Schleesen (desert)
The Schleesen desert in the Fläming Nature Park in the Saxony-Anhalt district of Wittenberg is known for the ruins of a medieval stone church . The desert has no relation to the place of the same name Schleesen in the district of Wittenberg south of the Elbe . The desert is registered under the registration number 428300760 in the local monument register as a soil monument.
location
The desert or the remaining village remnants are located south of the border with Brandenburg between the Wiesenburg district of Medewitz from the neighboring Hoher Fläming nature park and the village of Stackelitz from the administrative community of Coswig (Anhalt) . The former settlement is located at the intersection of Landstrasse 120 with the Wiesenburg – Roßlau railway line . A dense mixed forest, which is one of the most beautiful beech and sessile oak forests in the High Fläming , surrounds the site, which has been a protected monument and area since 1979. The old folk remedy plant small periwinkle ( vinca minor ) growing in the forest is said to go back to the former village cemetery.
Village history and etymology
The first known documentary mention of Schleesen comes from 1307 from the loan book of Ascanian Albrecht I of Saxony . Under the leadership of the Archbishop of Magdeburg Wichmann von Seeburg , the settlement of the southwestern Fläming had already started in the first half of the 12th century, so that German or Flemish settlers very likely took over the Slavic place during this time . The construction of the church is scheduled for around 1130.
It is possible that there was a Slavic settlement in the same place, because the name Sylesen recorded in the loan book could have a Slavic origin and mean something like iron or ferrous . It was last mentioned as an intact settlement in 1382. As early as the 15th century, loan letters from von Walwitz described the place as desolate. The information boards on site name epidemics and raids by robber barons as possible causes for leaving the village. Overall, the Fläming has an extraordinarily high density of desertification, with around 75 abandoned places in the Bad Belzig area alone .
Village remains and church ruins
In addition to the ruins of the church, troughs, the former house cellar, the newly rimmed well and the - occasionally dried up - former village pond are evidence of the Schleesen settlement.
The church ruin, enclosed and protected by a fence, consists of the west gable and the substructure of the east gable. The entire east gable was there until 1972, when it collapsed after a storm. The storm had uprooted a beech tree and thrown it onto the poles that were supposed to connect and stabilize the two gables.
The irregular masonry shows little-worked boulders , which are brought into the layers with their curves and in different sizes, so that in one layer three small stones are sometimes stacked next to a large one. There are no longer any window openings. A photo from the 1960s on the information boards shows that the east gable had Gothic pointed arch windows . The original size, which can be read from the remaining walls, suggests a simple rectangular building with a western gable tower, whereby the gable tower was solidly made of field stones.
A few kilometers north in the municipality of Görzke is the Dangelsdorf church ruin , which is somewhat better preserved and is occasionally referred to in the relevant literature with the name Dangelsdorf type for the comparative determination and dating of old stone churches. According to Engeser / Stehr, both churches are very similar in their construction and structure, but the Schleesen church may have been significantly smaller than the Dangelsdorf building and did not have its unusual, relatively long and narrow proportions.
Footnotes
- ↑ Short question and answer Olaf Meister (Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen), Prof. Dr. Claudia Dalbert (Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen), Ministry of Culture February 25, 2016 Printed matter 6/4829 (KA 6/9061) List of monuments Saxony-Anhalt
- ↑ a b Information board on site
- ↑ Flyer Nature Park Administration
- ^ The information board on site names the year of the collapse of 1972, while the flyer indicates the year 1982; after asking the nature park administration, 1972 is correct. The new editions of the flyer will be corrected accordingly.
swell
- To the Schleesen church ruins , bike and hiking tours, tour no. 11, flyer of the Fläming Nature Park eV, Jeber-Bergfrieden May 2006, without ISBN
- New information board for the Fläming Nature Park on site, 2006
- Theo Engeser and Konstanze Stehr, Dangelsdorf (ruin) (former village church) , medieval village churches in Brandenburg, Potsdam-Mittelmark district (see section "Compare" online )
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 2 ' N , 12 ° 23' E