Teltow War and Magdeburg War

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Teltow War and the Magdeburg War (also Teltower War , Halberstädter Fehde , Meißener Stiftsfehde ) were intra-German wars for supremacy on the Teltow and the Barnim in the course of the state expansion to the east in the 13th century.

Johann I. (seated) and Otto III. , Monument Siegesallee , 1900
Henry the Illustrious (Dresden, Fürstenzug , late 19th century)

The opponents of the armed conflict, which took place between 1239 and 1245 in phases on two fronts, were:

During this time, the Askanians built Berlin - Kölln for trade and economic policy reasons and because of its strategic importance compared to the Wettin city of Köpenick and laid the foundation for the city's later supremacy. Since the victory of the Askanians in 1245, almost the entire Teltow and Barnim belonged permanently to the Mark Brandenburg.

Naming and aim of the conflicts

The disputes of the High Middle Ages appear in historical accounts under different names. The terms Teltow War or Teltower War or Meißen feud refers to the subject and scene of the dispute or the conflict partner, while the term Magdeburg War refers to the ore monastery involved in phases. Since the Askanians pursued the same goal in both conflicts, to gain access to the Oder and ultimately to the Baltic Sea by extracting the Teltow / Barnim , since both conflicts had the same background and were partly intertwined, they are summarized here for a better overview. The Märkische Fürstenchronik reports on these conflicts in 1240 and 1244 without giving them a special name.

Teltow and Barnim are geological plates and historical landscapes south and north of the Berlin glacial valley .

background

Areas of influence around 1240

In 1150, Albrecht the Bear came into the possession of Brandenburg through an inheritance contract with the Heveller prince Pribislaw-Heinrich . In 1157 Jaxa von Köpenick occupied Brandenburg for a few months due to hereditary claims, but on June 11, 1157 he had to move out of the Brandenburg area after handover negotiations against free withdrawal. After the gradual expansion of the country, Albrecht's great-grandsons Johann I and Otto III ruled . around eighty years later, among other things, the western and central parts of the Teltow and Barnims. The Wettins sat on an eastern edge of the area and competed with the Ascanians for settlement in the region. The centers of the Wettins were the fortified Teltow plants in Mittenwalde and at the confluence of the Dahme into the Spree the castle island of Köpenick , which came to Berlin in 1920. The border thus ran in a north-south direction through the middle of what is now Berlin's urban area.

Teltow and Barnim natural area

Allegedly, the Wettins had already conquered Köpenick from the Slavs in 1178 . According to another account, they had owned Köpenick since 1210, at any rate the events that led to the withdrawal of Jaxa von Köpenick and any successors of Jaxas are unknown. The Ascanians penetrated eastwards through the settlement of the northern edge of Barnim, while the Wettins advanced from the south to shortly before Strausberg , which in turn was already in Ascanic hands.

In addition, the Magdeburg Cistercian monastery Zinna in the area northeast of Berlin where the Wettins and Ascanians collided, owned extensive possessions around Rüdersdorf . Even further to the east, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg owned the land of Lebus or claimed ownership, as it had been awarded to them by the emperor . The Magdeburg permanent rivals of the Ascanians wanted to secure the way to Lebus and had already emphasized their efforts to the east in 1170 with the establishment of the Zinna monastery in their Jüterbog area. They had advanced north across the Nuthetal .

While the settlement flows in the first phase around 1200 had largely moved along the Nuthe, Dahme, Panke or Wuhle rivers, the Teltow and Barnim plateaus themselves were now " settled according to plan and taken under the plow ".

Expansion of Berlin-Kölln by the Ascanians

Both sides secured their areas with castles, fortified structures, settlements and trade routes. The Askanians developed the already existing market towns of the later twin town of Berlin-Kölln as a trading center, a ford through the Spree and the center of new trade routes towards neighboring Köpenick . The massive funding of Berlin “ must be seen in connection with the decisive battle for the Barnim. “As Berlin-Kölln grew in importance, the previous Ascanian power center in the region, the Spandau castle and residence , lost its strategic weight.

Field stone church in Hönow , built before 1250

The north-western Teltow was secured by the margraves, supported by the Knights Templar in the Komturhof Tempelhof , through villages such as Marienfelde , which was later followed by a chain of villages with Mariendorf , Rixdorf and Tempelhof . All the villages are now districts of Berlin. Who initiated their settlement (Ascanians, Wettins, the Archbishops of Magdeburg or the Dukes of Silesia) is still controversial in research to this day.

Expansion of the Hönow rule by the Wettins

The results of more recent archaeological and etymological research suggest that the Wettins tried to develop the village of Hönow northeast of today's Berlin from their Köpenick castle into the center of a small dominion. According to Uwe Michas, a few years ago a tower hill was discovered on Hönower See , which was surrounded by a ditch. Villages around Hönow such as Hellersdorf (excavated wooden post, dendrochronologically dated to 1218) and Blumberg or Altlandsberg and Falkenberg are grouped in a star shape . The last two place names mentioned could go back to name transfers from the Wettin ancestral countries ( Landsberg near Halle (Saale) , Falkenberg district of Halsbrücke ). In Altlandsberg, a German castle with suburbium around today's town church is said to have been built in the early 13th century .

The clash of rulership and settlement interests called for a decision.

The wars

How far the respective areas of influence extended is unknown. The ownership rights at Köpenick and Mittenwalde also seem to have changed several times. In addition, the interests were evidently not always as clearly delimited as outlined in the ideal-typical simplistic way. The last reason for the nearly seven-year war was the so-called Halberstadt feud.

Trigger Halberstadt feud and betrayal

Alvensleben Castle, which triggered the war . In the foreground the Veltheimsburg, the former Margrave Castle. Drawing by Anco Wigboldus 1937

According to Georg Sello , the two Wettin castles Köpenick and Mittenwalde are said to have been in the hands of the Brandenburg margraves as early as the first third of the 13th century. In 1239 the margraves took part on the side of their former Magdeburg opponents in a campaign against the diocese of Lebus, which the emperor had promised the archbishopric of Magdeburg. The campaign failed surprisingly. Then the Wettiner asserted his rights to Köpenick and Mittenwalde. In good faith in the neutrality of their war partner in the Lebus campaign, the Brandenburgers are said to have handed over the castles to the Archbishop of Magdeburg until a judicial clarification was reached. There was also a dispute between Johann I and Otto. III. with the Bishop of Halberstadt for the possession of Alvensleben Castle , the fortifications of which the Brandenburg Margraves had expanded with the Margrave Castle right next to the Bishop's Castle . ( Halberstadt feud ).

In this situation the Archbishop of Magdeburg apparently saw the chance to get rid of the Ascanian competitors by force of arms and to secure a way to Lebus through Ascanian territory on the Barnim. He handed over the castles Köpenick and Mittenwalde to the Wettins and allied himself with the Wettins and Bishop Ludolf von Halberstadt against the Ascanians.

Course of the wars

The Ascanians now saw themselves forced into a two-front war. Otto III. moved against Köpenick and razed the castle in 1240, but had to withdraw again and in return accept devastation of the Ascanian Barnim estates in front of Strausberg by the Wettins. ( Teltow War ).

Johann I moved against the two bishops who had invaded the Altmark . In a victorious battle on the Biese between Stendal and Wittenberge, he is said to have succeeded in capturing Bishop Ludolf von Halberstadt. The Magdeburg bishop Wilbrand von Käfernburg retreated, formed a new army with the help of Wettin and led it against the Brandenburg, where he was defeated again by Johann I and probably finally in this conflict ( Magdeburg War ).

His brother Otto III stayed on the other front. victorious in a decisive battle near Mittenwalde against Heinrich the Illustrious. Probably in the year 1245 all battles were over, which according to Uwe Michas were devastating . Exact data on the end of the fighting are not available. One of the things that speaks for 1245 is that this year, for the first time, a Brandenburg, i.e. Ascanian, Vogt can be identified in Köpenick.

Result

Heinrich the illustrious attempts to expand the Mark Lausitz to the north at the expense of the Mark Brandenburg came to an end with his displacement from the castle districts of Köpenick and Mittenwalde in eastern Teltow. The entire Teltow and almost all of Barnim have been part of Brandenburg permanently since 1245. This also put a stop to the further claims of the Magdeburg citizens in this area of ​​the German state expansion, even if Rüdersdorf with the important limestone quarry Rüdersdorf as an external property of the Zinna monastery remained under their influence for centuries. For the Ascanians the way further east to the Oder was free, which they crossed in the 1250s. Johann I and Otto III. founded the first parts of the Neumark ( Terra trans Oderam ).

literature

  • Reinhard E. Fischer : The place names of the states of Brandenburg and Berlin , Volume 13 of the Brandenburg Historical Studies on behalf of the Brandenburg Historical Commission, be.bra Wissenschaft, Berlin-Brandenburg 2005, ISBN 3-937233-30-X , ISSN  1860-2436 .
  • Uwe Michas: The conquest and settlement of northeast Brandenburg. In the series: Discoveries along the Märkische Eiszeitstraße , Volume 7. Society for the research and promotion of the Märkische Eiszeitstraße (Ed.), Eberswalde 2003, ISSN  0340-3718 .
  • Winfried Schich : The medieval Berlin (1237-1411) . In: Wolfgang Ribbe (Ed.), Publication of the Historical Commission in Berlin: History of Berlin . 1st volume, CH Beck, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-406-31591-7 .
  • Georg Sello : The acquisition of the Teltow and Barnim by the Margraves Johann I Otto III . In: Research on Brandenburg-Prussian History 5, 1892
  • Georg Sello, Die Halberstädter-Brandenburgische Feud 1238–1245 , in: Journal of the Harz Association for History and Antiquity, No. 24 1891, pp. 201–219

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eberhard Bohm: Teltow and Barnim, Cologne 1978, p. 22.
  2. ↑ Although it is common historiography, it is not completely certain whether Jaxa, who was fighting with Albrecht the Bear in 1157, and Jaxa von Köpenick were the same person. See Jaxa von Köpenick . See recently also Michael Lindner: Jacza von Köpenick, Berlin 2012.
  3. ^ Marca Brandenburgensis: Johann I and Otto III
  4. ↑ Winfried Schich: Das Medieval Berlin ... , Munich 1987, p. 155. Recently, however, also Michael Lindner: Jacza von Köpenick, Berlin 2012.
  5. ↑ Winfried Schich: The medieval Berlin ... , p. 157
  6. ↑ Uwe Michas: The Conquest and Settlement of Northeast Brandenburg ..., p. 35
  7. ↑ Ulrich Waack: The early power relations in the Berlin area. A new interim balance sheet of the discussion about the “Magdeburg Hypothesis” . In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History 54 (2005) pp. 7–38.
  8. ↑ Uwe Michas: The conquest and settlement of Northeast Brandenburg ..., pp. 33, 34
  9. ↑ analyzes of Namenfoschers for Brandenburg Georg Schlimpert. Here after Reinhard E. Fischer: The place names ... , p. 100, 53
  10. ↑ Uwe Michas: The conquest and settlement of Northeast Brandenburg ..., p. 38; Michas refers to the representations and research of Georg Sello 1891/1892, see literature
  11. ^ Marca Brandenburgensis: Battles and military campaigns in the Mark Brandenburg around 1260
  12. ↑ Uwe Michas: The Conquest and Settlement of Northeast Brandenburg ... p. 38