Largau

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Largau
The Duchy of Saxony around the year 1000
Largau
Duchy of Saxony around the year 1000
The approximate location of the Largau

The Largau was a medieval district in the Duchy of Saxony , which stretched to the left of the Weser between approximately Drakenburg and the mouth of the Huntes .

Limits

Largau (" Lara ") and the surrounding districts in the tribal duchy of Saxony around 1000

The Gesta Hammaburgensis of Adam of Bremen from the year 1050 and the (but counterfeit) of incorporation of the archbishopric Bremen According to the boundary of the Largaus ran along the Weser from the Hunte- to about the Allermündung, then along the Hesse path (about the current Federal Highway 215) and through the moors northeast of Nienburg past Wölpe and Drakenburg to a Weserfurt near Sebbenhausen , from there along a country road that is no longer recognizable today, the Folkweg (or Folwec ), through the Syker Geest to Wildeshausen an der Hunte and along this river to again to its mouth. Neighboring in the west were the Lerigau , in the northwest, on the left the Hunte, the Ammergau , in the northeast, on the right the Weser, the Gau Wigmodi , in the east, near Verden, the Sturmigau and in the south Entergau , Derwegau and Grindergau .

Origin, history and survival

In the Gesta Hammaburgensis it is mentioned that when the archbishopric of Bremen was founded at the end of the 8th century, ten older Saxon tribal districts were amalgamated and subordinated to the archbishop as provinciae under the names Wigmodia and Largau . Wigmodien combined the territories east of the Weser, the Largau (also: Lorgoe , Laargowe or Latin pagus lara ) those west of it. In the High Middle Ages, the name Steiringau was also used as another name for the Largau or its northern part , while the Syker Geest and the parts of the Entergau to the south also appear in the documents as terra antiquorum saxonum ("Land of the old Saxons"). It is possible that these names go back to older Saxon tribal districts.

The first reliable news about the area is known from the Vita Willehadi , a mid-9th century report on the life of the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willehad , who later became the first Archbishop of Bremen. In the year 860, numerous miraculous healings are said to have taken place at Willehad's grave , to which many localities in the Bremen area owe their name to the first mention, since the places of residence of the healed and the district in which the village is located are also mentioned. Here you can find the information pagus lara , in lara , de laris etc.

The claim that the districts were initially directly subordinate to the archbishop is apparently connected with the efforts of Adalbert of Bremen in the 11th century to gain possession of the royal county rights in his archbishopric. It is more likely that the Gau was administered from the beginning by royal counts , whose names can no longer be deduced from the sources. From the 10th to the 12th century, the county rights in Largau were held partly by the Counts of Stade , partly by the Billungers , who based their ducal power on several Comitate in Engern , whose exact boundaries are no longer known. The heir of both sexes was Heinrich the Lion , who maintained a castle in Weyhe in Largau during the dispute with the Archbishop of Bremen in 1166/67.

After Heinrich's fall and the splitting up of the Saxon duchy, the Counts of Bruchhausen (older line) first appeared around 1200 as exempt counts in the western part of the Largau, whose name was no longer in use at that time. His area goes into the newly emerging territorial counties Oldenburg , Diepholz , Bruchhausen , Delmenhorst and above all Hoya ; Parts of it remained with the Bremer Erzstift itself or the Diocese of Verden . Since the Hoya Lower County encompassed a large part of the former Largau, one could even speak of a certain continuity into the late 20th century, when the County of Hoya was dissolved in the course of Lower Saxony's district reform in 1977 and the traditional political borders were thus finally removed.

Events

Largau itself has not acquired any significance beyond its function as a temporary administrative unit, but many significant events in the regional history of Northwest Germany took place at least partially within its borders or began there. For example, the ancient Tulifurdon , mentioned by Ptolemy , was located here; later, Wildeshausen, as Widukind's birthplace, plays a role in the Saxony uprising of 782. The fights between Heinrich the Lion and Bremen, the crusade against the Stedinger , the Bremen count feud against Count Gerhard III. von Hoya (1351–1359) or the Battle of Drakenburg , in which the Protestant side won a final victory in the Schmalkaldic War in 1547 , are further examples.

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm von Hodenberg : The diocese of Bremen and its districts in Saxony and Friesland . Hanover 1858.
  2. ↑ v. Ompteda: Thedinghausen Castle and its area . In: Journal of the Historical Association for Lower Saxony . Hanover 1865, p. 151-356 .