Battle of the Wremer Deep
The battle at Wremer Tief took place on December 23, 1517 between the troops of Bremen's Archbishop Christoph von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and the population of Wurster Land . As a result, the Wremer lost their independence. The Frisian freedom fighter Tjede Peckes died in this battle.
prehistory
Since the time when Land Wursten was proselytized from 780 by the monk Willehad , the state was part of Bremen. Since then, the local Frisians have had to pay the Andreas treasure to the Archdiocese of Bremen. On November 30th each year every house had to pay to the Bremen church.
There were no dukes and monasteries in Land Wursten. The independent peasant state was directly traced back to the king. 16 counselors and two powers of attorney from each of the nine parishes - Imsum, Wremen, Mulsum, Misselwarden, Dorum, Midlum, Padingbüttel, Cappel and Spieka - were the authorities in the country and represented the Wurster peasant state towards the Archbishop of Bremen and the Lauenburg dukes as lords of Land Hadeln .
The Wurster arbitrariness of 1508 was read out at the Ting meeting on Sievershamm and accepted as land law. This Frisian freedom said: The Wursters did not have to do any military service outside their own country, and there was also no feudal system .
When Archbishop Christoph took over the Archbishopric of Bremen in 1512, he was no longer satisfied with being recognized as a spiritual overlord.
The battle
At the end of 1517, the Wursters were supposed to pay taxes to the Archbishop of Bremen for their newly diked lands (Dorum-Neufeld, Cappel-Neufeld, Spieka-Neufeld). When they defended themselves against it, he sent a large army of mercenaries to put down the uprising. On December 23, 1517 the battle of the Wremer Tief broke out. A Latin document by chronicler David Chytraeus from 1592 describes this battle. It is written there that the Wursters went to defend their freedom not only with men but also with women against the archbishop. The Wurster had holed up at the Mulsum church, but it didn't help them. The battle ended in losses for them. The victorious episcopal troops then plundered the whole country of Wursten and burned it down. Only seven houses are said to have remained in the whole of Wursten. The surviving Wursters fled and only later returned to the completely devastated country.
The East Frisian freedom fighter Tjede Peckes played an important role in the battle . She was born as the daughter of free Frisian farmers and was a member of a women's movement. As unmarried women, they took part in political life. Each Peckes was active in the Wurster farmers' councils. At the battle of the Wremer Tief, a group of around 500 girls and women is said to have fought against the overwhelming power of Bremen. Peckes fell at the age of seventeen when she was attacked with a sword by a mercenary.
Results and consequences
Archbishop Christopher von Bremen set tough conditions in the peace negotiations that followed. The land became part of the Archbishopric of Bremen. The Imsum treaty not only provided for the repeal of the previous state constitution, the assumption of the war costs and substantial taxes. The sovereign rights over water and electricity, over ports and roads went to the Archbishop. As a sign of their submission, the Wurster Frisians had to build a castle for the bishop, Morgenstern Castle in Weddewarden . The bishop took 120 hostages from noble Wurster families.
A scene of homage at the Imsum church in 1518 sealed the end of Wurster independence and the annexation of the state to the archbishopric of Bremen . After the completion of the castle, a number of important dignitaries and officials traveled from Bremen under the leadership of Konrad Klenck and wanted to conduct negotiations at the Wurster's Tingstätte - the Sievershamm. But there was a quarrel with the Wurstern, which thereupon put down the entire episcopal embassy within a short time. Since then, the place has also been called Klenckenhamm.
This was followed by seven years in close legal connection with the Duchy of Saxony-Lauenburg, constantly in unrest and in fear of an attack by the archbishop. The Stade Peace Treaty was concluded in 1525: Wursten lost its independence and was finally incorporated into the Archbishopric of Bremen. The end of the jurisdiction of the 16 counselors had come. The Wurster were no longer allowed to sign contracts independently, the beach rights were granted to the archbishop and the old Wurster seal was withdrawn. But even in the next few decades, there were repeated unrest in the country under the rule of Bremen.
literature
- Felicitas Gottschalk : The green glow of the sky, life and death of the Tjede Peckes. Verlag Isensee, ISBN 978-3-89995-679-5 .
- Johann Möller: Chronicle of the community Wremen. 3 volumes, 1979.
- Eberhard Michael Iba (Ed.): Hake Betken siene Duven. The saga of the Elbe and Weser estuaries (= special publications by the men from Morgenstern , Heimatbund at the Elbe and Weser estuaries . Volume 16 ). 3. Edition. Men from Morgenstern Verlag, Bremerhaven 1999, ISBN 3-931771-16-4 .
- Erich von Lehe : The battle at the Wremer Tief on December 23, 1517 between the Wurstern and the Bremen archbishop in the light of history. In: Jahrbuch der Männer vom Morgenstern, Vol. 50, 1969, pp. 129-137.
- Wilhelm Ernst Asbeck : Tjede Peckes. The flag maiden of the country Wursten. Berlin 1938.