Battle of the Unstrut
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Unstruttal near Burgscheidungen in Thuringia
| date | in the first half of the 6th century AD 531 |
|---|---|
| place | possibly in the Unstruttal at Burgscheidungen |
| output | Victory of the Franks |
| Territorial changes | Area of Unstrut |
| consequences | Fall of the Thuringians (as a dynasty) |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Empire of Metz , possibly Saxony , as an ally of the Franks |
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| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| unknown | unknown |
| losses | |
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unknown |
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The Battle of the Unstrut , the Battle of Runibergun or the Battle of Burgscheidungen sealed the end of the Thuringian Kingdom in 531 with the victory of the Franks on the Unstrut .
Course of the battle
After an apparently unsuccessful Franconian invasion attempt in 529, the Franks, led by the Merovingian king Theuderich I , his son Theudebert I and his half-brother Chlothar I, moved against the weakened Thuringians in 531. At the Unstrut they met the army of the Thuringian King Herminafried and destroyed it. Gregory of Tours (6th century), the most important source on this, reports:
“But Theuderich took his brother Chlothachar (Chlothar I) and his son Theudebert with him to help and advanced into the field. When the Franks approached, the Thuringians set a trap for them. In the field where the fighting was to take place, they dug holes, the openings of which were covered with thick turf so that it appeared to be a flat surface. Many of the Frankish riders fell into these holes when they hit and were severely handicapped. But after you noticed the ruse, you began to be careful. But when the Thuringians saw that they had suffered great loss, they turned their backs, as their King Herminafrid had already fled, and came to the point of failure. So many Thuringians were killed there that the bed of the river was dammed up by the mass of corpses and the Franks pulled over them, as if over a bridge, to the other bank. After this victory they immediately took possession of the land and brought it under their control. "
The Thuringians probably created the camouflaged pitfalls to gain time and bring warriors from the surrounding settlements to the battle site. Apparently Herminafrid was only informed shortly beforehand by the approaching armies and so had little time to raise a contingent of warriors. When the first Thuringian warriors arrived, he left them in command and fled with his family north or east to a remote part of the empire. After the numerically superior power of the Franks had defeated the Thuringian army on the Unstrut, they moved over, took possession of the land and plundered it. They also plundered the royal court and set it on fire, as reported in the De excidio Thuringiae by Venantius Fortunatus . Until the year 534, King Herminafried was still able to assert himself in an area that was probably remote to the east of the Saale , until he was lured to Zülpich and murdered by the Franks for alleged peace negotiations .
Widukind von Corvey (10th century) wrote in his Saxon stories that the Saxons were involved in the battle and after the destruction of the Thuringian Empire they got the north ( Altmark to Unstrut ), but this is partly disputed by modern research.
Place of battle
Gregor von Tours wrote that the Franks defeated the Thuringians in a battle on the "Onestrudis" (Unstrut). Widukind gave more precise location information; The battle is said to have taken place at “Runibergun” (probably the Runneburg ) and at the alleged Herminafried's “Scithingi” castle , today's Burgscheidungen . Since Widukind only wrote down these places in his Saxony stories about 450 years later, researchers have questioned them. In addition, excavations by the Halle archaeologist Berthold Schmidt in Burgscheidungen in the 1960 / 70s and those by Thomas Stolle in the Runneburg in Weissensee did not provide any clues. No find was dated to the 6th century.
The not undisputed historian Reinhold Andert , whose research on the Thuringian Empire shows considerable methodological deficiencies, assumes that the decisive battle between Herbsleben , the presumed royal seat of Herminafried, and the Tretenburg near Gebesee , the central meeting place of the Thuringians, could have taken place . The Thuringians wanted to flee from the Franks in the direction of Tretenburg over the Unstrut, as other warriors had gathered there, from whom they hoped for support. But the Franks stopped them on the Unstrut and cut them down.
In addition to these locations, Ronnenberg in Lower Saxony , the Ruhnsburg on the western Hainleite and the Ronneberg to the west of Vitzenburg Castle near Zingst were also considered. In fact, no location could be assigned to the Battle of Runibergun to this day.
Consequences of the battle
After Herminafried's death, his wife Amalaberga and his son Amalafrid went into exile in Italy, into the Ostrogothic empire of the Amals . The Franks were able to capture the Thuringian empire and integrate it into their empire. It thus belonged to the empire of Metz , the territory of Theuderich I and the predecessor empire of Austrasia , although his brother Chlothar I was considered a legitimate ruler through his marriage to Radegunde - the daughter of Berthachar , a brother of Herminafried. This led to a dispute between the brothers, and Theuderich's assassination attempt on Chlothar failed. After Theuderich's death in 533, his son Theudebert was able to remain king of his sub-kingdom - despite an attempted murder on him, instigated by Chlothar. It was not until the year 555, after the death of his son Theudebald , that Chlothar was able to incorporate all of Austrasia (the territory of Theuderich, Theudebert and Theudebald) and thus the conquered Thuringian empire into his empire.
The Franks could only hold the area between the Harz and Main, the north was settled by the Saxons, who allegedly gave the Franks 100 cattle a year as a deposit in order to be allowed to settle in this area. The Franks could not hold the sparsely populated east and south, it was populated by Slavic and Bohemian tribes. The Thuringians had to pay the franc an interest of 500 pigs annually. The pig rent existed until 1002. In the year 630, King Dagobert I founded a duchy in Thuringia for better control and better defense against incursions by the Slavs . The Thuringians undertook many revolts against the Franks, the best known being the Hardrad revolt in the time of Charlemagne.
The destruction of the dynasty of Thuringia and the consequences will also lament the Radegunde of Venantius Fortunatus mentions (600).
swell
- Gregory of Tours , Decem libri Historiarum (Ten Books of Stories) (around 575)
- Widukind von Corvey , Res gestae Saxonicae , Book I. ( Saxony Stories ) (around 950)
- Venantius Fortunatus , "De excidio Thuringiae" On the fall of Thuringia. The lament of the Radegunde . (around 600)
- Venantius Fortunatus, "De vita sanctae Radegundis" The life of Saint Radegundis. (around 600)
literature
- Werner Mägdefrau : From the Thuringian Kingdom to the end of the Saxon Empire 531-1024. Volume 1: Thuringia in the early Middle Ages . Bad Langensalza 2003, ISBN 978-3-936030-98-3 .
- Berthold Schmidt: The Kingdom of the Thuringians and its incorporation into the Franconian Empire. In: The Franks. Pioneer of Europe. 1500 years ago: King Clovis and his heirs . Catalog of the exhibition in the Reiss Museum Mannheim September 8, 1996 to January 6, 1997. Mainz 1996, p. 285, ISBN 3-8053-1813-8
- Michael Kirchschlager : Runibergun, From the Kingdom of the Thuringians . Verlag Kirchschlager, Arnstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-934277-27-4
- Reinhold Andert : The Thuringian royal short . Dingsda Verlag, Querfurt 1995, ISBN 978-3-928498-45-6
Remarks
- ↑ Reinhold Andert: The Thuringian King's Short. Dingsda Verlag, Querfurt 1995, ISBN 978-3-928498-45-6 , p. 29.
- ↑ Reinhold Andert: The Thuringian King's Short . Dingsda Verlag, Querfurt 1995, ISBN 978-3-928498-45-6 , pp. 202-203.
- ↑ Reinhold Andert: The Thuringian King's Short. Dingsda Verlag, Querfurt 1995, ISBN 978-3-928498-45-6 , p. 220f.
- ↑ Reinhold Andert: The Thuringian King's Short. Dingsda Verlag, Querfurt 1995, ISBN 978-3-928498-45-6 , p. 213ff.
- ↑ Reinhold Andert: The Thuringian King's Short. Dingsda Verlag, Querfurt 1995, ISBN 978-3-928498-45-6 , p. 222.