Norman Battle 880
| date | February 880 |
|---|---|
| place | Northern Germany |
| output | norman victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Troop strength | |
| unknown | unknown |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown |
At the Battle of the Normans in February 880, a Viking army destroyed a contingent consisting primarily of Saxony under the leadership of the Liudolfinger Brun .
history
After the Danish Normans (Norsemen = Vikings) plundered and burned Hamburg ( Hammaburg ) in 845 and the archbishop's seat there had been moved from Hamburg to Bremen , the Saxon northern Germany remained undisturbed by their raids under Ludwig the German . From their permanent camps in Friesland , Danish Vikings devastated the Rhine - Moselle region and the western Franconia , where towns and monasteries promised richer booty than in eastern Franconia Saxony.
In 880 a strong Danish Viking fleet invaded the area on the Lower Elbe . Since the East Franconian King Ludwig III. the younger could not lead the army himself, he transferred the supreme command of the army raised in his name to Brun. Ludwig III. himself concluded the Treaty of Ribemont with his West Franconian cousins at the same time, which brought him control of Lotharingia, and fought against the Normans on the Lower Scheldt. The election of Ludwig III. fell on Brun because he was the queen's brother. The battle ended with a defeat of the Saxon contingent, which amounted to a catastrophe. Brun, the bishops Theoderich von Minden and Markward von Hildesheim as well as eleven other named counts and all who followed them lost their lives. The Fulda Annals name the names of Counts Wigmann, Bardo, another Bardo, a third Bardo, Thiotheri, Gerich, Luiutolf, Folcwart, Avan, Thiotric and Liuthar. Many survivors were captured.
consequences
Archbishop Rimbert of Bremen sacrificed the majority of his fortune and sold parts of the Bremen church treasure to buy the prisoners free. The marrow east of the Lower Elbe was lost. The exact location of the battle - in the Lüneburg Heath or near Stade - is not certain.
Afterwards, despite this victory, Vikings did not undertake any similar incursions in Saxony for more than a century (until 994).
swell
- Annales Fuldenses (Franconian Reichsannalen) for the year 880, in: Reinhold Rau, Hg .: Sources for the Carolingian history of the empire. Third part, Darmstadt 1969, pp. 110-114.
- Adam von Bremen : Bishop's History of the Hamburg Church , in: Werner Trillmich: Sources of the 9th and 11th Centuries on the History of the Hamburg Church and the Reich, Darmstadt 1978, 210
literature
- Matthias Becher: The Saxon Duchy after Widukind von Corvey. in: Steffen Patzold, Steffen, Anja Rathmann-Lutz, Volker Scior (eds.): Concepts of history: images, texts and terms from the Middle Ages. Festschrift for Hans-Werner Goetz on his 65th birthday. Böhlau. Wien, Köln, Weimar 2012, pp. 102–152, here pp. 106–107.