Battle of Verchen

In the battle of Verchen , a place on the northeastern bank of the Kummerower See , on July 6th, 1164 the vanguard of the Saxon army defeated a numerically strong Slavic army of Abodrites and Pomorans .

prehistory

After the death of his Abodritic vassal Niklot , Henry the Lion had passed over the inheritance legitimized claim of Niklots son Pribislaw to rule by establishing a direct administration of the Abodritenland by Saxon officials . After the loss of Werle Castle in 1163, Pribislaw and his entourage withdrew into exile in Western Pomerania in Demmin . In 1164 he succeeded in recapturing the castles of Mecklenburg , Quetzin and Malchow . Out Henry chose the Lion for a large-scale campaign against Demmin to Pribislaw the withdrawal base and the support of the Pomeranian princes I. Kasimir and I. Bogislaw to take. At the same time, the Danish king Waldemar the Great , who was allied with Heinrich, was supposed to prevent the Ranen people living on Rügen from joining the Pribislaw uprising. Heinrich stopped with the main army in Malchow and had Pribislaw's brother Wertislaw, who had been held hostage since December 1162, hanged in public. Heinrich sent a part of the army under the leadership of Count Adolf II von Holstein , Reinold von Dithmarschen , Gunzelin von Schwerin and Christian I von Oldenburg in the direction of Demmin. At the beginning of July 1164 this vanguard set up camp near Verchen on Lake Kummerow.

The course of the battle

After the Abodritic-Pomoran army gathered in Demmin had noticed the arrival of the vanguard encamped at Verchen, the Slavic princes sent negotiators to negotiate peace conditions with Count Adolf II. Their clumsy conduct of the negotiations - they initially offered 3,000, then only 2,000 silver marks for peace - only annoyed Adolf, so that the negotiations were broken off without result. Thereupon the Abodrites sent scouts into the Saxon camp at night, who made contact with the Vagrian Slavs from Adolf's contingent and learned of the carelessness of the Saxons. Disregarding basic military rules, the camp was neither fully secured nor a well-armed camp guard held. Although the Holsatian overbode Marcrad I overheard the Slavs and informed Adolf II of an imminent attack on the camp, the Saxon commander ignored the warnings with a complete misjudgment of the situation.

In the early morning of July 6, 1164, miners left the Saxon camp to return to the main army and fetch food from there. After they had climbed a hill, they saw a terrifying sight in the morning mist of the Kummerower See: The Slavic army, ready to fight, consisting of innumerable foot soldiers and a multitude of horsemen, marched towards the camp in battle order. With loud shouts, the squires ran back into the camp and woke the sleeping army. Since the Slavic armed forces were advancing from the south, i.e. from the direction of Malchow, an escape to the main army was impossible. In the Saxon camp, the confusion was complete. Adolf II von Holstein and Reinhold von Dithmarschen finally succeeded in countering and stopping the first wave of Slavic attacks with a few unarmed Holsaten and Dithmarschers. However, they were no longer able to withstand the second meeting of the Abodrites and Pomorans. In the meantime, most of the knights had fled the camp and were hiding, others began to gather apart. From there they observed how Adolf II and Reinhold were massacred together with their fighters and how the numerically far superior Slavic army penetrated the camp, in which only squires and a few Saxon knights fought, while Pribislaw's troops and those of the princes allied with him in view of the sure victory they had already begun to plunder the camp.

It was only the cries for help and accusations from the Saxons who were still fighting in the camp that finally moved the undecidedly assembled knights to counterattack. Under the leadership of Gunzelin von Schwerin and Christian I von Oldenburg, around 300 knights were found who stormed into the camp and stood by those who were besieged there. Encouraged by the example of these men, the rest of the Saxon vanguard came out of their loopholes. They succeeded in driving the Slavs out of the camp and inflicting heavy losses on them. According to Helmold von Bosau , around 2,500 men were killed on the Slavonic side. The rest of the Slavic army initially withdrew to Demmin.

The consequences

When Henry the Lion reached Verchen, the battle was over. He had lost 450 of his men and mourned Adolf II, one of his closest advisers. When he moved on to Demmin with his armed forces, the demoralized Abodritic-Pomoran army had already set fire to the fortress and withdrew into the interior. Without being able to get hold of the enemy, Heinrich's troops moved along the Peene to the Stolpe monastery . There he met his ally King Waldemar I and ended his campaign. The warring princes had chosen the Stolpe Monastery as a place of negotiation because of its relevance in the territory and signed the peace treaty there. The result was certainly due to the diplomatic skill of the then Stolper Prior Helmvig, who was head of the monastery at the time. In addition to the division of the spoils of war between King Waldemar I and the Saxon Duke Heinrich the Lion, the engagement of Waldemar I's son, who later became King Canute VI , was to strengthen their alliance in Stolpe Monastery . , decided with Gertrud , the daughter of Henry the Lion.

The Pomeranian Prince Bogislaw was I. then a vassal of Henry the Lion and received from him Demmin. He remained loyal to Heinrich the Lion until his fall in 1181. Casimir I only later recognized the sovereignty of Heinrich and fell for his cause in 1180. Pribislaw was reconciled with Henry the Lion in 1167. He then got back most of his paternal inheritance and became a loyal liege of Henry the Lion.

literature

Werner Buchholz (Hrsg.): German history in Eastern Europe. Pomerania . Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-88680-272-8 , pp. 32–34.
Karl Goetze: History of the city of Demmin edited on the basis of the Demmin Council Archives, the Stollesche Chronik and other sources . Verlag Frantz, Demmin 1903. Reprint: Verlag Steinke, Demmin 1997, ISBN 3-89557-077-X .
Lutz Mohr : Stolpe monastery ruins and Spantekow castle in the vicinity of Anklam. Two striking historical sites from medieval Pomerania. In: Bull and Griffin. Sheets on cultural and regional history in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania , year 17, Schwerin 2007, pp. 46–65
Martin Wehrmann: Geschichte von Pommern , 2nd ed., Vol. 1. Verlag Andreas Perthes, Gotha 1919. Reprint: Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1992, ISBN 3-89350-112-6 , pp. 81–82.

Web links

Literature about the battle of Verchen in the state bibliography MV

Remarks

↑ Walther Lammers : The high Middle Ages up to the Battle of Bornhöved (= History of Schleswig-Holstein. Vol. 4, Part 1). Wachholtz, Neumünster 1981, ISBN 3-529-02404-X , p. 351 on the diverging assessment of the situation.
^ Helmold von Bosau, Slawenchronik , II, chap. 100: Et resolutus est in lacrimas multas. (And burst into violent tears.)

[1] Walther Lammers : The high Middle Ages up to the Battle of Bornhöved (= History of Schleswig-Holstein. Vol. 4, Part 1). Wachholtz, Neumünster 1981, ISBN 3-529-02404-X , p. 351 on the diverging assessment of the situation.

[2] Helmold von Bosau, Slawenchronik , II, chap. 100: Et resolutus est in lacrimas multas. (And burst into violent tears.)