Loermund

Kreuzberg chapel on the Loermund

The Loermund ( spoken : Lörmund) is a ridge in the village of Sichtigvor (town of Warstein , Sauerland , North Rhine-Westphalia ), on which there is a rampart and moat from probably different times. Today there is a chapel on the mountain as the end of a way of the cross that leads up the mountain. The Wallburg Loermund was entered on November 29, 1989 under B IV 1 in the list of monuments of the city of Warstein as a ground monument.

description

View of the Loermund from the commander

The ring wall system of the Loermund is located on a western branch of the Ochsenrücken, in the corner of the mouth between Möhne and Riemecke. A distinction must be made between a smaller, high-medieval complex and a significantly older wall system.

The high medieval castle - the location of the Kreuzberg chapel - is separated from the larger complex by a deep ditch . There are no walls on the west side, here the natural division of the terrain is sufficient as an obstacle to the approach. The material from the neck ditch was poured onto the slope, the cones of rubble can still be seen today. The eight to ten meter deep ditch separates an approximately 0.2 hectare castle square from the rest of the ring wall. Another wall with a moat is located 35 meters to the east. The Wallende start at the terrace edges. This rampart possibly marks the core area of the old castle. The eastern end is formed by two more ramparts. The old access to the castle is unclear. Possibly there was a path on the south side, then there would be a gate with "overlapping walls".

The Kreuzberg Chapel was built in 1890. Before that, a wooden way of the cross was built on Loermund in 1845, which was replaced by sandstone crosses in 1865.

Research history Loermund

upstream ramparts NE side

The Wallburg on the Loermund appears as early as 1888 in K. Mummenthei's "First Directory of Earth and Stone Monuments of the Southern Region". In 1906 investigations and excavations are carried out in the Wallburg by E. Hartmann. C. Schuchardt and E. Hartmann interpreted the excavated hill fort as the Castellum / Praesidium Baduliki mentioned by various early historians ( Hrotsvit von Gandersheim , Widukind von Corvey , continuator of Regino von Prüm ) . In 1920 a new plan appears with a two-page comment by F. Biermann and JH Schmedding in the atlas of prehistoric fortifications in Westphalia. Even these authors speak out against equating the Wallburg on Loermund with the Belecke Castle . The observation of pointed trenches in the old town of Belecke in the 30s and 40s can be taken as evidence of an early Belecke castle, the equation of Loermund and Baduliki thus became archaeologically invalid.

Philipp R. Hömberg briefly mentions the Wallburg on Loermund in two works from the 1970s. Most recently there is a short summary from his pen in the 2001 “Guide to Archaeological Monuments. Soest district ”. His father - Albert K. Hömberg - had drawn attention to a possible historical background: In a recording from the 12th century, the Archbishop of Cologne claims the following area as Ostervvalt - Osterwald - for himself:

Ostervvalt tota silua pertinet ad beatum Petrum, icipiens a loco, qui dicitur Nezzelvvinkel per dotalem mansum in Odakker transiens in locum, qui dicitur Lininchusen et unde in flumen Rurem et inde in flumen, quod dicitur Almana.

Odacker Monastery can be clearly identified, there are also indications for Lininchusen (in the Ruhr valley near Enste ), only Nezzelwinkel remains open, which is to be sought as an extension of the Lininchusen - Odacker points. The assumption put forward by H. Schoppmeier and K. Süggeler, based on B. Kraft and Johann Suibert Seibertz , that the ´Netzewinkel´ was a few hundred meters west of the Wallburg is unlikely. The Nezzelwinkel of the boundary description does not mean a hunting facility (setting up nets), but - if the linguistic criteria are observed - an area covered with nettles . In addition, Nezzelwinkel is to be expected east of the Wallburg, between Mülheim and Belecke. One possibility of localization could therefore be in the Möhnetal , directly west of Welschenbeck Castle . This corridor is called ´Alte Hof´, which is a sure sign of a deserted area , a lost courtyard.

New questions

During the excavations at the beginning of the century, remains of prehistoric pottery were found, but no importance was attached to them. New knowledge about the multi-period use of height reinforcements has only led to a different understanding of these systems in recent years. It turned out that just in the Neolithic , in the 4th to 3rd millennium BC, Wall systems were built both on the plain and on spur and summit locations of the mountains.

Well-known examples of earthworks in the plain are Salzkotten - Oberntudorf and Soest (in the middle of today's city center). Exemplary examples of spurs in Neolithic earthworks are the Oldenburg on the Fürstenberg near Neheim-Hüsten , as well as the facility near Büren - Brenken . For some of these facilities today, in addition to a possibly existing practical function, the function as a cultic center is seen above all. In this way, otherwise difficult to explain findings could be interpreted as remains of victim dumping. In the Michelsberg culture - approx. 4200-3500 BC BC - the spur fortifications, for example, seem to have actually been built for defensive purposes. There are indications of prolonged settlement, of destruction by fire, and of fighting. The earthworks located in the plain from this period show no traces of settlement and are strategically unfavorable. These seem to be meeting places.

The fact that the Wallburg on the Loermund also produced - unspecified - Neolithic ceramics may point in this direction. According to this, the ramparts and ditches that can be observed today would be early and high medieval, but there are some indications that the ridge was regularly visited by people several millennia earlier.

Philipp R. Hömberg assumes that the facility will be used for the first time later. The shards and the possibly existing gate with overlapping wall ends could indicate that the Loermund was first used in the pre-Roman Iron Age.

History of hill fort research in Westphalia

The history of Westphalian hill fort research is closely linked to the history of the Antiquities Commission for Westphalia , which was founded in 1897 and saw the research of the numerous Westphalian hill castles as one of its main goals. Initially, the main question was what role the ramparts played in the Roman-Germanic conflicts. (A question that still plays an important role in numerous works by amateur historians on the Varus battle to this day.)

In 1906 a special Atlas Commission was founded within the Antiquities Commission, which was supposed to promote the development and publication of an atlas of the Westphalian hill fortifications (based on the Lower Saxony model). The intensive work showed the first results: the pre-Roman Iron Age , the time around the birth of Christ and the early Middle Ages (disputes between Franconia and Saxony ) were recognized as the main periods of use of the ramparts in Westphalia .

In 1920 the atlas of prehistoric fortifications in Westphalia was published. 16 castles were presented, including the Wallburg on the Loermund. In the following period this project stalled. After the Second World War, attempts were made to get back to work. But that also failed in the end. One reason for this is the large and still increasing number of systems to be processed. The first list recorded around 150 systems, in 1962 there were already more than 600. In 1972, Philipp R. Hömberg dealt extensively with a large number of Westphalian hill castles in his dissertation "Investigations on the prehistoric ramparts of Westphalia".

A small series of “Early Castles in Westphalia” has been published since 1983, which in a sense seeks to continue the failed atlas project in a popular scientific form and divided into individual issues. The last detailed occupation with walled castles is the exhibition and the accompanying book “Behind Locks and Bars” from 1997.

Destruction and development of the Wallburg

In 2014, 2015 and 2017 the outer wall was broken through by forest machines in several places. As early as 1991 and increasingly from 2007, the ramparts were damaged several times by forestry work with forest machines, despite the existing access roads. As a lower monument authority , the city of Warstein initiated a fine procedure against the owner.

In 2016, three million euros from the EU LEADER funding pot for the municipalities of Warstein, Geseke, Erwitte , Anröchte and Rüthen were released by the Arnsberg district government . The Loermund Wallburg is to be developed for tourism from this funding.

Reading list

To the castle

F. Biermann; JH Schmedding: The Wallburg on the Loermund near Sichtigvor on the Möhne. In: Atlas of prehistoric fortifications in Westphalia . Münster 1920, pp. 12-13
Torsten Capelle : Wall castles in Westphalia-Lippe. Published by the Antiquities Commission for Westphalia, Münster 2010 ISSN 0939-4745 , p. 1 no. IV ( Early Castles in Westphalia special volume 1 ).
A. Hartmann: The Wallburg on the Loermund near Sichtigvor. In: Sauerländischer Gebirgsbote 15 (1907), pp. 41–43; 55-58; 78-79; 123-126; 147-149; 188; 207-209
Under lock and key. Castles and fortifications in Westphalia. Book accompanying the exhibition. Edited by the Westphalian Museum of Archeology. Munster 1997
Philipp R. Hömberg : Investigations on prehistoric ramparts in Westphalia. Dissertation Münster 1972
Philipp R. Hömberg: Prehistoric and early historical ramparts in the Arnsberg area. Arnsberg 1975 (= urban history series of publications on the city of Arnsberg)
Philipp R. Hömberg:? In: The Soest district . Stuttgart 2001, pp. 229–231 (= Guide to Archaeological Monuments in Germany , Vol. 39)
K. Mummenthei: First directory of the earth and stone monuments of the southern region. Hagen 1888

On the historical background

Stefan Enste: 725 years of the city of Warstein? In: SüdWestfalen Archiv 1, 2001, pp. 42–70
Ralf Günther: The Arnsberg Forest in the Middle Ages. Forest history as constitutional history. Munster 1994
Albert K. Hömberg : The Carolingian-Ottonian ramparts of the Sauerland in a historical perspective. In: Between the Rhine and the Weser. Essays and lectures on the history of Westphalia . Münster 1967, pp. 80–113 (note pp. 253–268)
Heinrich Schoppmeier, Kaspar Süggeler: The history of the communities Sichtigvor, Mühlheim, Waldhausen. Balve 1968