Bernburg (Saale) . Royal courts were not only used for administration, but also as stage locations for salvaging the army (inns). One of the economic and political centers in the eastern part of the Frankish Empire was the royal court and the refuge fortress Calvo .
Formation of the city of Calbe
It is very likely that the Carolingian St. Stephen's Basilica was built by Bishop Hildegrim von Chalons from Halberstadt , who died in 827. Since one does not place such a remarkable building in a village or in a desert , but in a place where many people live together, a larger urban settlement must have existed here as early as the beginning of the 9th century.
However, it was only mentioned in a document when, on September 13, 936, King Otto I enfeoffed the St. Servatius nunnery in Quedlinburg with land and 15 serf Wendish families in Frohse and Calbe. In 961 Otto gave the St. Mauritius Monastery in Magdeburg , the later Monastery of Our Dear Women , to pay the tithe that the Germans and Wends, who belonged to the Burgwarden Magdeburg, Frohse, Barby and Calbe and sought protection in their castles, pay had. The castle guard system in the border marks, which was reinforced by Heinrich I, referred to well-secured, contiguous military districts and to refuges. One in nine of the able-bodied men had to live in the castles and prepare for military service. Meetings and festivals of the early inhabitants of Calbe also took place here. The Calbens castle was under the command of the military administrator of the North Thuringia , the notorious Margrave Gero . The castle of Calbe, often referred to as the Sudenburg in later sources , was not a stone building, but probably only had foundation walls and was otherwise built from logs. Such a refuge, which seems rather modest for today's terms, has nothing to do with our ideas of late medieval manor castles. Although there are no findings from the soil today, it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that the Calbens castle was located on the site of the former Nikolai wool blanket factory.
Near the castle, around today's corner of Bernburger Strasse and Neustadt, there was a column and a stone chair, the court of elders, until the 17th century . Here justice was given in the open air. This court consisted of six nobles and six respected arable citizens . This form of jurisprudence apparently came from the time of the beginning of the settlement and formed the basis for the introduction of lay judges in Calbe at the end of the 13th century.
About 300 meters from the castle, a church dedicated to St. Lawrence (Lorenz) was built in the 10th century . This church was one of those churches of triumph and thanksgiving that Otto I had built after his historic victory over the Hungarians on the Lechfeld . On the day of the battle, August 10, 955, which was Laurentius Day, Otto had vowed to erect churches in honor of this saint if he were to win against the Hungarians. In the 10th and 11th centuries there was a real wave of foundations of such St. Churches dedicated to Lawrence . It is quite certain that this church also belongs in this series. Like the town church in Calbens, the St. Laurentii church was first built out of wood. The first Romanesque sandstone Laurentius Church was built in the 12th century. The round apse that still exists may come from this period. The simple church has remained single-nave to this day. A church tower that no longer exists was also there. The original Romanesque sandstone church was about half the size of the present one and a little lower.
In addition, the early Calbe was laid out at a royal court (curtis regia) that had probably existed since Carolingian times. The royal courts formed the economic basis of royalty. There were no capital cities in medieval Germany. The kings, including the emperors, moved from one farmyard to another, mostly staying there in the winter months and traveling with a large court and many armed men in the summer. Thus royal courts also became political centers. The administration of such a royal court was carried out by a maior (Meier) or villicus for the time when the ruler was not in the royal court. This Meier had the task of collecting the taxes of the subservient farmers and organizing the compulsory labor on the royal estate. The first archbishop Meier known by name was the Ministeriale Dietrich von Calbe (1105). During military campaigns, the royal courts were used to rescue their own army. That is why they were heavily fortified with trenches and palisades and constantly provided with provisions for a military unit for several days. In such a courtyard were the "gentlemen's" house, the bakery and brewery, the barns and stables as well as the well. The Curtis regia of Calbe was in the area of today's Ritterstrasse.
In the city's written sources, Calbe is referred to as Calvo (936), Calva (1159), Calve (1234), Calbe (1485). There have been many attempts to interpret the origin of this term. The most obvious explanation, however, is a linguistic-historical explanation: The root of the word calv means in Indo-European (gal) and Old High German (kalwa) simply bare or naked (Latin calvus, Middle High German kalwe). Possibly the populated high bank of the Saale was not forested.
In the 10th century, the language boundary between Low (Low) and High German ran significantly more south than it is today. The higher official language was Neo-Latin, the people and the lower officials spoke and wrote Low German (Low German) until the end of the 15th century.
Ottonian donation
On March 28, 965, however, Emperor Otto gave his royal court in Calbe as well as that in Rosenburg, the St. Mauritius Monastery in Magdeburg with all accessories, both the churches and other buildings, the fields, etc., as well as the mills. This donation was also confirmed by Otto's successors.
When the monastery of Saint Mauritius was elevated to the status of archbishopric in 968 , due to Otto's donation to the royal power, the reign of the archbishops and Protestant administrators, which lasted more than 700 years, began not only over, but also in Calbe after a relatively short period of time , because the newly acquired, now no longer royal, but archbishop's property enjoyed increasing popularity among the clergymen as a secondary residence next to Magdeburg . Since the archbishop's palace was not built until the beginning of the 14th century, the archbishop's seat was in the area of Ritterstrasse in the 10th to 13th centuries.
The deed of donation from 965 also shows the existence of another important building from the Middle Ages, the Saale watermill , which initially belonged to the royal court and the city. In order to hold back the water to drive the wheels in front of the mill, a weir , the so-called dam , was built. But the weir was not enough. The water accelerated to drive the mill wheels had to be returned to the river. This happened through the mill ditch to the left of the Saale. The Saale shipping was no longer possible because of the artificial dam at this point. Therefore, a possibility to circumnavigate was created in front of the weir. This happened to the right of the Saale through a flood channel , later through several locks .
Monastery of God's grace
→ Main article Collective monastery of God's grace at Calbe , God's grace
In the 11th century Calbe consolidated more and more as a town, regular annual fairs were held on the market square , which at that time was still on the terrain in front of today's red brick post office. In 1131 the reform monastery Gratia Dei (God's grace) was founded by the Premonstratensians on a small elevation on the eastern bank of the Saale directly next to the city . It owed its founding to Count Otto von Reveningen , who had it built at the instigation of the Archbishop of Magdeburg , Norbert von Xanten , and who brought in part of his goods. The count originally wanted to found the monastery on his property in Mansfeld . But that would not have fitted into Norbert's strategic concept. At his urgent request, Otto chose the elevated east bank of the Saale near Calbe. Together they laid the foundation stone in what was then a swampy and wooded area that was almost uninhabited. Otto von Reveningen had acquired this land by exchange, as Norbert had wished. In 1151 the monastery got the mill on the Calber weir, which originally belonged to the townspeople and the royal court, as well as various houses, churches and villages in the vicinity of King Konrad III that were subject to rent and interest . as a gift, which King Friedrich I Barbarossa confirmed again in 1153.
Stone cross in Calbe
The Calbe Stone Cross is located in front of house number 89 on Nienburger Strasse in Calbe. The weathered stone cross is 158 cm high, 104 cm wide and 18 cm deep. It is interpreted as an atonement or murder cross .
Since Germanic times there has been the possibility of atonement between the families of the victim and the perpetrator in killings to prevent blood revenge. Such atonement agreements can be traced in the history of Calber: For example, the landlord Cone from Groß-Salze ( Schönebeck (Elbe) ) and his brother-in-law, who enfeoffed with an estate in Brumby , Kaspar Homburgh appeared on the one hand and from the injured party Jacob and Heyne Rinth, relatives of Steffen Rinth who was slain by Cone. Both parties reached a settlement in which Cone paid 30 shock (1800) groschen to the Rinth party , a sum for which one got a house in 1473. In return, the victim's party pleaded not to direct any further claims against the Cone party and not to prosecute them any further.
There is an old, unproven legend about the atonement cross in Nienburger Strasse that a knight killed a serf shepherd because he wanted to prevent him from exercising his master's right the first night ( jus primae noctis ). For this act, the knight had to set up the atonement cross. The legend cannot be proven in terms of sources and is to be seen as an analogy to similar related legends .
South of Calbe there is said to have been one and three other such crosses in the Schlossstrasse in Calbe.
Web links
Quoted from and edited from: Steinmetz, Dieter H., History of the city of Calbe an der Saale - A demolition - From the beginnings to 1918; http://de.oocities.com/calbegeschichte/
literature
General
- Chronicles of German Cities, (series of publications since 1862), vol. 27.
- The district of Calbe - Ein Heimatbuch, ed. von Wickel, Werner / Thinius, Otto, Leipzig 1937.
- Haevecker [Hävecker], Johann Heinrich, Chronica and description of the cities of Calbe, Acken and Wantzleben as well as the Closter Gottes Gnade…, Halberstadt 1720 [reprint 1897].
- Herrfurth, Klaus, royal court and merchant settlement of the city of Calbe an der Saale, in: Castles and Palaces in Saxony-Anhalt (communications from the Saxony-Anhalt regional group of the German Castle Association), issue 12.
- Hertel , Gustav, History of the City of Calbe on the Saale, Berlin / Leipzig 1904.
- Kinderling, Johann Friedrich August , A description of the town of Calbe a. S. in the years 1796–1799 (Kinderling'sches manuscript), published by Max Dietrich, Calbe 1908.
- Reccius, Adolf, Chronik der Heimat (documented news about the history of the district town of Calbe and its immediate surroundings), Calbe / Saale 1936.
- Rocke, Gotthelf Moritz, history and description of the town of Calbe an der Saale, 1874.
- City book Calbe, in: Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt , Magdeburg Department, Cop. 406 b.
- Steinmetz, Dieter H., From the royal court Caluo 936 to the district town of Calbe 1919 - history of a central German town from the beginnings to the foundation of the Weimar Republic, Magdeburg / Calbe / S. 2010.
- Team of authors, Mühlenland Saxony-Anhalt, part 10: The mill location Calbe / Saale, which is over a thousand years old, Matters-Anhalt-Journal 2020, Issue 1, pp. 20–24.
To the stone cross
- Max Dietrich, Calbens Resting Places , (Calbe) 1894.
- Johann Heinrich Hävecker : Chronica and description of the cities Calbe, Acken and Wantzleben . Halberstadt 1720 ( online ).
- Gustav Hertel: History of the city of Calbe on the Saale . Hermann Hilger Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig 1904.
- Adolf Reccius: Chronicle of the home . Documented news about the history of the district town of Calbe and its vicinity. Verlag Otto Doppel, Calbe / Saale 1936.