Vredeborg
| Vredeborg | ||
|---|---|---|
| Alternative name (s): | Vredeborch , Friedeburg | |
| Creation time : | 1407 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | destroyed | |
| Place: | Atens ( Nordenham ) | |
| Geographical location | 53 ° 29 '29.8 " N , 8 ° 28' 5.7" E | |
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The Vredeborg or Vredeborch ( High German : Friedeburg ) was from 1407 to 1425 a low castle of the city of Bremen near Atens (in today's Nordenham ). It was intended as a fortress to secure the Frisian area of Stadland and Butjadingen for the rule of Bremen and to serve as a base to combat piracy in the area of the mouth of the Weser .
prehistory
In the years 1400/1401, Bremen, with the support of the Count of Oldenburg , parts of the Bremen pen nobility and Dide Lubben , chief of the Stadland, undertook a campaign with 6000 men in the state of Butjadingen to avoid the attacks on Bremen and other merchant ships that were regularly initiated from there Put a stop to it. During this venture, the people of Bremen built a ship bridge made of 20 juxtaposed eks over the Heete , an estuary of the Weser that formed the border between the Stadland and Butjadingen. In 1401, a fortification known as the " keep " was built to secure this strategically important river crossing . The campaign ended with a victory for Bremen and their allies, as a result of which the Butjadinger chiefs had to vow to protect the merchants in their area in the future and to pay compensation for every raid made from their territory.
History of the Friedeburg
After the campaign was over, the Bremen council decided in 1404 to build a castle for a small garrison in Stadland in order to be able to permanently secure the hinterland to the left of the Weser estuary. A piece of land on the southern bank of the Heete opposite the town of Atens was made available to the city by Dide Lubben as a location for the fortification. This was near the confluence of the Heete in the Weser, probably where the ship's bridge had already been built in 1400/1401.
Construction of the castle
The start of construction of the Friedeburg was delayed, however, because the construction of the town hall (from 1405) tied up a lot of funds and Archbishop Otto II tried to block the project in order to prevent the town from strengthening its power base vis-à-vis the archbishopric . His successor Johannes II agreed with Mayor Johann Hemeling to support the project and promised to deploy 50 soldiers and other vassals to build the fortress, but never kept this promise. The city nevertheless initiated the construction in 1407 and received - despite a ban by the archbishop - support from several nobles of the archbishopric. In addition, the Paulskloster and the cathedral chapter contributed money.
Despite some skirmishes with the Butjaders, the construction of the fortification proceeded quickly, as the city did not lack labor and armed men for the company and the catering for those involved in the construction was particularly good according to a contemporary chronicle: “ Dar weren alto vele guder lude, die Sproken, they ne hedden der Koste, des beres unde haveren voderens like nywerlde see . " (" There were many good people who said they had never seen so much food, beer and oat feed before. ") From the Friedeburg accounting book , which the councilor Hinrich von der Trupe led, who also supervised the bills for the construction of the town hall, shows that the construction of the fortress cost 1,300 marks and that u. a. also the builder of the town hall, Salomon, was involved in the work. Councilors Arnd Balleer and Johann von Sandbeck supervised the work on site .
The fortification was completed in early July 1407. The Friedeburg consisted of a "large" stone building - also known as the "castle", which was surrounded by two moats and protected by a wall with palisades . A gate led north at the keep mentioned in 1401 to a bridge over the Heete, a second gate south to the Stadland. The main building was provided with cellars for storing weapons and ammunition. The bastion was later reinforced and a Vorwerk (fortification) built by Balleer in front of the bridge, which included stables and warehouses.
Based on the designation of the war cogs of the Hanseatic cities as Vredekoggen ('Friedenskoggen'), the fortification was called Vredeborg ('Friedensburg'). The first bailiff at the castle - also called " bailiff " or "castle captain" - was councilor Arnd Balleer, who was given the office for ten years. In peacetime the regular crew of the base comprised around 30 men. There were also some artillery pieces.
Fight for the castle and the area
Soon after the fortifications had been completed, there were military conflicts over the Friedeburg and the surrounding area. In 1407, the Hanseatic League in Lübeck decided to launch a campaign against the Vitalienbrüder and their allies on the Frisian coast, for which Bremen left a cog and undertook to proceed from land against pirates' hideouts at the mouth of the Weser. In the meantime, Count Christian VI. von Oldenburg formed an alliance with Edo Wiemken , chief of Rüstringen , Österingen and the Wangerland and invaded the county of Delmenhorst and Grolland . The allies found support from Archbishop John II, who wanted to weaken the council. In return, Bremen concluded an alliance with Count Otto III. von Hoya and the Counts of Delmenhorst and undertook several raids in the winter of 1407/1408 in the Oldenburger Land. At the beginning of 1408 the people of Bremen, reinforced by Stadland warriors and 300 Saxon and Westphalian knights , moved to Butjadingen and destroyed ships and bases of the Vitalien brothers there. On January 30th, they met the Oldenburgs and their Frisian allies in the battle of Golzwarden . With double superiority, the Bremen team defeated their opponents under the command of Edgard von Bordeslo and Henning von Reden and put Count Christian prisoner. He was first brought to the Friedeburg and then imprisoned in Bremen for a few months until he was released as a ransom in exchange for leasing the state of dignity to the city of Bremen . The war song of a knight in the Bremen service has come down to us from 1408 and describes the campaign in 135 verses .
Following this feud, the old contracts between Bremen and Oldenburg were renewed. The Rüstringers also signed a peace treaty with Bremen on June 16, 1410, which recognized the Bremen conquests, granted the city sovereignty over the mouth of the Weser and regulated the display of sea marks and is therefore considered to be the beginning of Bremen's buoy and beacon system .
Almost at the same time, in 1408, Bremen succeeded in preventing the construction of an archbishop's fortress, called Stinteburg , on the right bank of the Weser in the Wursten region , at the mouth of the Geeste . Leher and Wurster armed men attacked the unfinished fortification with the support of the city, drove out their occupants and destroyed the guns located there. With this event, Bremen gained almost unlimited sovereignty over the "royal road" (the Lower Weser) and the immediately adjacent areas at the beginning of the 15th century.
The conflicts in the region soon broke out again, however, this time against Dide Lubben, Bremen's former ally, who was accused of continuing to promote piracy. With 300 riders and 3,000 foot soldiers, the people of Bremen broke Lubben's resistance in 1414 and banned him and his sons Gerold and Onneke from the Stadland. Only his third son Dude was given the right to stay. On the night of September 25th to 26th, 1418, he tried to conquer the Friedeburg in a coup, together with Gerold and a troop of 44 followers. The castle captain Arnd Balleer was fatally injured during the attack, but the attack failed and the Frisians were captured while attempting to withdraw. Gerold and Dude were subsequently brought to Bremen, where they were sentenced to death in 1419 and executed - an event that was later processed in the legend of the Brother Kiss , depicted in the painting of the same name by Hugo Zieger from 1893. Hinrich was successor to Balleer from Münster.
Destruction of the castle
On July 25, 1420, King Sigismund officially transferred the government and protection of the state of Butjadingen to the city of Bremen. In 1422 the councilor and later mayor Johann Frese became Vogt of Bremen on the Friedeburg, but his term of office only lasted a short time. In June 1424 the Frisian chiefs Ocko tom Brok , Sibet von Rüstringen and Focko Ukena allied themselves and attacked the Stadland with 4,000 men and occupied it with almost no fighting - the small Bremen garrisons in Golzwarden and the Friedeburg had to surrender after a few days before reinforcements could arrive . The parishes wrote to the Bremen council that they were forced by the chiefs to refuse "what we do not like to do because of the oath we swore to you".
On July 29, 1424, a peace treaty took place in Oldenburg - Bremen lost the sovereignty over the Stadland and Butjadingen, in return the chiefs undertook not to occupy the Friedeburg themselves, but to tear it down, which happened in 1425. In addition, the property of Bremen citizens in the Stadland remained untouched and the Frisians guaranteed the city to keep trade routes open at all times. The alliance of the three chiefs did not last long, however: In 1426 and 1427 there was an uprising by Sibet von Rüstringen and Focko Ukena against Ocko tom Brok, which ended with the capture of Ocko in the battle of the wild fields .
Aftermath
In 1505 a Carmelite monastery was built near the former fortress . However, it was abandoned as early as 1530 as a result of the Reformation . Later, the "founder of Nordenham", the merchant Wilhelm Müller , ran the Friedeburg inn on this site , which was demolished in 1956/57 to make way for the Nordenhams town hall.
literature
- Diedrich Rudolf Ehmck : The Friedeburg. A contribution to the history of Bremen's Weser policy. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch . Volume 3. Bremen 1868, pp. 69–158.
- Thomas Hill: The city and its market: Bremen's surrounding and external relations in the Middle Ages (12th – 15th centuries). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08068-6 , pp. 300-312.
- Herbert Black Forest : History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-283-7 .
See also
Web links
- Entry by Frank Both and Stefan Eismann on Friedeburg near Nordenham in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
Individual evidence
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^
Johann G. Visbeck: Handbook of a historical-statistical-geographical description of the Duchy of Oldenburg . 1798, p. 66.
Facsimile of the book on Google Books. - ^ Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Edition Temmen , Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X , p. 282 .
- ^ Diedrich Rudolf Ehmck: The Friedeburg. A contribution to the history of Bremen's Weseppolitik . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 3 . Bremen 1868, p. 110 .
- ^ Diedrich Rudolf Ehmck: The Friedeburg. A contribution to the history of Bremen's Weseppolitik. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch . Volume 3. Bremen 1868, pp. 69–109, Appendix pp. 110–135, here: p. 88, note 2.
- ↑ Appendix I. Documents about the building of the Friedeburg . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 3 . Bremen 1868, p. 110-135 .
- ^ Diedrich Rudolf Ehmck: The Friedeburg. A contribution to the history of Bremen's Weseppolitik . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 3 . Bremen 1868, p. 113 .
- ↑ Appendix II. War song from 1408 . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 3 . Bremen 1868, p. 136-144 .
- ^ Georg Bessell: History of Bremerhaven . Morisse, Bremerhaven 1927, p. 43 .
- ^ Diedrich Rudolf Ehmck: The Friedeburg. A contribution to the history of Bremen's Weseppolitik . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 3 . Bremen 1868, p. 152 .
- ^ Diedrich Rudolf Ehmck: The Friedeburg. A contribution to the history of Bremen's Weseppolitik . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 3 . Bremen 1868, p. 113 .
- ↑ Quoted from: Georg Bessell: The first 100 years of Bremerhaven from 1826 to 1927. Bremen: Salzwasser 2010, p. 45.