Row grave field Rosdorf

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The row grave field of Rosdorf is from the Carolingian period , end of the 8th / beginning of the 9th century in the district of Göttingen . The excavations took place in 1874 and 1875.

Dig

The row grave field was excavated in 1874/75 by the Göttingen professors Hermann von Ihering and Wilhelm Krause . Johann Heinrich Müller published a detailed excavation report in 1878 (see literature ). The excavations were carried out with funds from the General German Anthropological Society. Between 1880 and 1904 the skulls recovered from the first excavation were subjected to another thorough analysis by the same company, which was reported in the company's correspondence sheet in 1881, 1904 and 1907.

Historical classification

Initially it was assumed that the Rosdorf grave field belongs to the 7th to 8th centuries, i.e. the Merovingian period . The following, more precise analyzes of the excavated bones and grave goods, including a nearly preserved early medieval key and various key parts, made it necessary to change the date. In particular, the different burial rites of the burial ground made it clear that the burials had to be dated to the period of the Saxon Wars of Charlemagne , i.e. the end of the 8th and beginning of the 9th century, i.e. exactly to the reign of Charlemagne .

The missing limbs in various corpses indicate that the then residents of Rosdorf tried to bury their deceased according to their pagan- Saxon rituals (corpse cremation), but only burned a small part of the corpse out of fear of the Christian rites that were imposed on them, the vast majority mostly buried according to Christian beliefs.

This find alone confirms that Rosdorf did not only exist as a village between 780 and 815; the large and generational grave field to the west of today's church, at the end of the village in the direction of Wartberg and the motorway , indicates that the first church already existed in the village at that time. In addition, the skull analyzes up to 1904 showed that, in addition to the predominantly Saxon skulls, also those with typical Franconian features could be detected. Both aspects make the Rosdorf grave field a very important one, which fits seamlessly into the area's row grave cemeteries that extend up to Elvese .

Relation of the excavations to the documented age of Rosdorf

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The results of the row grave excavations in Rosdorf

  • Christian-pagan hybrid form of burial
  • Saxon and Franconian skull shapes
  • Dating of the grave goods to the time of Charlemagne

suggest, in connection with the documented simultaneous deployments of the Franconian army south of Northeim between 784 and 798, that the donation of villa Rostorp by Charlemagne 1 , in December 781, to Fulda Abbey, should be related to Rosdorf near Göttingen.

1) This is indicated by the extensive donation made around 800 by the Franconian nobleman Nithart and his wife Eggihilt in Medenheim , Lutterhausen , Northeim , Sudheim , Geisleden or Gittelde and Hohdorf , i.e. in the Northeim 2 area .

2) The fact that the important donation by Nithart and Bishop Erkanbert von Minden , brother Abbot Baugulf von Fulda , corresponds in time and place, puts these two Franconian private foundations in the Northeim-Göttingen area in direct context to the donation of the Franconian king , who wanted to trigger further generous donations with his "initial donation from Rosdorf" to Fulda, the monastery preferred at the time for missionary work in pagan Saxony.

3) In addition to the two large private donations listed, the Traditiones Fuldenses such as the Codex Diplomaticus Fuldensis have various other donations that also belong to the Northeim-Göttingen area.

4) The large, relatively closed area, which, according to later documents, extended from Rosdorf via Bovenden, Northeim, Medenheim to the gates of Seesen, to Münchehof and Gittelde , was owned by Fulda and the Archdiocese of Mainz before Bishop Meinwerk was around the year 1000, i.e. around 200 years after the conquest of Saxony by Charlemagne, it was possible to remove larger parts of this originally unified area and bring them to the Archdiocese of Paderborn .

5) Mainz was able - in contrast to Fulda - to maintain its influence in the area to a large extent via its Nörten bridgehead and Hardenberg Castle.

6) The fact that the Lords of Rosdorf, along with their sidelines, later had either Allode or fiefs granted by Mainz in the above-mentioned towns and their neighboring towns , confirms that the donations made in Franconian times were made in this area (not in Hesse or Thuringia) and via the owners, Fulda Abbey or Archdiocese of Mainz to the Lords of Rosdorf, von Bovenden, von Gittelde, von Hardenberg, von Medenheim etc., while the House of Rosdorf bought the gifts that had been given to Paderborn - primarily Hardegsen and Moringen - acquired as an allod through repurchase.

The document from 781 in question allows almost no other interpretation than that the traditional place is Rosdorf near Göttingen, which was first mentioned in a document in December 781, and not until 1003, as previously assumed in the literature .

literature

  • The row graves at Rosdorf near Göttingen. Report by JH Müller together with a treatise by W. Krause: About the Lower Saxony skull type. Hanover 1878.
  • Correspondence sheet of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory , Vol. 12–16. 1881.
  • Correspondence sheet of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory , Vol. 36–40. 1907.
  • Guide to prehistoric and early historical monuments 16: Göttingen and the Göttingen Basin . 1970, p. 72
  • Journal of the historical association for Lower Saxony . 1904
  • A. Götze: The prehistoric and early historical antiquities of Thuringia . 1909.
  • Christoph Kümmel: Prehistoric and early historical grave robbery . Waxmann, Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-8309-2205-6 .
  • Prehistoric and early historical antiquities of the province of Hanover . 1893, p. 54.
  • Göttinger Jahrbuch , Volume 6. 1958, pp. 20 ff.

Individual evidence

1 DD Kar. I., No. 140 - p. 190/91 The location of Rasdorf near Fulda, as an assignment to the traditional Rosdorf, is incorrect despite information in both the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and the Traditiones Fuldenses, since the Counts Roggo, Hatto and her brother Nordiu, Count Brunicho and his brother Moricho, Eggihart and his brother Job as well as the abbess Emhild of the Milz monastery near Hildburghausen gave the Fulda monastery the mark "Ratesthorpf" and the village of Rasdorf as early as 780. (UB Fulda 145) Rasdorf was never written to Rostorp, but Rosdorf was written several times in later documents. Even the gentlemen of Rosdorf initially called themselves de Rostorp! 

2 Reinhard Wenskus: Saxon tribal nobility and Frankish imperial nobility (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, No. 93) (1976)

In his remarks, Wenskus points out that a number of technical reasons - he cites the two donations to Fulda, such as the fact that Fulda still had to pay taxes in the mentioned places in the 12th century, against the location of Medenheim, Lutterhausen, Northeim and Sudheim speak to East Hesse and Thuringia, since it was a large fiscal district around Northeim, i.e. in Rittegau, and later the power base of Immedingen such as Counts of Northeim.