Narrow field (desert)

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Schmalfeld (also Schmalfelden , Schmelfeld , Smelvelt , Smaluelt ) is a desert in the area of ​​the independent city of Schweinfurt in Lower Franconia . The village was abandoned by 1300 at the latest. The reasons for the abandonment of the settlement are unknown.

Geographical location

The localization of the settlement site proves to be difficult due to the geographic changes made in the 1960s. Schmalfeld was probably about 1500 meters southwest of the Sennfelder See in what is now the Dürrer Hauck corridor . Today the industrial area Hafen-West is located there . The area is bounded in the northeast by the federal highway 286 . In a chronicle from the 16th century, the desert is assumed to be further up the Main, but that is where the town of Leinach, which had also fallen desert, was located .

history

The place where Schmalfeld later lay was at least temporarily inhabited as early as the Paleolithic . This is proven by archaeological finds that came to light during excavations between 1956 and 1962. During the Neolithic, people permanently inhabited the settlement area. Excavations in the 1920s uncovered bronze bracelets from the later Latène period , so that it can be assumed that the people of the Iron Age buried their dead there in so-called burial fields.

The name of the settlement refers to the settlement phase of the 6th or 7th century, when Franconian colonizers subjugated the tribes settling there and promoted the development of the country. The prefix Schmal- (from Latin malus ) probably goes back to the natural geography around the village. The name may also be derived from the Middle High German word sendin , which means sandy. The corridors were regularly flooded by the Main and were therefore not very fertile. It can be assumed that the village population therefore lived from fishing.

Schmalfeld was first mentioned in 1246. At that time, Prince-Bishop Hermann von Würzburg ruled on property disputes between the Teutonic Knights and Richolf von Rieth, which concerned goods in Kaltenhausen and "Smelvelt". By 1296 at the latest, however, the settlement was already desolate and was declared in a document from Burgrave Friedrich III. of Nuremberg and the abbot of Theres "Smelvelth vulgariter dictis Wustunge" (Smelvelth colloquially called Wustunge). In 1313 the name "Smelvelt" appeared in the sources, in 1336 the desert was mentioned as "Smalvelt".

In 1337 the Teutonic Order House in Würzburg still had claims to the meadows in the corridors of the desert. In 1361 the order master Philipp von Bickenbach mentioned the meadows of the former possessions again. In addition, in 1366 the Theres Monastery benefited from the valid yields from the fields on the Schmalfeld desert. The Schmalfeld fish pit still appeared in 1371 when Charles IV's goods were pledged in the Zürch-Burggut.

The corridors around Schmalfeld changed hands in 1426 and came to the von Thüngen brothers . Ten years later, in 1436, the expanding imperial city of Schweinfurt was awarded the fields. The area was not built up again until the 20th century, although parts of the desert are still undeveloped today. The site of the desert is classified as a ground monument by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments .

See also

literature

  • Mario Dorsch: Disappeared Medieval Settlements. Desertification between Steigerwald, Main and the Volkach . Hassfurt 2013.
  • Anton Oeller: The place names of the district of Schweinfurt (= Mainfränkische Heimatkunde 8) . Würzburg 1955.
  • Peter Rückert: Land expansion and desertification of the high and late Middle Ages in the Franconian Gäuland. Diss . Wuerzburg 1990.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dorsch, Mario: Disappeared medieval settlements . P. 28.
  2. ↑ Dorsch, Mario: Disappeared medieval settlements . P. 27.
  3. ^ Rückert, Peter: Land expansion and desertification of the high and late Middle Ages . P. 249.
  4. ^ Oeller, Anton: The place names of the district of Schweinfurt . P. 43.
  5. ↑ Dorsch, Mario: Disappeared medieval settlements . P. 26.
  6. ↑ Geodata Bavaria: Bodendenkmal D-6-5927-0008 , PDF file, accessed on July 31, 2017. P. 23.

Coordinates: 50 ° 1 ′ 46.2 ″  N , 10 ° 14 ′ 2.1 ″  E