Marklo

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Marklo ( old Saxon : marka 'border', 'border area', and lôh 'clearing', 'meadow', 'wood', 'grove') was a central meeting place for the pre-Christian Saxons in the 8th century . Only one source reports from Marklo , namely the biography of Saint Lebuin , the Vita Lebuini .

The Marklo assembly in the Vita Lebuini

In the Vita Lebuini it is said that the Saxons had no king. Instead, there were princes (“satrapes”) appointed for individual parts of the country (“pagi”), who met annually in a general assembly (“generale consilium”) to change laws, resolve legal disputes and discuss issues relating to war and peace . The place of this meeting was in the middle of Saxony on the Weser and was named Marklo. At the meeting all “satrapes” were present, as well as twelve chosen nobles (“electi nobiles”) from the individual parts of the country and just as many free people (“liberi”) and just as many latians (“lati”).

During such a meeting, the missionary Lebuin († around 775) appeared among those present and gave them the choice of either accepting the Christian faith and thus being allowed to continue their kingless rule, or being forcibly subjugated by a neighboring king. The Old Saxons revolted against it and drove the missionary from the meeting place.

The prohibition of assembly in the legislation of Charlemagne

The later conqueror of Old Saxony, Charlemagne , restricted the political options of the subjugated by banning their meetings. In Article 34 of the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae - a legal document dated between the years 787 and 803 - the Frankish king forbade all public meetings (generaliter conventus publicos) in Saxony, except for those ordinary court hearings that were initiated by the counts appointed by the king himself (comes ) were held. This provision must also have ended the Marklo meeting.

The Importance of the Marklo Congregation in Historical Research

The Old Saxons did not document themselves in writing. In addition to results from archeology and linguistics, historical research is therefore dependent on contemporary sources from neighboring Christian countries. These predominantly Franconian sources affect Old Saxony mostly indirectly or incidentally. The report on the Marklo assembly is, besides the church history of Beda Venerabilis from the early 8th century, the only written source that provides specific information about the lordship and social conditions of that pre-Christian people. The Marklo report is therefore of outstanding importance on the one hand, but on the other hand offers only a dangerously narrow basis for historical deductions.

In the research literature, the Marklo assembly is often referred to as "the Saxon tribal assembly." It means a general, regularly and centrally meeting institution, similar to a Reichstag or Allthing . Some researchers see - through the interpretation of the Latin word "electi" (chosen, appointed, determined, selected) as "elected by the people" - in the Marklo assembly even a kind of parliament ( M. Lintzel ), which is a part of Germanic history Would be unique.

Other historians, on the other hand, completely reject the idea of ​​the Marklo Assembly because they consider the Vita Lebuini report to be fictitious (M. Springer). They suspect that the Old Saxons only held meetings of the usual pre-Christian Germanic style ( Thing ).

Localization attempts

Since there is no further reference to Marklo than the relevant passage in the Vita Lebuini, which reads "in media Saxonia iuxta fluvium Wisuram ad locum qui dicitur Marclo" (in the middle of Saxony on the Weser near a place called Marklo), it can be derived from the According to tradition, no precise localization can be made.

In the 1930s, when the interest in the Old Saxons and their resistance to the Christian Franks was particularly great in Germany, attempts were made to identify Marklo more precisely using old place names. Probabilities have been claimed for:

  • today's community of Marklohe (near Nienburg). This place expanded its original name from Lohe zu Marklohe in 1931. ⊙
  • the Lohe district of the city of Bad Oeynhausen ⊙ . This assumption could possibly be correct, as is now believed to be the most likely variant. In 1934, the neighboring town of Herford planted a memorial tree near the city limits in honor of Saint Lebuin , who, according to a legend, was hidden there from the Saxons who were persecuting him. ⊙

In this context it should be mentioned that less than 30 km east of Lebuin's actual mission center, the Dutch city of Deventer , there is a place Markelo ( province of Overijssel ), whose name has been attested as Marclo since 1180. ⊙

swell

To Marklo:

  • Anonymous: Vita Lebuini I. Monumenta Germaniae Historica , SS 30.2 [perhaps written 840–862, perhaps only around 900]
  • Hucbald : Vita Lebuini II. [Written 917–930]. Translated by W. Arndt. In: Georg Heinrich Pertz (Hrsg.): The historians of the German prehistoric times. 8th century, volume 2, Berlin 1863.
  • see also: Bede: 5,10. Bede: Church history of the English people. 1982, p. 458 f.

Regarding the legislation of Charlemagne:

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ A. Hunecke, R. Quaschny: Rehme, 1250 years of local and local history . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2003, ISBN 3-89534-465-6 , p. 50 .