Battle of Ane
The Battle of Ane took place on July 28, 1227 between the knight army of the bishop of Utrecht, Otto II von Lippe , and the troops of the burgrave Rudolf II von Coevorden . The latter, supported by the farmers from Drenthe , won the day. The bishop was killed. The battle is described in the Narracio of 1232.
Course of the battle
The troops of the Bishop of Utrecht and the rebellious Drenthen led by Rudolf II of Coevorden met in a field near today's village of Ane . The exact location of the battle is no longer known. However, the Narracio knows to report that it took place in a boggy area, which suggests a field northeast of Ane. The bishop had hired large armies, including from the dioceses in Münster and Cologne. The nearby Vechte served the troops as a supply route.
The Drenther, among whom were women and who were fully aware of their inferiority to the heavily armed soldiers, deliberately lured their opponent into a swamp area. The horses of the episcopal army and the knights with their heavy armor sank into the swampy ground. The armed forces of the Drenthen, on the other hand, were mostly only lightly armed and could therefore move faster. They knocked the enemy to the ground with arrows, spears, knives and clubs and made short work of him. Almost the entire episcopal army, including famous crusaders like Bernhard the Good von Horstmar , was mercilessly slaughtered. The bishop of Utrecht, Otto II von Lippe, was captured, tortured and killed. His severely disfigured body was later found and buried in the Utrecht Cathedral.
Aner monument
On July 29, 1967, a memorial was erected at Ane in memory of the battle. It consists of a few erratic boulders, which is written in Drenther Platt:
" Slag bi'j Aone, July 28, 1227, zie vocht'n ok veur oenze vri'jheid (translated: Battle of Ane, July 28, 1227, they also fought for our freedom )."
The inscription on the monument is not without controversy, as it is accused of a one-sided interpretation of the events.
literature
- Girbe Buist: Secret in het Vechtdal. Uitgave van Stichting Kunst & Cultuur Overijssel, Zwolle 2000.
- Steffen Burkert (Ed.): The county of Bentheim. Past and present of a district. Publishing house Heimatverein Grafschaft Bentheim e. V., Bad Bentheim 2010.
- Friedel Helga Roolfs, Heike Riedel-Beerschwale and Volker Honemann (eds.): Een cronike van den greven van Benthem; Edition and translation of a late medieval chronicle about the Counts of Bentheim . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld, 2nd edition 2011. ISBN 978-3-89534-892-1 .