Karlskirchen

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Karlskirchen or Kalkskirchen is a desert area about 2.5 km north of the city of Gudensberg in northern Hesse . The place was first mentioned in a document in 1270, but ceramics from around 800 were found there. In 1270, Landgrave Heinrich I decisively defeated a Westphalian army near Karlskirchen. The place was probably owned by a noble family: In March 1293 a Heinrich von Karlskirchen ( Karleskinhusen ) appears as a witness in a deed of ownership from the von Meysenbug to the monastery Haina . And in 1352 a Johan von Karliskirchin is mentioned as an altarist at the St. Petri collegiate church in Fritzlar .

According to Wigand Gerstenberg , Charlemagne won a victory against the Saxons here and built a church in thanks, the "Karlskirche". The church was then parish church of a parish that Karl churches and the wild places today Lange Venne , means Venne and Ritter Venne included. Since the population considered both the nearby Odenberg and the Scharfenstein to be the residences of the old, pagan gods, the Karlskirche became a place of pilgrimage for the pagan inhabitants of the region. A horse's hoof print, a so-called horse bustard , carved on a stone block built into the church wall, was considered an imprint of Wodan's or Karl's horse and was venerated. According to legend, Charlemagne, whose army was thirsty, gave his white horse so hard the spurs that the horse stomped violently on the ground, loosening a stone from the rock that left a hoof print. Where the stone had loosened, a fresh spring gushed , the Glisborn , from which the soldiers could refresh themselves.

With the introduction of the Reformation in Hesse under Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous in 1526, idolatry was finally forbidden and the Karlskirche was demolished as a refuge for paganism. Years later, the stone with the horse's footprint reappeared in the churchyard wall at the "Old Cemetery" in Gudensberg and is still there today.

literature

  • Georg Landau : The Karlskirche. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Vol. 2, 1840, pp. 281-286 .

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ Georg Landau: Description of the Electorate of Hesse. Theodor Fischer, Kassel, 1842, p. 226 .
  2. ↑ https://www.archivportal-d.de/item/PIIWPHYW6GIOEXW2COCDRWZBDO62EZL4?rows=20&offset=80&viewType=list&_=1528645372115&hitNumber=88
  3. ^ Georg Landau: The Karlskirche. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Vol. 2, 1840, p. 284
  4. ↑ The myth of the horse bustard goes back to Wodan's water-spitting gray horse Sleipnir , who threw off his horseshoe.

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 52 "  N , 9 ° 22 ′ 14"  E