Old Sarum

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Icon tools.svg This article or section was due to content flaws on the quality assurance side of the editorial history entered. This is done in order to bring the quality of the articles in the field of history to an acceptable level. Articles that cannot be significantly improved are deleted. Please help fix the shortcomings in this article and please join the discussion !
Old Sarum, 2010

Old Sarum is the oldest settlement Salisbury ( Wiltshire , England ), and one of the oldest appearing in the records of England. There are indications that the place dates back to 3000 BC. Was inhabited. Old Sarum is located on a hill about three kilometers north of modern Salisbury, on the western side of the road that leads to Stonehenge , about 10 kilometers away . The current name appears to be a corruption of the medieval Latin and Norman forms of the name Salisbury, such as Sarisburie , which was recorded in the Domesday Book . It is managed by English Heritage and is open to the public. Old Sarum was the most notorious of the rotten boroughs , which once sent two MPs to Parliament with seven eligible voters, all of whom were not settled there .

history

Ring wall

Old Sarum at the time of the Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons

Sir Richard Colt Hoare , an 18th-century English historian who published the results of William Cunnington's excavation at Stonehenge, described Old Sarum as "a city of high note in the remotest periods by the several barrows near it, and its proximity to the two large largest Druidical temples in England, namely, Stonehenge and Avebury "(German:" the nearby a city, burial mounds and the neighborhood of the two largest Druids to judge -Tempeln in England, namely Stonehenge and Avebury after, in early times a enjoyed a high reputation ”.) As far as we know today, Stonehenge was built long before the time of the Celtic Druids, although this was not known at the time.

In the second half of the first century BC Old Sarum probably belonged to the area of ​​the Atrebates , a tribe of the Belgians originally native to Gaul , who moved to Britain after the Roman conquest of Gaul by Caesar . After the Roman conquest of Britain in the first century AD, Old Sarum was located at the intersection of two Roman roads and there was probably a smaller Roman settlement called Sorviodunum at the foot of the hill .

Old Sarum was a fort at the strategic point where two trade routes and the Avon River met. The fort was oval in shape and measured approximately 405 m in length and 360 m in width. It consisted of a single circular wall and a moat. The entrance was at the east end. Old Sarum was granted privileges under Roman law under the name Sorbiodunum . The King of Wessex , Cynric , is said to have conquered Old Sarum in 552. Under Anglo-Saxon rule, it became one of the most handsome cities in the western Anglo-Saxon kingdom and soon after the Saxons converted to Christianity it owned several ecclesiastical institutions. At the beginning of the 9th century, the city was often used as a residence by Egbert von Wessex . King Edgar convened the National Council in Old Sarum in 960 to find a way to throw the Danes back north.

The writer and cleric Peter of Blois (1125–1203) described Old Sarum as “barren, dry, and solitary, exposed to the rage of the wind; and the church (stands) as a captive on the hill where it was built, like the ark of God shut up in the profane house of Baal "(German:" öd, dry, and standing alone, exposed to the fury of the wind; and the church (stands) like a prisoner on the hill on which it was built, like the Ark of God when it was locked in Baal's ungodly house ”).

The time after the Norman conquest of England

Model of Old Sarum in the 12th century

After the Norman conquest of England , the city was named Salisberie after the count who received the area . He had a wooden castle built with a moat. In 1075 the construction of a cathedral and a palace for the bishop began. In 1092 the construction of the two buildings was completed. However, the cathedral burned down again just five days later. In 1100 a stone keep (see Motte ) was built. In 1190 a replacement cathedral was completed. There were five ramparts, four in the city and one in the castle, mainly designed to support the garrison and residents in case of war or siege.

In 1086 William the Conqueror gathered prelates , nobles , sheriffs and knights of his new domain to be paid homage there. The feudal law may also have been passed, since the Domesday Book began that same year . Two other national assemblies were held in Old Sarum: one by Wilhelm II in 1096 and one by Henry I in 1116 .

The decline of Old Sarum and the rise of Salisbury

Remains of the medieval castle complex

After all, in Old Sarum there was a lack of space for new buildings. In addition, the water supply at the top of the hill was taxed, which created a bad situation for the residents of the city. Since the cathedral and the castle were in close proximity to each other and their respective responsible persons regularly discussed, a change of location of one of the large buildings was inevitable. In 1220, Bishop Richard Poore began building a new cathedral on the banks of the Avon , around which a new settlement gradually emerged. When New Sarum came into being, Old Sarum's demise was inevitable. The new settlement was originally called New Sarum and was later named Salisbury . In 1217 the residents of Old Sarum left the city and built new houses in New Sarum with the building materials they had brought with them. Old Sarum was deserted and crumbling. As the new city got bigger and bigger and more and more people lived in it, the other one fell into disrepair. Nothing is left of the buildings, but visitors can easily see the outline of the old castle and cathedral.

Since the reign of Edward II , Old Sarum has elected two members to the House of Commons , despite the fact that there have been no resident voters since the 17th century at the latest. One of those elected was William Pitt the Elder , who was Prime Minister in the 18th century. In 1831 eleven people voted, all of them local landowners, which resulted in Old Sarum becoming the most drastic example of a rotten borough . The Reform Act 1832 fixed this anachronism and abolished the constituency of Old Sarum.

Processing in art

Painting by John Constable showing Old Sarum (1829)

Writers such as Ken Follett took the historic place as an impression for their works. For example, Follett used impressions from the history of Sarum and Old Sarum for the book Die Säulen der Erde , which is set in medieval England. Edward Rutherfurd (actually Francis Edward Wintle), who himself comes from Salisbury, wrote down fictional family fates in his novel Sarum , which appeared in 1987, which all relate to sections of the history of Sarum, and thus tells the story of Sarum on the basis of these very stories. Sarum is also used for paintings. In 1829 the English artist John Constable painted a work showing Old Sarum. Furthermore, Constable also painted pictures that e.g. B. Depicting Salisbury Cathedral.

Personalities

Sons and daughters:

literature

Web links

Commons : Old Sarum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Old Sarum. In: English Heritage . Retrieved February 29, 2020 .
  2. ^ Brief History of the Cathedral. In: salisburycathedral.org.uk. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013 ; accessed on April 28, 2020 (English).
  3. ^ An Act to amend the Representation of the People in England and Wales , June 7, 1832. In: Hansard 's Parliamentary Debates . Third Series, Vol. 13, London 1833, pp. 33-68, here p. 33.

Coordinates: 51 ° 5 ′ 35 "  N , 1 ° 48 ′ 17"  W.