Gunzenle
The Gunzenle (Gunzenlê, also Gunzenlee ) was a historically significant and legendary hill on the Lechfeld on the east bank of the Lech , a few kilometers south of Augsburg . A flood of the Lech eroded it in the 15th century, so that its location can no longer be precisely determined.
It was a meeting place for the German Empire on the border between Bavaria and Swabia . In 955, the battle of the Lechfeld , in which the Imperial Army defeated the Hungarians , was fought near the presumed prehistoric burial mound .
On May 29, 1127, on the Gunzenlê, the Welf married Heinrich the Stolze , Duke of Bavaria since 1126 , and Gertrud of Saxony , the only daughter of King Lothar III. (Lothar von Supplinburg ).
History and function
The Gunzenlê was possibly originally a particularly powerful Hallstatt burial mound, which was an important landmark in the flat Lechfeld. Remains of an extensive late Celtic burial mound field have been preserved northwest of Kissing , or have been proven by aerial archeology (Otto Braasch). Even during the early Middle Ages , high-ranking personalities were buried again in burial mounds, such as Childerich I the King of the Salf Franks (482).
The ending “lê” (raised, piled up) indicates such a burial mound, probably from the Hallstatt period. Numerous examples of such burial sites have been preserved in the vicinity. One of the largest preserved grave fields of this kind is in the Heilachwald between Kissing and Bachern. Comparable mounds have a base diameter of up to 50 m and are often five to six meters high.
Some historians assumed a later function of the Gunzenlê as a thing or thing place. Such popular and judicial assemblies cannot be substantiated in the sources at this location.
Whether the Hungarians had already set up camp here before the battle on the Lechfeld remains speculative. In the Middle High German heroic epic " Biterolf and Dietleib ", the area around the hill already served the Huns as a storage and assembly point:
The Huns properly you seem ,
like sy vbers Lech should komen .
Hostel het jn da taken
the marschalck at the Guntzen le ...
On the way back, the warriors of King Etzel are said to have rested here again:
Untz to the Guntzen le,
since sy come together ee
The area around the burial mound was even used as a resting place by Charlemagne several times. In the first years of his reign the ruler "still adhered to the nomadic habits of his predecessors" ( Rudolf Pörtner ).
In the High Middle Ages , the Gunzenle served several times as a storage place for the German emperors on their Italian trains . The flat Lechfeld near the city of Augsburg provided enough pasture and drinking water. Important Roman and medieval road links ran nearby. So in 1236 Frederick II moved from here (apud Gunzenle in castris) across the Alps . The area was also used several times as a meeting place at court days among the Guelphs and Staufers .
From May 22nd to 29th, 1127, the wedding celebrations of Heinrich the proud and the emperor's daughter Gertrude took place here. In 1197 Duke Philip of Swabia married the Byzantine Emperor's daughter Irene am Gunzenle. A ceremonial sword fair was held on this occasion , during which numerous warriors were raised to knights .
In 1264 the Staufer Konradin “apud Augustam in campo Lici in Guncenlen” issued a letter of protection for the citizens of Augsburg.
With the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, the Italian policy of the German emperors ended. The Gunzenlê lost its former importance as an army camp and assembly point. Probably, however, Rupprecht of the Palatinate moved again from here to Italy in 1401 ("... with us at the hostel sin umbe Augspurg off the Lech", letter of invitation to the imperial estates).
location
The exact location of this medieval meeting place has been discussed and argued a lot in the past. Local historians from the surrounding communities of Augsburg, Friedberg , Kissing and Mering tried to locate the Gunzenlê in their hometowns. In the contemporary sources, however, it is not directly related to any of these places. It only appears as a border stamp in the Friedberger Salbuch of 1420.
Small remains of a "Gunzenbühel" have survived west of the Munich – Augsburg railway line at the Schwabhof near Hochzoll . This replacement hill is said to have been raised by the citizens of the city of Friedberg only after the original Gunzenlê was lost.
A piece of land in the area of the Schwabhof (west of the railway line between the Schwabhof and Gut Lindenau) bears the name "Hoher-Berg-Acker". The aerial photo archeology was able to prove an oval moat of an unknown time position next to the railway line. The rear part of the ground monument was washed away by a flood. Immediately in front of the moat, a section of a Roman road crosses the rails. A burial mound emerges as the third site monument, which, however, is partially overlapped by the road. This burial mound could be identical to the "hill with the three crosses" mentioned in some older sources.
The historic Gunzenlê fell victim to the numerous floods and relocations of the then still unregulated Lech in the 15th century. In 1435, the snowmelt is said to have been unusually strong and lasted until July.
In 1968 some large sandstone blocks were found west of the settlement of St. Afra (Mering), which when put together resulted in a stone seat. Such seats have been documented or preserved in some medieval meeting places. The Gunzenlê could actually have been a thing place. A few hundred meters to the northeast there is evidence of an earthwork of unknown time. The "Kesselboden" between the place where the stone seat was found and the current settlement would be well suited as a flood-free high tuff camp as a storage and meeting place. The royal court of Mering, from which the Gunzenlê could have been well supplied, was located nearby.
Sometimes the very well-preserved high medieval tower hill castle south of Altkissing ( Burgstall Kissing ) is associated with the Gunzenlê. A function of the noble gentlemen von Kissing as administrators or protectors of the meeting place can certainly not be completely ruled out. In the 19th century the mighty tower hill was even mistaken for the Gunzenlê himself. The Kissinger chronicler and vicar Matthias Graf even wanted to identify the Kirchberg upstream to the north as a location.
A possible protective function for the Gunzenlê could have been exercised by the large Guelph castle complex Mergenthau , whose ramparts were still partially preserved around the baroque castle estate. The castle is located directly next to a presumed early medieval Hungarian defense castle ( ring wall in Ottmaringer wood ) on the Lechleite southeast of Kissing.
However, all these attempts to determine the location must remain speculative in the absence of meaningful archaeological findings. The relevant home literature on this is consistently strongly influenced by local patriotism and is not always objective. Even the great battle of Hungary in 955 has not yet been archaeologically proven in this area.
literature
- Matthias Graf, Adelheid Hoechstetter-Müller: History of the Hofmark Kissing an der Paar - a local historical study (revised and edited by Adelheid Hoechstetter-Müller). Augsburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-89639-632-7
- G. Kreuzer: The court days of the kings in Augsburg in the early and high Middle Ages. In: Pankraz Fried (Ed.): Bavarian-Swabian State History at the University of Augsburg 1975-1977 . Sigmaringen 1979
- Martin Schallermeir: The Gunzenle was on Meringer soil . In: Mering - From the past and the present . Mering 1983
- Erich Unglaub: The Gunzenle . In: Kissing - past and present . Kissing 1983