Paul Dolnstein

Depiction in Paul Dolnstein's war diary and scene in his life: German Landsknecht (right) fighting a Swedish peasant warrior (1502)

Paul Dolnstein (* before 1470 in Saxony ; † after 1513), also Tolnstein , was a German engineer and mercenary . In his war diary with some sketchy pen drawings, Dolnstein described military and historical details from the Danish-Swedish War (1501–1512) as an eyewitness .

Life

Paul Dolnstein himself passed on his participation and wounds in the siege of the Dutch Montfort in Saxon services under Albrecht the Courageous in 1491. From 1494 to 1496 Dolnstein was the bridge builder and building accountant in the service of Elector Friedrich III. of Saxony the construction of the Elbe bridge in Torgau . Mostly, however, he hired himself as a mercenary and war engineer in Dutch, Saxon and Danish services. With a contingent sent by Joachim von Brandenburg , Dolnstein reached Norway and Västergötland via Denmark . There he took part in the battles of King John I and his son Christian against the rebellious Swedes.

In the battle for the fortress Älvsborg (near Gothenburg) Dolnstein and 1,800 other German mercenaries under the command of Captain Sigmund List faced a numerically superior Swedish peasant army of up to 15,000 men, who fought for the imperial administrator Sten Sture . After various details about the siege of Älvsborg and the different equipment used by the Germans and Swedes, Dolnstein mentioned the conquest of another, unspecified castle. Historians have wanted to recognize the nearby town of Öresten in Dolnstein's sketches.

Dolnstein was last mentioned in Saxon account books in 1513. His war diary is in the Thuringian State Archives in Weimar and is one of the earliest war diaries in the German language and, above all, significant in terms of weapons and costume history through his sketches.

literature

• John Richards: Landsknecht Soldier 1486-1560 , Osprey Publishing, 2002
• David Lindholm, David Nicolle: Medieval Scandinavian Armies: 1300-1500 , Volume 2, Osprey Publishing, 2003
• Danielle Mead Skjelver, There I, Paul Dolnstein, Saw Action: The Sketchbook of a Warrior Artisan in the German Renaissance , 2012
• Alois Heitzer: "I pin Pawl Dolnstain pey there". A Landsknecht reports on the siege of Arnschwang in 1504. In: Contributions to the story in the district of Cham 30 (2013), pp. 37–45.
• P. Rainer Rudolf SDS: Dolnstein, Paul. In: Burghart Wachinger et al. (Hrsg.): The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . 2nd, completely revised edition, Volume 2 ( Comitis, Gerhard - Gerstenberg, Wigand ). De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, ISBN 3-11-007264-5 , Col. 183 f.

Web links

• Helene Dihle: On the siege of Elfsborg in 1502 - from the papers of a German Landsknecht in: Fornvännen , Volume 25, pp. 108–113 (about Paul Dolnstein's war diary)

Commons : Paul Dolnstein  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files