The Lost Fort

From Imperial Hall to Mediaeval Castle - The Aula Palatina in Trier

2012-01-22T19:22:00.011+01:00

Salvete amici. Yes, it's me again, your friend Aelius Rufus. Gabriele told me to ignore the fact that I wasn't alive when the Aula Palatina, also known as Basilica of Constantine in Trier was built. You got this friend in Britannia, she said, you'll figure out something. She handed me the link (something like a virtual wax tablet) to an old post about the place - this one is too short and boring, she said, and it appears at place 3 on Google Search so people read it. Make it more fun.

That Google Search sounds like something our authors would have loved to have. You can find information about everything there, even about those German tribes Tacitus never really met.

Well, a lot of the information isn't any more reliable than Tacitus' hearsay stories about my ancestors, but yes, some sites are helpful.

Aula Palatina, aka Constantine's Basilica, seen from the west
The Aula Palatina has survived because several important people over time thought it was of better use intact than as quarry (like so many other Roman buildings). It's today one of the largest rooms that has survived from my time. Though I must admit the roof had fallen in in the 5th century and it took some time to get a new roof up - those barbarian Franks or Merovingians or whatever they called themselves at the time (sorry, Gabriele, the history of that time is a mess not even Merlinus can make sense of) probably had no idea how to construct a roof that large.

Aelius, it was a worse mess in Britannia, and the fact that Merlinus appears in several sources and songs makes me wonder about his time travel research methods. *grin*

(Aula Palatina, interior)

And especially for Constance who I understand likes to have numbers, here's the measures of the hall. The length is 71.5 metres (including the apsis), the breadth 32.6 metres. The original height can only be estimated since the original roof got lost; it's supposed to have been about 33 metres with the gable top at 40 m. The walls are 2.70 metres thick. Yeah, we built walls there. ;)

A hall like this shows the difference between the residence of a governor and that of an emperor. Everything needs to be two or three sizes larger. Or four, if you can find the money. The Aula Palatina was built on the foundations of a palace from my time, the living quarters, offices, and representation rooms of the legatus Augusti pro praetore, or governor. That one already had a rather large main hall with an open anteroom with some pretty colonnades. Not the place an auxiliary soldiers usually gets to see - we're not invited to the posh parties - but I served as messenger and had to see the governor, so I could take a peek. Not bad at all, marble floors and some nice frescoes on the walls. But it got out of fashion in the 3rd century and nothing remains of the dismantled hall and the governor's living quarters.

Treviris got a boost when it became the favourite residence of Emperor Maximinianus who supposedly planned for the Extreme Makeover Home Edition of the governor's residence. Though it fell to his successors Constantius Chlorus and Constantine the Great to get the actual work done. It's often ascribed to Constantine alone, but since that emperor left a lot of half finished projects behind when he moved his main seat to Constantinople in AD 326, while the Aula Palatina and the palace were completed, it's more likely work had begun before his time. Though somne bricks with a stamp from a factory dating to 310 shows that building was still going on then.

Today the Aula Palatina looks like a single building, but at the time it was erected, the hall was part of a larger complex. For one, it had another hall laying crosswise in front so both buldings formed a reverse T. That one was a pretty big affair, too, with a length of 67 metres (again, including the apsides at the ends) and a depth of 16.5 m . Additional smaller pillared halls stood at the sides of the aula.

Aula Palatina, interior, view to the apsis
The walls are made of bricks, and like most other Roman buildings, were whitewashed (dunno why you people in the future never put the paint back on), only the window reveals were decorated with golden leaves on red background - faded rests of them can still be seen in some parts. The quality of those paintings is outstanding.

The walls inside the hall were lined with marble all the way to the upper row of windows (how's that for fancy insulation, lol), and the floor was laid out in white and black marble tiles. A few tricks made the room look even larger: the windows and the niches below them in the apsis get smaller towards the middle and create a perspectivic illusion. Those niches served to hold statues of the Imperial family. The glassed windows are 7 metres high and 3.50 m wide though the seem smaller because the hall is so large.

There was a wooden gallery along the upper row of the windows along the long walls and the apsis. It was anchored in the walls (so no wooden pillars) and painted so it looked more massive than it was. The feature gave access to the upper windows and sturctured the large room horizontally.

Now, Trier isn't the coldest place in Germany, but it's not Rome-sort of warm either. So, how did the emperor, the magistrates, staff, vistors and whatnot stay warm in such a huge hall? Well, hypocaust heating does the charm, and it didn't only heat the floor but also the walls up to the first row of windowsills. One of the reasons the walls are so thick.

Closeup of some of the windows
After the Emperor left and the Germans started invading big scale in the 4th century, Trier's splendour declined but it survived as town and with some of the buildings more or less intact, because it had become the seat of a bishop. I've mentioned in my post about the amphitheatre that Constantine legalised the Christian cultus, and bishops are a rank of their leaders, like a pontifex or something. And obviously, they like a bit or Roman luxury. They also built what they call churches on the remains of Roman halls and baths, though - part of the Imperial palace can today be found under the cathedral.

The next time the Franks invaded (475) they didn't come for plunder but to stay. For one, that was the end of the first church erected on parts of the palace and some villas of rich magistrates - the Germans definitely were not Christians at the time, and burnt the thing down to ruins. The Aula Palatina fared better, becasue the leader of those Franks liked the place and made it his seat.

Actually, he didn't use the great hall for his living quarters - I suspect the hypocaust heating wasn't working and the hall too cold - but one of the side wings. It was still a most impressive seat for a barbarian count. The aula itself was used for storage for the entire village, and the windows walled in. It was at that time the roof collapsed. Gabriele thinks the storage was maybe kept in huts built inside the roofless hall while the thick walls served as a good protection, also from fellow barbarians who may have been interested in carrying stuff away. In case of war people could have found shelter in the ruins as well (like it happened with the amphitheatre). From Imperial representation hall to barbarian fortress, what a career. But it survived reasonably intact.

Another view of the Aula Palatina
The Aula Palatina was used as castle in the Middle Ages as well (there's a documentary proof from 1008). Later (around 1190) Archbishop Johann I renovated the aula and used it as his seat. He turned the apsis into a keep, with additional towers in the opposite corners; the walls got merlons and a battlement, the walled-in windows were reopened but in smaller scale. The roof was repaired so that the aula now looked like a palas with an adjacent keep (usually, keep and palas are separate buildings in a castle) and corner towers. The anteroom may have become a gatehouse.

If you wonder why a pontifex would need a castle - well, those bishops and archbishops in Medieaval times were no mere priests but held secular power as well. And they got enemies, and sometimes they got involved in wars. So a keep came handy, and a representative hall as well. Power is always a good deal about demonstrating it.

The Aula Palatina looked like that until about 1600. The next significant change happened under Archbishop Lothar of Metternich at the beginning of the 17th century. He tore down what remained of the Roman buildings outside the aula and had a four winged palace built around the it. Most of the southern wall dismantled to get an immediate connection. One of his successors, Johann Philipp von Waldendorff (1756-1768, archbishop and prince elector), wanted an even prettier palace, so the architect Johannes Seitz built him that pink thing you can see on the photo below.

Kurfürstliches Palais (Electoral Palace), behind it the south side of the Basilica
It's all playful rococo and a horrible colour not even the Romans would have liked; and they used a good deal more colour than todays remains and reconstructions let you imagine. Gabriele calls it candy pink. She took the photo because it's so horrible it's fun, she says.

Fortunately, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia who was very interested in architecture, and Carl Schnitzler, officer and architect, had the Aula Palatina returned to its original Roman shape (1856), with no towers and palace wings intruding into its walls, but the original large windows and a cassette roof instead. The one thing they did was to add pseudo-historical paintings instead of the - probably too expensive - marbe linings. But the aula burned out during WW2 and the post-war renovation removed what was left of those paintings, reducing the building to the original brick walls.

It looks more austere today than it may have done in Roman times, though. The whitewashed exterior walls should have looked more friendly. The aula is today used as Protestant (a sect of the Christians, I think) church. It's often called Constantine's Basilica these days.

And now Gabriele tells me I should also rewrite the post about the Imperial Baths. *sigh*

Random Photos

2012-01-12T22:00:00.007+01:00

My Motivation's still on holiday and the weather is so warm that the first pollen are busy looking for inflammable noses. Well, at least the temperature is said to get more winterly the next days, though still not cold enough for my taste. But it might help with the stuffed nose and the headache.

Poinsettia on my windowsill
Here's a pretty poinsettia. I usually keep some on the windowsill from mid-November to about the end of January because I like the bright red leaves - a bit of colour agaisnt the dreary winter background outside. The rocks between the flower pots are random cool looking picks from Harz hiking tours.

Stuffed teddy XXL - a polar bear
This was taken during my Norway tour in a museum in Hammerfest. I met with an American family on the Hurtigruten ship and we spent some fun time together. That slightly ironic half-grin is my "well, let's play the typical tourist for a moment here"- look I get on most photos. The bear is much prettier.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T16:59:00.004+01:00

I wish everyone a Happy New Year!

The Burning Bush
This is a modern sculpture displayed in the Romanesque church (dating to 1170) of the St.Vitus monastery in Drübeck / Harz. It represents the burning bush from which God spoke to Moses.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T14:52:00.003+01:00

I wish everyone a happy and blessed Christmas.

There's no snow here, so we'll have to do with some snow photos I took out of the train from Oslo to Bergen last spring. There was still plenty of the white fun on the mountains.

Holiday houses between Gol and Geilo
Part of the white fluff with skiing tracks is actually a lake; the huts are situated at its shore. Whle the fjords moslty stay free of ice thanks to the Gulf Stream, the lakes in the inland freeze well enough to make for safe passage.

More holiday huts near Finse
Those huts are mostly not mere summer houses, but have electricity and other amenities so they can also be used in winter. Huts are more common than hotels though there are some in the skiing areas like the mountains around Finse.

Mountains near Dovre
This one was taken on the way from Trondheim to Oslo, on the highest point of the route, the land around Dovre. Two weeks after I took the way from Oslo to Bergen, spring started getting a bit more serious about its job even in the mountains, but there was still a lot of snow left this high.

The Hansa League - A Brief Introduction

2011-12-18T23:00:00.002+01:00

In spring 2004, I undertook a journey to some German Hansa Towns at the Baltic Sea coast: Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, and Stralsund. This was pre-digital camera time, so there are not many photos to begin with; and I only scanned a few (even those are nowhere near the quality of my recent photos) which I posted on my old website, together with some info about my journey. This is the revised version of the first part of the essay, with some new photos from my Norway tour added.

Except Lübeck (which I had seen about 25 years earlier), all places I visited were located in the former GDR where the old buildings were seldom cared for properly and thus had lost much of their splendour. Thirteen years after the Reunion, much had been done, and while some churches still showed parts that were in disrepair, and scaffoldings, and some half-timbered houses were yet waiting for a carpenter and new paint, the larger part of the old heritage looked fine, and I really enjoyed walking the streets and visiting the churches.

Wismar, one of the cobblestone ways beside a canal, with St. Nikolai Church in the background
All the towns I visited are situated close to the coast of the Baltic Sea: Lübeck a few miles inland where the Wakenitz confluences into the Trave river, Wismar at a bay, Rostock at a firth, and Stralsund dircetly at the coast opposite the island of Rügen. In former times, the towns were additionally protected by a system of channels - these can still be seen in Lübeck and Stralsund - and walls. The combination of sea harbours and landward protections was one of the facts that made these towns some of the most wealthy and powerful places during the Middle Ages, and the Old Towns mirror this until today.

The harbours are still used, and so you face the odd combination of 14th century brick or half-timbered houses and magnificent churches side by side with modern harbour and shipyard equipment within a few metres distance. I found it fascinating and took several photos of this contrast.

Rostock, Inner Harbour and Old Town
The word Hansa (German Hanse) is very old; it appears already in Wulfila's 5th century Gothic bible translation where it means something like "a group of armed men". In the 12th/13th centuries it is used to name a group of merchants in a foreign country or the tax they have to pay.

The rise of the Hansa in the sense it is used in historiography today to describe the vast net of towns in northern Europe which were connected by mutual protection agreements and trade laws, took place during the second half of the 12th century, the same time as the process of town development and the role of towns changed.

Towns have played an important role in many cultures, from Babylon to Aegypt, Ancient Greece and the Roman Imperium as well as in the cultures of the Maya and Inka. But except for the Greek polis and Republican Rome, those towns were governed by kings and the society structure was hierarchical.

Bergen, the German Hansa quarter Tyske Bryggen
In the feudal system of the Middle Ages, towns did not stand on their own, but in vassalty to a king, prince or bishop. Nor did they - except in Italy - own any land. But in the 11th century, there was a development to gain more independency, especially the right of self-administration. A citizen government developed with guilds and councils, elections and meetings under the leadership of the merchants who were the most important social group. The right to actively participate in town government was restrictied to people with possessions in the town, because it was assumed that only those who had something to lose would care to protect it (which ruled out fe. journeymen and harbour workers).

But the rights of self-administration (including a special city law), defense (town walls) and market had to be granted by the feudal overlord. Many of the lords were interested in towns on their land, though, because a rich town meant tax income for them as well.

The increase of long distance trade went hand in hand with a growing number of towns. Around 1000 AD there were about 150 towns in Germany, two hundred years later it were about thousand, many of them new foundations. Lübeck was to become one of the most flourishing and important among them.

Lübeck, merchant houses along one of the channels
Lübeck was founded in 1159 by Heinrich 'the Lion' Duke of Saxony after an older settlement had burned down. Duke Heinrich wanted a harbour to the Baltic Sea, and thus gave the merchants who settled in Lübeck many rights and privileges (low taxes, trade monopols). We don't know much about the details of the founding, but it seems probable that the ground was given to a group of settlers who then distributed it among the newcomers. Heinrich also transfered the Bishop's Seat from Oldenburg to Lübeck.

How important a flourishing merchant town was for the empire is shown by the fact that Barbarossa granted Lübeck imperial immediacy at a time when the town still sided with Duke Heinrich in his feud with the emperor. Imperial immediacy (Reichsunmittelbarkeit) meant that Lübeck had feudal obligations only towards the emperor and his successors (taxes mostly, and the fact that death sentences needed confirmation by the emperor), and thus was able to enter into negotiations and contracts with other feudal lords or other free towns, and to maintain an army / fleet. It had the same powers and privileges a prince would have had.

Both citizens and Church would demonstrate their status by representative buildings. In Lübeck it was mostly about who got the bigger church; while Stralsund has the most impressive town hall.

The town hall in Stralsund with its representative Gothic gable (entirely constructed of bricks)
Wares traded across the Baltic Sea at the time Lübeck rose to power were fish (very important with 130 Lent days a year), and Lübeck's access to the saltworks in Lüneburg played a role in that because salt was needed to conserve the fish - if it wasn't prepared as stockfish. Another important good was wax, the material for candles. The largest church in Stralsund, St.Nikolai, had 53 altars and on each of them candles burned day and night. Consider that larger towns all over Germany, France, Italy, Flanders and England had at least three or four churches with more than a score of altars, and you can imagine the vast amount of wax needed. This part of the trade (fish and wax) broke down after the Reformation.

The German coastal towns also traded salt, amber and beer (since the quality of the water was not for drinking, beer played an important role). Later, they also exported wheat. Other goods were furs from Russia, timber from Scandinavia and from Sweden also ore; wool and ore from England, cloth and wine from Flanders; and by the inland markets of Nuremberg and Augsburg came luxury goods that were transported via the Mediterranean Sea and the Alpes.

One reason for the increase of trade on the Baltic and North Sea was a new type of ship, the cog (Kogge). These were seaworthy ships carrying up to 100 tons. Old paintings show that most of them had more than one sail, and the Holstentor Museum in Lübeck displays a painting of a sea battle where most of those cogs had canons. Up till the Thirty Years War, the Fleet of Lübeck alone was bigger than the one of England (hehe), and when several Hansa towns joined their fleets, they were a power to reckown with.

Wismar, the yacht harbour (on the site of the former trade harbour; the large oversea harbour is outside town today)
Of course, many cogs have sunk in the Baltic Sea during the 300 years they were in use. The Baltic Sea is quite flat and has a low salt concentration of 1,5% compared to other seas and oceans with 3-4%, therefore that nasty shipworm which eats wood doesn't thrive there, and some of the wrecks could be salvaged in good shape. They have served as models for several sucessful attempts to rebuild cogs.

In Wismar, I had the chance to see the hull of a cog in the process of being rebuild and talk with some of the men involved in the task. I learend that this was a reconstruction of the so-called Poeler Kogge (after the place near Wismar where the wreck had been found), done by a group of dedicated young people, who were at it for 4 years then. The state paid some money, but they worked a lot in their free time as well. Every plank and beam was hewn by hand, every iron nail hand-forged, and they used tar and warg according to old receipes. The men told me that the most difficult work had been to bow the great planks that form the elegant oblong shape of the hull. It had to be done by heating the oak timber without burning it, but hot enough to prevent the plank from breaking. When the wood cooled it would remain in the given shape. Seen from inside the hull, the cog was huge, and most of the place under the deck planks in former times had been storage room.

The rebuild cog is be named Wissemara. It is the largest late-Mediaeval ship on the Baltic Sea found so far. Some numbers may demonstrate this: length 22 metres, bredth 8 metres, the mast rose to 32 metres, the sail was about 300 square metres, storage room 200 tons. In summer 2004 I found an article in a newspaper that the cog had as been brought to water as it was tradition in the Middle Ages; the superstructure - mast, rigging and all that - was always finished on water. The cog now serves for tourist excursion on the Baltic Sea.

Bergen, detail of the German Hansa quarter
The predecessor of the Hansa League was the Gotland Corperation. Gotland is an island east of southern Sweden, and by this position predestined to play an important role in the Baltic Sea trade since the time of the Vikings who already traveled to Novgorod and Lake Ladoga, and from there the river systems of Russia down to Kiev and the Black Sea) In the 12th century, the Russian rivers were no longer open to the people from Gotland, but they still had a main office in Novgorod and their merchants were granted special rights.

The Gotland merchants jealously protected their trading routes, but in 1161, Duke Heinrich of Saxony managed to establish peace between them and the German merchants, and from that time on the German merchants held the same rights on the Gotland markets as the Gotland merchants in Germany. With the foundation of the universi mercatores Imperii Romani Gotlandiam frequentantes (Union of the Merchants from the Roman Empire Who Travel to Gotland) the Hansa was born. Soon the Germans built an office in Visby on Gotland and in the following centuries outmaneouvred the Gotland merchants from their important positions.

In the beginning, Russia was the most important trade partner, but the German / Gotland merchants soon developed trade on a regular basis with the other Scandiavian countries (where the German kontor, the office in Bergen, was the most important one), later also with England and Flanders, thus exploring the North Sea as well.

Roskilde Cathedral (as representative for the Gothic brick churches in most Hansa towns)
In the wake of securing the eastern routes, German merchants had great influence on the conquest of the heathen tribes living in Latvia, Livland and Prussia (Lithuania). By putting money and manpower to disposal; they became almost a rival of the Teutonic Knights. After the conquest followed colonialization, the building of towns like Riga, Danzig (Gdansk) and Reval (Tallinn). In what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (the land of the Slavic tribes of the Obodrites and Vendes which Duke Heinrich of Saxony conquered), the colonialization process was much stronger since it also involved permanent settlement outside the towns so that towards the end of the 13th century, the land became German.

The towns I visited were planned by the citizens of Lübeck, and also the founding members / merchants hailed from there. Usually, a place was chosen that already had a settlement; the merchants then would build their houses and a church near it, and soon thereafter the two kernels would be united by a palisade or stone wall. Rights of Town and additional privileges were granted by the owner of the land, the Duke of Mecklenburg. Rostock became a town in 1218, Wismar in 1228 and Stralsund 1234. Led by Lübeck, these towns became the most important members of the Hansa League on German ground besides Hamburg and Bremen on the North Sea coast.

Even today, the Hansa has left a trace. German car registration numbers include an abbreviation of 1-3 letters that names the town, so M is for Munich (München), GÖ for Göttingen, BS for Braunschweig etc. Only the Hansa towns of Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock and Stralsund include a H (HH, HB, HL, HWI, HRS, HST) in the abbreviation to denote their special impact on history.

Source:
Philippe Dollinger, Die Hanse. 3rd edition, Stuttgart 1981

From the 'Mediaeval Fun' Files

2011-12-10T21:30:00.012+01:00

This charming litte wood carving is a detail from the choir stalls in Roskilde Cathedral in Danmark. They date to 1420 and show scenes from the Creation to the Last Judgement. This particular one is the scene of Cain slaying Abel, his interview with God ('And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?') and God cursing Cain.

The weapon Cain uses is so very Scandinavian. *grin*

Roskilde Cathedral, detail from the choir stalls
Yes, it's a stockfish. You gotta love how Cain is not only killing his brother with a dried cod, but also drags the thing after him when he sulks off.

Of course, stockfish isn't hard enough to kill someone with, but the scene shows how important the stockfish trade was in the Middle Ages, esp. during the high time of the Hansa League. Fish was food allowed during times of fasting, and drying the fish in the air was one of the easiest methods of preservation. Stockfish will keep for several years.

Even today you can see stockfish racks (hjell) on the Lofote Islands and the coasts of northern Norway. Some of it is used in Norway itself, but most of the stockfish is sold to Italy, Croatia, and Africa.

Stockfish racks on the Lofote Islands, with rorbuer in the foreground
Rorbuer are former fisherman's huts. A lot of them have today been re-equipped as comfortable self catering holiday cabins.

Stockfish season starts in February. The cod is beheaded and cleaned off its intestines, then hanged up on the racks in pairs by the tailfins. The snow will protect if from insects, and the average temparature, slighlty above zero °C, is the best for drying cod. During the next three months the salty air will ferment and dry the fish which is going to lose 70% of its water, but keeps its amount of calcium, iron, and vitamine B.

One of the reasons stockfish is no longer so popular in Scandinavian cuisine is the fact that it has to be watered for a week in a cool room, and the water has to be changed daily. That's more work than most people are willing to put into the preparation of their dinner today.

Some stockfish in the Hansa Museum in Bergen
The bundle of stockfish is real, btw, and the room was filled with a distinct odour - not unpleasant, but strongly ... maritime.

Export of stockfish (to England) can be traced as far back as 875. Stockfish was Norway's most important export article already in the 11th century. King Håkon IV Håkonarson (1217-1263; the one who died shortly after the Battle of Largs) then gave the town of Bergen the exclusive right of trade to the north, that is, all trade from the towns and villages north of Bergen, including the Lofote Islands, had to go via Bergen; the fishermen could not sell their wares directly. Bergen would remain the trade centre of Norway for the next 800 years. The king and the church would get a fair amount of taxes, thought the kept quarreling about who was going to get how much.

I'll get back to the role of Bergen and the Hansa League sometime. The list of blogposts-yet-to-be-written is growing faster than I can work it off. ;)

Along the Coast of Norway, Part 1

2011-12-04T21:26:00.008+01:00

A cloud and snow post to go with the weather; the first rain after five weeks here, and the first autumn gales. There may even be snow later this week.

Light in a land of water and mountains
Traveling along the coast of Norway in early spring can give you some of the most beautiful light effects when the sun fights with the clouds, sometimes losing to a blue-grey twilight.

Afternoon voyage between Ålesund and Molde
Sometimes winning and tinting the sea an incredible blue where only a slight haze betrayed the rain that had fallen a few minutes earlier.

Mountain opposite Ålesund harbour
And sometimes ... well it just managed to poke a ray through the clouds, and light would sparkle on the water.

Baldur looking down?
Though this was taken at plain daylight, the contrast of the light and the dark clouds makes it look more ominous and nightly.

Coastal mountains
Sometimes there is a hint of what the land may look like in sunshine, a fleeting trace of warmer, richer colours dormant in the shades of grey.

One of the many lighthouses
Thus far south and warmed by the gulf stream, the snow had already melted except for the highest peaks. Further north, the snow remained and would remain far into spring.

On board of the Richard With
The landscape gliding past, and a photo motive around every turn.

Between Bergen and Ålesund; taken in the late morning
In such moments, the light is the only important thing, reducing the mountains to grey shadows and black silhouettes.

A Bastard, a Bartered Inheritance, and a Robber Baron - The Brandenburg, Part 2

2011-11-26T20:28:00.015+01:00

Since I have some more photos of the Brandenburg, I looked for a connection to one of the series of history essays on my blog, using the pics as illustration for an essay, and the landgraves of Thuringia offer that connection. I've mentioned that Apitz, son of the landgrave Albrecht II, got the Brandenburg as fief and obviously lived there at times between 1288 - 1305. So, who was this Apitz?

(Another view of the West Keep)

We need to go back a bit. After the Ludowing landgraves of Thuringia died out in the male line, there was a whole bunch of contenders for the heritage, leading to the Thuringian War of Succession. In the end, Heinrich III 'the Illustrious' of House Wettin (1215-1288) managed to pick the largest piece of the cake with a pretty collection of land and titles: Margrave of Meissen, Margrave of the Lausitz (Lusatia), Landgrave of Thuringia, and Count Palatine of Saxony. It also helped that Heinrich backed up Emperor Friedrich II in his struggle with the pope (yeah, that has a long traditon, no German emperor ever got along with the popes since Heinrich IV's excommunication in 1076). So Heinrich got Thuringia as fief in 1242, and he also betrothed his son Albrecht with Friedrich's daughter Margaretha - an offspring from Friedrich's third marriage to Isabella of England, a daughter of King John. They married in 1255 and had three sons.

Heinrich the Illustrious was an educated man with many interests, a poet and troubadour (Minnesänger in German) of some renown, and he didn't want to spend all his time in that dusty old office governing lands that stretched from the Werra to the Oder and from the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) to the Harz mountains. So he gave his sons Dietrich and Albrecht a share in the responsibility early on.

Poor Albrecht (in English also: Albert) got stuck with the nickname 'the Degenerate' which is a bit unjust. Well, he did make war upon his father, imprisoned his son and cheated on his wife, but how is that different from at least half of the noble families at the time? Henry II of England would be a very good candidate for that same nickname. From what I learned about Albrecht, 'the Spendthrift', or 'the Incompetent' would have been more fitting - and that may be the difference; you get away with a lot if you're successful like Henry II.

Heinrich obviously missed to set out clear definitions of who was to rule what though officially Albrecht got the landgraviate of Thuringia and Dietrich the margraviate of Landsberg in 1265 (while Heinrich kept Meissen and the Lausitz) - the way the chartes are signed shows that all three men sorta shared duties and responsibilities which led to a number of disagreements. Moreover, Dietrich was miffed that Albrecht got the better bargain, while Albrecht was miffed that daddy Heinrich interfered with his rights. The whole situation was a mess, and at some point, Albrecht must have acted - unsuccessfully - against his father, because he had to promise 'not to make any more attempts to take his father prisoner or otherwise act against him and cause him harm.'

View to from the West Castle to the East Castle
At first, Albrecht seems to have gotten along well with his Staufen wife, but then he took a mistress, Kunigunde of Eisenberg, the daughter of a minor noble. Margaretha left her husband and died soon thereafter (1270).

For some time, her second son, Friedrich (born 1257), was the last claimant of the Staufen inheritance which included the titles King of the Germans and Holy Roman Emperor and lands from Thuringia to Sicily, but the papal party proved too powerful, and the seven prince electors found another candidate - Rudolf of Habsburg (well, they found a few before, but could never agree on one, so Germany got two foreign kings - Richard of Cornwall, a son of King John, at least visited Germany, Alfonso of Castile not even that).

Western bailey seen from the outside
Albrecht and Kunigunde had a son named Apitz (born 1270). They married in 1274. It soon turned out that Albrecht wanted Apitz to be the main heir and get the landgraviate of Thuringia, an idea his other sons didn't like one bit. So Friedrich and his brother Dietzman started a war against daddy, who in turn took Friedrich captive and imprisoned him in the Wartburg (1281). But that place is lacking a nice, damp, dark dungeon hewn into the bedrock, and Friedrich escaped out of some tower window. There's a wild story about a nightly flight involving knotted bedsheets and all sort of events you may find in a novel. A few years later the brothers forced their father to acknowledge their rights to the heritage - after Friedrich had captured daddy in turn (Treaty of Rochlitz, 1289).

Apitz got legitimised by King Rudolf in 1290 and received the estates and castles of Tenneberg and Brandenburg. He married a sister of Heinrich of Frankenstein, but their marriage remained childless. Apitz alternately lived in Tenneberg and the Brandenburg, obviously prone to play the robber baron, judging by several complaints of neighbouring villages and monasteries in chronicles. Though considering the political context and the unruly times, the borders between robbery and fighting enemies may get a bit blurred, and Albrecht kept backing his son (against his half-brothers?). Apitz also made some generous donations to religious estates.

View from the West Castle across the trench to the East Castle
The political landscape in Germany had changed somewhat. King of the Germans was now Adolf of Nassau, successor of Rudolf of Habsburg in 1292. Adolf had promised the prince electors the blue out of the sky; and since they didn't want a Habsburg dynasty by chosing Rudolf's son, they agreed. Heh, little did they know what they got into. Adolf was pretty ambitious and not inclined to keep his promises.

Let's take a little detour to England. We're at the time of King Edward I, him of the great territorial ambitions. He got into trouble with King Philippe IV France from whom he held Gascony as fief. Philippe had declared the fief forrfeit, because Edward had refused to appear at court to discuss some tavern brawl between French, Gascon, and English soldiers that ended with a bunch of captured ships and a sacked port (1294). Edward wanted to teach the French king a lesson and made a pact with Flanders, Burgundy and the King of the Germans, said Adolf of Nassau. Edward was going to invade Gascony from the sea, and the other armies were supposed to move in from the north. Adolf received 60,000 pound sterling for his efforts, a considerable sum.

Well, Adolf was going to keep that promise as little as he kept those he made to the prince electors; his army never put a foot into France. Edward was obliged to make peace in 1299.

(And especially for Constance: Trebuchet in the outer bailey, with East Castle in the background)

Back to Albrecht. He managed to get into financial difficulties all the time - which is why I'd call him 'The Spendthrift' - and in 1293 he sold Thuringia to Adolf of Nassau who paid with the money he got from King Edward. No wonder Adolf's succour for Edward never materialised.

Such a transaction was legitimate under feudal law. Albrecht formally renunciated his fief and the land would fall back to the crown after his death. Though his sons were very much not happy about it.

Moreover, Albrecht's brother Dietrich had died in 129,1 and Albrecht's sons took possession of their uncle's lands in Meissen. But King Adolf claimned that fief as fallen back to the crown as well. Theoretically, he was right, but since the Wettin family had held those lands for generations, it would have been the common process to renew the feudal relationship.

Well, King Adolf had some money to spare and he hired an army of mercenaries who - instead of marching towards Gascony - mached towards Meissen. I won't go into the details of the war and the quarrels among Friedrich and his brother Dietzman, whose alliances, be it against their father or the king, always were fragile, and who were at each other's throat as often as working together. It proved difficult to find out where Apitz figured in that mess; he kept a life of minor feuds and highway robbery, but obviously didn't get involved in the big matters. Had he become conent with his role as lord of some castles or did he still wish for a larger part of the cake, did he oppose or support his half-brothers in the war against the king, which may have made some of his acts politically motivated and not just pillaging? Impossible to say for sure.

In the end, Adolf won the war and Friedrich and his brother had to flee into exile (1296) while Apitz continued to live in Tenneberg and Brandenburg castles, so he must have made his peace with the king. He died in 1305.

View to the hills of the Werra Valley
After Adolf's death in 1298, Friedrich and Dietzman returned from exile. They made peace with their father who resigned Thuringia to Friedrich for an annuity (he died in 1314, no longer politically active). But troubles were not yet over. The new king, Albert of Habsburg, the son of King Rudolf, who got elected as Adolf's successor (looks like the princes no longer believed in empty promises made by obscure candidates) claimed both Thuringia and Meissen as homefallen fiefs. Albert had the towns mostly on his side because the burghers wanted more independence and hoped to gain from the king what the landgrave would not grant them - imperial immediacy.

At some point in the conflict, Friedrich and his family were besieged in the Wartburg by the citizens of Eisenach, the town at the foot of the rock. But again, Friedrich managed to escape (my guess is that someone in the town didn't agree with the official politics, lol). Friedrich came back with an army and forced the townspeople to repair the damage they had caused during the uprising in Eisenach and the siege of the castle. Over time, he and Dietzman forced more towns into surrender, like Mühlhausen, and some followed of their own account. Finally, the brothers had collected enough of an army, albeit a somewhat ragtag one in parts, to face the forces of King Albert at the Battle of Lucka in 1307, which they won decisively. Albert had to give up any idea of snatching Thuringia and Meissen for the crown and thus himself.

Gate, curtain wall and cistern seen from eastern keep (in the background western tower)
King Albert was assasinated in 1308. A few months earlier, Dietzman had died as well, and Friedrich was now sole claimant to the lands held by his father and grandfather.

Albert's successor was Henri of Luxembourg, now Heinrich VII of the Germans. He made his peace with Friedrich who received his lands in an act of formal hommage in 1310 and again was officially acknowledged as Landgrave of Thuringia and Margrave of Meissen. King Edward I of England had spent a lot of money on a war that gained him nothing, neiner, neiner. Branches of the House Wettin exist until today. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha who married Queen Victoria, came form the Ernestine branch of the family.

Source:
Wilfried Warsitzka, Die Thüringer Landgrafen. 2nd revised edition, Erfurt 2009

The Local Nobility and Their Castles - Castle Hardeg

2011-11-19T21:56:00.005+01:00

I've covered the castle ruins in the surroundings of my hometown Göttingen in several posts (and I'm busy digging up more information because I sure have more photos, lol) but there are other remains of castles as well, those that were not abandoned but inhabited constantly over time. These castles often have been changed beyond recognition, but in some cases Medieaval buildings have survived, like the keep of Adelebsen Castle and the great hall of Castle Hardeg.

Hardeg Castle, the great hall from 1324
The first trace of the castle can be found in a charte by a Ludwig Lord of Rosdorf who is mentioned as dominus Castri Herdegessen (1266). Though the first castle on the rocky plateau may well date back to the year 1000, and settlement of the area goes back to the Neolithicum (finds of stone axes dating to 4500 BC and a bronze axe from 1500 BC) Later, members of the Germanic tribe of the Cherusci lived there during the Augustean time.

The Lords of Rosdorf (Edle Herren von Rosdorf), originating from a castle of the same name that was destroyed in 1319, had since 1250 acquired a nice little quilt of territorial estates in southern Lower Saxony and northern Thuringia from the Weser to Mühlhausen, and were connected by marriage to several other local noble families like the ones of Adelebsen, Hardenberg, and Plesse. Castle Hardeg became their main seat

The great hall or Mushaus, seen from the outer bailey
Dethard, Conrad, and Ludwig of Rosdorf, obviously three brothers, who are mentioned in several chartes, expanded Hardeg Castle into an impressive seat between 1321-24. They built the great hall, the Palas or Mushaus. It is the largest profane building of the time in Lower Saxony that still remains today, with a height of 35 metres, an outline of 23.5 x 13.5 metres, and walls of more than two metres in diameter.

The terminolgy is a bit tricky here. Regular readers will have come across the word palas which I use for the 'great hall' in German castles because it's the common term. But in parts of Lower Saxony, a local variant is used, Mushaus or Muthaus, which means 'dining hall'. Such buildings usually had a kitchen (located in the cellar), a dining room and an additional great hall for festivities - for which the building can still be rent today; it's a popular wedding set.

Mushaus, the side front
The cellar of the Mushaus has a Gothic cross grain vault. The building also has uncommonly large windows which points at a use only in summer. Moreover, there's only one fire place to heat the main hall. That must have been quite a luxury because the family would need a second, albeit smaller hall for the winter.

The entire castle at the time encopassed and area of 110 x 140 metres. The brothers added new curtain walls and a system of water-filled trenches and ponds. There also was a cistern (rediscovered i n 1992) to provide the garrison with freshwater.

Remains of the inner curtain wall
In the end, the Lords of Rosdorf overextended the financial means and had to sell the castle. The castle and the adjacent settlement of Hardegsen were purchased by Otto Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg to Göttingen for 3000 mark silver in 1379.

Otto was also known as 'the Quarrelsome' (Otto der Quade, in local dialect) or the Mad Dog of the Leine Vale. This charming guy was a member of the Welfen family who after the reconciliation with the emperor had gotten their allodial possessions back and now took the name after the two main seats. In the generations after Heinrich the Lion († 1195), the family had split their possessions; one of those was the Principality of Göttingen which fell to Otto in 1367.

The other side of the Mushaus, already in shadows
Otto didn't get along with most of the towns in his realm, including Göttingen where he had his seat. He also dabbled in robber baron activities and got involved in more feuds than he could keep trace of, shifted sides and whatnot. In the end, the burghers of Göttingen kicked him out, and Otto's alliance of local nobles was defeated by the armies of several towns in an open battle near Rosdorf. Otto lost his possessions in Göttingen and retired to Castle Hardeg in 1387.

It had long been assumed that Otto had conquered the castle - a proof for his renown, surely. But recent discoveries of chartes clarify that it was indeed a financial transaction, albeit Otto wasn't rich, either, and all those feuds cost him a lot of money. The quarrel with the Lords of Rosdorf that gave reason for the rumour that Hardeg Castle had been assaulted, seems to have been one Otto actually managed to settle.

View into the former outer bailey
When he died in 1394, Otto left a ruined principality behind, and an excommunicated body (the archbishop of Mainz didn't like robber barons, esp. not those who threatened his own lands) that could not be buried in a churchyard. So Otto's remains were interred outside the monastery of Wiebrechtshausen until his widow Margarethe got the ban lifted.

The settlement below the castle, named Hardegsen, profited from Duke Otto spending a lot of time in the castle. He granted Hardegsen the rights of town and the income from market and tolls, and had its fortificatiions strengthened, though I wonder who paid for that - not the duke, I bet. Still, the burghers of Hardegsen may have been the only ones not the hate the Mad Dog. The presence of a ducal court meant an increase of purchase power, after all.

The Hagenhaus; the only other Medieaval building that still remains
Hardeg remained the summer residence of the Calenberg-Göttingen branch of the Welfen family after Otto's death until well into the 16th century.

Between 1725 - 1780, the castle was changed into a state property for agriculture. The keep and other buildings were broken down and the stones reused to build stables and granaries. Today only the Mushaus, the Hagenhaus, once probably the winter quarter of the chatellain, and parts of the curtain wall remain. One of the barns of the former domain houses a ltitle museum, another part a riding stable.

Another view of the great hall
The Lords of Rosdorf were still around for some more centuries. The cadet branch served as ministeriales and chatellains of the archbishops of Mainz; they held postions at the castles of Hardenberg and Hanstein since about 1250. Later, members of the family went on the crusades into the Baltic States; there are Rosdorf in Riga in the 16th century. Today the family has died out and the name only remains as that of a village near Göttingen.

More Birds

2011-11-08T19:42:00.003+01:00

And that's why I prefer to photograph castles and landscape. The photo below is the only decent shot I got during the eagle safari on my Hurtigruten tour in spring; all the others were blurred and out of focus.

Eagle in flight
The seagulls who also accompanied the ship thanks to some fishy baits, were an easier target. For one, they came closer, and while they are fast and elegant birds, they still don't match those eagles in speed.

Postcard motive
The misty weather didn't help, either, but the little exta tour was still worth it even without eagle photos. I got some good ones of the landscape, though. Nice material for some winter themed posts later on.

Seagulls in the Trollfjord
I didn't attempt black and white photos here; the dark rocks, dark water, snow and mist just make it look like that - certainly atmospheric.

A flight of gulls (or whatever it's called)
BTW, regular blogging - longer essay posts, that is - will probably still have to wait two or three more weeks, right now life is still getting in the way. I apologise to my readers who look forward to more castles and Romans, and some juicy stories about dysfunctional noble familes. :)

Birds of Prey

2011-10-30T18:15:00.011+01:00

A visit to the falcon park near Bad Sachsa in the Harz marked one of the highlights of this weekend's tour. It was the last time before daylight saving changes back and darkness will start too early for longer tours. And it may have been the last day of sunshine and pretty colours before the next storms blow the leaves away.

The falcon park in the Harz (Harzfalkenhof) is a private endeavour founded in 1964. Its aim are the breeding, protection and research of birds of prey.

Yes, I'm very pretty, ain't I?
Olga is an Eurasian eagle owl from Siberia, and she knows that she's big, fluffy, and really cute, though like a true star, she needs some coaxing until she strikes a model pose.

She's showing off again. No self respecting eagle would do that.
The bald eagle opposite her stand was much haughtier. He's well aware of the fact that images of his species have graced more than one coat of arms during history.

Talk about yourself. I like to show off.
Bateleu, also knows as pine eagle, an African sub-species. He's a bit of a clown and I suspect he knows what a camera is.

Will you stop bickering already?
African fish eagle, another high brow bird. *grin* Actually, he did fluff his feathers quite a bit, but he would never admit that.

We're the prettiest and fluffiest here.
More eagle owls. One of the breeding programs involves these, and quite successfully so. Some of the rarer species are bred with the aim of reintroducing them into their natural habitats.

Do you really want to take a pic of me? I'm a bit shy, you know.
Saker falcon. There were several different falcons, but they are rather nervous birds and didn't like it when I got close enough to the wire netting fence to take good shots, so I left them in peace.

That wire netting fence is totally getting in the way of her camera.
Yeah, you don't think that would keep me from catching you, heh. Himalayan vultures. Those are the stars of the park and their best success in breeding; the Harz Falcon Park is the first place in the world to breed them in captivity.

We're hiding in dark corners
Long-eared owls. Most birds are kept in pairs or groups to encourage breeding, and several species of birds of prey, esp. eagles, are monogamous.

There must be a way out
Golden eagle. The cages are not too small for such large birds, btw. Birds of prey don't need to fly as much as song birds and spend a lot of time sitting around. Larger aviaries would tempt them to fly and crash into the netting (some of them have wing spans of several metres). Instead, the birds get regular flying exercises by trained falconers.

No, I'm not a turkey, I'm a turkey vulture - I'll eat your Thanksgiving dinner.
Flight shows are also done for the public - the park needs the money because it doesn't get any government funds - but only during visiting season. It was the last day the park was open and my father and I were the only visitors, so we got lots of time and space to observe the birds, but no show, except for Olga's antics. :)

Birthday Booty

2011-10-23T23:59:00.006+02:00

St. Peter played nice this year and gave me another perfect, cold and sunny Sunday - and right at my birthday, too. So my father and I took another trip into Thuringia and looked for interesting things to see (well, I researched in advance and made a plan). The day ended with a nice dinner, but I didn't take photos of that. :)

Göllingen Monastery, westwork seen from the west
The St.Wigbert Monastery in Göllingen was fisrt mentioned in a charte dating to 1005 as daughter house of the Abbey Hersfeld, which makes it one of the oldest monasteries in Thuringia. Not much remains of the place, unfortunately, only the westwork and the crypt. The crypt dates all the way back to about 1005 while the rest of the westwork is from the 12th century.

Göllingen Monastery, crypt
The Benedictine monastery was in use as such until 1606; afterwards the buildings were used for various purposes and most of them detoriated and were dismantled. The geographic situation close to the German border didn't help matters, either. But after the reunion, what was left was restored and can be visited.

Runneburg, palas seen from the bailey
Runneburg Castle was called Castle Weissensee in the Middle Ages. It was commissioned in 1168 by the landgravinne Judith of Thuringia, a half sister of Friedrich Barbarossa, as suitable place to spend some time on her travels from the Wartburg futher south. The orginal buildings were a palas, a five storey keep, walls and a gate house. The palas later got an an additional storey with a great hall like in the Wartburg.

Palas seen from the outside
The castle later came to the Wettinian line of Thuringian landgraves who spent quite a lot of time there and at some point changed the interior layout of the palas. The castle was always in use even after the nobles prefered to build residences instead of draughty towers; for some time it housed members of the local government and after WW2, a school. But the buildings had to be closed in teh 1980ies because of their bad state of repair. Since the reunion, attempts are going to on to preserve and restore the castle.

Funkenburg Germanic settlement: watch tower and trench
The last point on the list was another reconstructed Germanic place, this time a fortified settlement, or castle - the seat of a thane, most likely. The Funkenburg has been partly rebuilt on the original site. Excavations had been going on between 1974 - 1980, but the money necessary for the reconstruciton could only be found after the reunion.

Gate with battlements (seen from the inside of the castle)
Today the place is a popular target for school field trips, though it was quiet on this Sunday afternoon. No Roman attack, either. *grin* There is no proof that such attacks ever happened in history, but both Germanic and Roman reenactment groups use the place for meetings and games.

Long house
There were settlements on the Funkenburg between 200 BC and AD 50. Most of the remains found in the area are Germanic (the usual pottery mostly) but some finds point at contacts with Celts and Romans. Those finds are today in various museums in Thuringia.

Storage hut
The castle has an outer and inner bailey, to use the Medieaval terminlogy. According to the post holes, there must have been about 60 huts in the area, plus storage pits, waste pits and such. The largest house - in the inner bailey - measures 8 x 14 metres; the seat of the chief or thane. Occupations involving lots of fire like the bakery and the smithy were located in the outer bailey.

Arminius must have lived in a place much like this.

More Trees and a Lake

2011-10-16T23:39:00.016+02:00

It's no longer warm, but the first autumn storms have given way to some sunny days, and so we packed warm jackets and went landscape and history hunting again, for posts on cold winter days. :)

First, a spendid Gothic church - we haven't had one for quite some time. The St. Mary Church in Mühlhausen / Thuringia.

St. Mary Church in Mühlhausen, south side
The church was built mostly in the 14th century. It is a five naved hall church with a single main tower (86 metres high) which is a landmark of the town. The interior gives an impression of loftiness typical for the High Gothic style. It also makes for fun interior shots trying to make the pillars look like boles.

St. Mary Church, interior (the southern side naves)
The material used is local travertine, a variant of limestone. It's a good material for those flamboyant decorations at the outside, but it darkens rather fast and doesn't act well to all the nasty stuff in the air these days. The church has been recently renovated.

Next, a deceivingly peaceful looking lake.

Lake at the sacrifical site Oberdorla
Well, it is a peaceful place today, but this was not so some 2500 to 2000 years ago. A depression in the shellbearing limestone became a lake with swampy shores, later silted up and turned into a peat bog. Peat digging as late as the 1940ies led to the development of a new lake so that the place now looks pretty much like 2000 years ago.

A reconstructed 'Germanic' bridge across the lake
But the peat diggers discovered other things than peat, and soon archaeologists took interest in the bones - including human ones -, vessels, weapons and other 2000 year old finds. The place has been used as sacrifical site from the Hallstatt culture in the 6th century BC to the Migration time in the 5th century AD, and sometimes even beyond ("Just don't tell the priest we still go there.").

Another view of the lake because it's so lovely
Today there is a little indoor museum displaying some of the finds at the site, and an open air museum with reconstructed sacrifical sites from the Hallstatt time to the 3rd century AD, with those typical wooden statues, peat and grass altars, burial pits and whatever was the fashion at the time. There is also a reconstructed Germanic village with a long house, storage house, pit houses and an oven.

Reconstructed 3rd century AD German house in the open air museum Oberdorla
The site doesn't seem to have belonged to one particular Germanic tribe (it would have been the Hermunduri who settled in the area) but obviously was a larger meeting place for ritual purposes. Who knows, maybe Arminius has been there.

After his fascinating journey into the past, we went to another National Park, the Hainich.

Tree top walk in the Hainich
The Hainich is situated in the area Eisenach (Wartburg), Mühlhausen, Bad Langensalza, all important places in Thuringia. It encompasses 13,000 hectares of deciduous forest, mostly beech, mixed with ash, oak, maple and a type of linden (tilia cordata). The Hainich has been declared UNESCO World Heritage together with several other deciduous beech forests in Germany, and the Carpathian forests in Slovenia and the Ukraine.

A Roman nightmare - View from the observation tower over the Hainich at sunset
The Hainich has a tourist attraction (besides lots of beautiful hiking tours), a 550 metres long tree top walk. I wasn't sure at first if I'd dare to tackle that one since I'm prone to vertigo, but it turned out the way is so solid that I didn't mind being between 13 and 21 metres above ground. I even dared to look down. It is a fascinating perspective of a forest you don't get otherwise - and the trees are even larger from eye to eye than they seem from below.

Part of the walk seen from below
The viewing tower is even higher, 41 metres, and gives a splendid view of the surroundings. We went there shortly before sunset and while the tree tops were tinted in a warm golden shine, the light down between the boles already began to fade and give way to darkness.

Tree top walk seen from the tower
The one problem was getting shots against the low sun without funny reflections, I didn't fully succeed, but here's part of the tree top walk seen from the viewing tower. The place had been pretty busy during the day since it's only open when weather permits, but that late most people were gone. Which I like better, lol

A Trace of Fall

2011-10-12T21:47:00.006+02:00

Before the first autmn storms set in this week, summer gave us a last farewell with warm and sunny days, though the lower sun and the hazy air bespoke the fall to come.

Reconstruced Mediaeval houses in Tilleda
No, we don't live in houses like that anymore. It's one of the reconstructed houses in the open air museum Tilleda, once a palatine castle and settlement of the Ottonian emperors. Of the main seat (great hall, church, etc.), only foundations remain, but some houses and the walls and gates of the settlement have been reconstructed.

Sunlight dancing on water
The Sieber vale in the Harz with its brooks and rivulets running towards the Sieber and forming smaller valleys, is one of the beautiful hiking areas somewhat close to where I live (if you count a 40-50 minutes drive close). There is a tinge of gold and red in the leaves alrready that will soon flare up in the colours of an Indian Summer - if the storms don't get the leaves first.

A net of twigs, backlit by the sun
You can often walk those paths without meeting other human beings. Most of them stay closer to civilisation - and that's the people who once used the forests as weapon against the Romans, lol.

A brook in the Sieber valley
I love to walk beside running water, listening to its peaceful gurgling and watching the sun dance on the silvery surface. The smaller brooks often have a playful air, with the water bubbling and splashing over the stones. In summer you can cool your feet as well.

Werra river with limestone cliffs
This water is a bit larger - the Werra river in Thuringia. The dramatic cliffs in the background are shellbearing limestone, carved out by the river during thousands of years.

Another view of the cliffs
The place is called 'Werra's Knee', a bend in the river near town and castle Creuzburg (another castle connected with the landgraves of Thuringia - and another one on my increasing list of Posts to Write If I Can Find the Time - this week I could not, as you see).

Creuzburg Castle in the evening sun
The Creuzburg is an intact (partly reconstructed, of course) castle that today houses a hotel and restaurant. It has a different atmosphere than those splendid ruins so abundant in Germany, but at least it survived by being in use over time.

Two Castles in One - The Brandenburg in Thuringia

2011-10-02T01:06:00.015+02:00

I've been making the best of the current Indian Summer while it lasts and used the little spare time to visit some more interesting places. One of the castles I visited together with my father gave me an abundance of photos but not so much information about its history. Brandenburg Castle in Thuringia must have been a large and well fortified place once - its remains are still impressive - but it never played a significant role in history.

View from the eastern keep: East gate (left) with gate house and cistern, remains of the palas (right),
inner curtain wall of the East Castle with the Hexagon Tower in the background
The castle is situated on a mountain at the foothills of the Thuringian Forest, guarding a ford across the Werra river and the road from Hersfeld to Eisenach, one of the important roads in the Middle Ages. The Brandenburg is a double castle which means it consists of two separate castles, one - the Westburg - sitting on a promontory, and the other - the Ostburg (East Castle) - on the peak itself; botth are separated by a natural trench and have their own sets of curtain walls, towers and gates. Another gate with fortifications may have been at the foot of the hill, there are some worked stones lying around, and traces of an artificial trench. The other side of the hill facing the Werra river is steeper and didn't require additional fortifications.

Hexagon Tower and curtain wall of the East Castle
One can easily imagine that a double castle like this is more difficult to conquer. It takes a larger army to lay siege to it, there are more walls where the defenders can pour and throw down all sort of interesting things, and if you manage to conquer one castle, there's still another one left. As far as I know, the Brandenburg was never besieged.

(The donjon of the West Castle)

For a long time the castle had been a veritable seat of the Sleeping Beauty with trees growing in its yards and vines covering the tumbling walls. During the time of the German separation, the Brandenburg was in the so-called Sperrzone, an area along the East German border that was forbidden for everyone, even the people living in the villages in that zone needed special permits to get in an out - only in East Germany, of course, from the west you could always get as far as the first fence. Thus the castle was abandoned for 40 years, left to the trees and the birds.

One could see the towers from afar. Nearby Herleshausen was one of the places where you could cross the border into East Germany (which we never did). 20 years after the reunion only a road sign remains where once were fences and mine fields, and the Brandenburg is accessible for visitors.

We had sometimes been hiking in the area before the family moved to Göttingen, often seeing the death zone and watch towers, but this time we could not for sure remember where exactly the border ran so well has it been ereased. After 20 years, a whole generation has grown up without the sight of those fences and forbidden zones, or the attempt to make one of the GDR soldiers in the towers wave back (I remember one did once, shyly and cautiously when his colleague was looking the other direction; it was a dangerous thing to do for them).

The second castle of the day, the Creuzburg, lies in Thuringia as well and thus was in the GDR, too, albeit that one had always been in use and was never a sleeping beauty.

Main keep of the East Castle
The village at the foot of the castle, Lauchröden, is first mentioned in a charte dating to 1019, and in 1144, one Wigger of Wartberg and his brother Gottfried are mentioned as protectors and reeves of said village and its church. Wigger is called comes - count. He held the position of châtelain or burgrave of the nearby Wartburg, seat of the Landgraves of Thuringia, since at least 1138. Because of the family's interests in Lauchröden, it is assumed that they built the first Brandenburg castle, the Westburg around 1140.

View from the West Castle to the East Castle (zoomed in)
A few years later, Wigger of Wartberg held possessions along the Werra, around Eisenach and Gotha in Thuringia, and in Hessia (near Kassel). The family certainly was on the rise. His son Burchardt followed his father as burgrave of the Wartburg.

The East Castle likely was built about 1170, but it took until 1224 for the family to take their name after their main seat and not their hereditary position as châtelains at the court of the landgraves of Thuringia: the 'von Wartberg' became 'von Brandenberg'.

Eastern main gate and cistern, with the palas in the background
I could only find glimpses of the Wartbeg / Brandenberg family, despite the fact they still were châtelains of the Wartburg and their life often connected with the fate of the landgraves of Thuringia. Count Ludwig I of Wartberg participated in the crusade 1197/98 together with Landgrave Hermann I, but contrary to his lord who died of a fever, Ludwig survived. His successor Ludwig II shared the fate of Landgrave Ludwig IV, they both died during the crusade in 1227, and the position of the burgraves of the Wartbug discontinued. Ludwig's cousin Burchard of Brandenberg survived and returned home.

Remains of the palas of the East Castle
But the family got in financial troubles, like other nobles of their time. They were obliged to keep up a certain lifestyle, represent, donate land and money to churches and sub-vassals and other expensive habits, and not every family had the income to back this up. In 1280, Albert II of Brandenberg sold Brandenburg Castle to Landgrave Albrecht. He rremained the landgrave's conselor, but with their main possession lost, the family also lost the title of 'count' and became mere ministeriales again (a status from which they had risen with Wigger 150 years before). The last time the family Brandenberg is mentioned dates to 1435; they probably died out soon thereafter.

Albrecht II of Thuringia (nicknamed 'the Degenerate') gave the Brandenburg to his son Apitz in 1290. It seems Apitz actually spent some time in the castle.

Outer and inner gate of the East Castle with curtain wall in the background, seen from the keep
The last time both castles were held by the same family was 1322 - 1359 when the lords of Heringen took them as fief from the landgraves of Thuringia.

After that time, the East Castle changed hands several times until the lords Herda zu Brandenburg held it from 1415 - 1892, after which the line died out and the castle fell back to the Great Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (no, I didn't make that title up). He forbade further dismantling of the castle and instead had it somewhat restored.

The Brandenburg became a tourist attractions in the early 20th century. Picturesque castle ruins were pretty popular then.

Main gate of the West Castle, seen from the bailey
The West Castle came into possession of the Reckrodt family (1440 - 1720). One of their members, Georg of Reckrodt, was a famous mercenary leader in the 16th century. He died on the Brandenburg in 1559. After that time, both castles were no longer inhabited, and were soon used as quarries to build a modern palace in Lauchröden (a fate the Brandenburg shared with most Roman remains and other castles).

The West Castle changed possession a few more times until 1936 when the last owner sold it to the County of Thuringia. He probably didn't want to pay for the upkeep of some uninhabitable ruins; that can get rather expensive.

View from the gate into the east bailey
After the sleeping beauty was woken again in 1989, it needed some thorough restoration to make the place safe for visitors. Between 1990 - 1994 the keep and gate of the West Castle were partially restored, as well as the keep of the East Caslte which houses a little museum (which was alas, closed). Some steps and rails were added to make access easier though it's still a bit of a climb to reach both castles.

The Brandenburg is cared for by the Thuringian Castles and Gardens Foundation.

Built Into a Town Wall - The Amphitheatre in Augusta Treverorum (Trier)

2011-09-24T00:47:00.020+02:00

Salvete amici, here's Aeilius Rufus again. Gabriele asked me to take over today's post. That she had to drag me out of the baths in Augusta Treverorum is just a rumour, though. She caught me on my way to the baths.

Gabriele said she thought her readers were starting to miss posts about the glorious Roman civilization after all that stuff about odd rock formations, and castelli in what some of our geographers refer to as Thule. I'm really glad Tony ... oops, the noble Emperor Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus Pius, never got the idea to conquer that dismal country. Darkness for three months and snow for six is not my idea of fun, and I'm used to some snow from my home in the Alpes. The Romans would mutiny if they got deployed to that Vardøhus place - they didn't even have decent baths there. Definitely worse than the Hadrian's Wall.

So, today we're going to visit the amphitheatre in Augusta Treverorum.

Amphitheatre Trier, main entrance (the south gate)
I mentioned in my post about the Roman Bridge that the Colonia Augusta Treverorum was founded in 17 BC by the Emperor Augustus and soon developed to a rich and prospering town. Most inhabitants were members of the tribe of the Treveri and other Gauls who imitated the Roman lifestyle gladly. Can't blame them; indoor plumbing beats going to the well every morning, especially in winter. And underfloor heating is nice, too. It didn't take long for the first mosaics and frescoes to appear, either. Those wine, pottery, and cloth merchants made a helluva money.

After Vespasian won the civil war in AD 71 and cleaned up both Iudaea and northern Gaul and the German border, he put some effort into making Augusta Treverorum even more beautiful. He had new building sites developed, erected the first stone bridge across the Moselle, and a splendid forum. Gabriele says nothing remains of the latter, though.

Main gate seen from the arena
During the time of Emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138), the government and the central tax office of the province Gallia Belgica were moved to Augusta Treverorum which became the residence of the legatus Augusti pro praetore, and wow did he get a fine office block. Mosaics are not part of government buildings these days, I've heard, they tend to be rather bland. But the amount of clerks and subclerks, and the paperwork were pretty much the same - two copies, please.

Our venerable Antoninus Pius then added a town wall, not for defense since the province is calm these days and the Germans mostly stay put on the other side of the Rhenus, but for show. One of its great gates, the Porta Nigra, has survived 2000 years.

North gate
A town the size of Augusta Treverorum (it was three times as large as the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensis aka Cologne, neiner, neiner) of course needed an amphitheatre. The Celts are as fond of gladiator fights and animal baitings than the Romans. I know what I'm talking about. *grin*

There had been a timber-built amphitheatre dating to the 2nd half of the 1st century AD, but no self respecting Roman town wanted to keep such an outdated thing around, so a new one was constructed in the last third of the 2nd century. The remains of that one are still visible in the future, Gabriele told me. Roman concrete, I tell ya. :)

(Staircase beside the main entrance, leading to the upper seatings)

About 70 Roman amphitheatres are known; the one of Augusta Treverorum (you know, I'm getting tired of scratching that long name onto my wax tablet every other sentence; I'll use the modern one, Trier, from now on) ranks at number 10 in size. The theatre could hold 18.000 - 20,000 visitors. That makes the 6000 seats of Caerleon look like a provincial arena indeed. But they had the bigger baths.

Ok, ok, back to the amphitheatre it is. The arena measures 47.5 x 71 metres (that makes 2710 m²) and is fenced in with a four metres high wall. The wall is so high because you don't want a hungry lion or bad tempered aurochs jump it and have some spectators for lunch. There was an additonal wooden screen in front of the wall as post holes show. Timber seldom survives the centuries, but archaeologists are good at finding the holes where timber posts once anchored in the earth since the colour and consistency of the soil often is different from its surroundings. And then those archaeologists discuss what the posts in those holes had been good for.

Maybe I should ask my friend Merlinus to do another time travel journey with Gaius Fannius and me to see those people from the future with their little picture boxes, dressing up as Romans and playing gladiator. We don't have picture boxes, only coins with the image of the Emperor so that everyone in the Empire knows what he looks like - if the artist did a decent job. In most cases Tony could probably pass by without being recognised if not for all that staff hanging out with him. Overpaid civilians with illusions about their own importance.

You see that the arena proper isn't larger than in the smaller theatres. The difference in size lies in the structure and number of seatings.

The seatings, in particular their support constructions, are the trickiest part in building an amphitheatre. You don't want the whole shenagian come crushing down - which has happened a few times with the older timber-built theatres. So you either go for huge, solid stone like in Vespasian's amphitheatre in Rome, which cost a fortune and some, or you need to cheat a bit.

View from the north gate across the arena to the south gate
The architects in Trier did cheat. They used the slope of the Petrisberg hill to get a rampart to support the seatings on the eastern side. Then they dug out the earth in front of it to get a nice, flat arena, and heaped that lot up on the other side of the oval. And while they were busy constructing that flashy town wall anyway, they built it so it would bend inward in a semicircle along the theatre, and volià, as the Gauls say, there they had the support wall for the western seatings. Ok, it came out a bit higher than the town wall, to 22 metres (which makes for 26 seat rows), but still it was only half the job. So one inner wall I mentioned above, half an outer one, and a few gates, and that was it. A lot less work than that monster in Rome required.

They made up for that much earth with two splendid stone portals, though, and some smaller entrances. Gabriele caught the still impressive remains with that picture box of hers. As usual, the gates were built in multiple shell technology, with two facing walls filled with a mix of concrete and abris (the latter is what mostly remains, though some of the outer stones can be seen as well). The material used in Trier is limestone for the facing walls and local shale for the filling. The masonry was once whitewashed and decorated with red grout lines.

Vomitorium on the town side
The portals were not used as visitor entrances but for parades and such. The actual entrances and the stairs leading to the higher seatings are located beside the main gates. Today the remains of the gates seem to cut the building into two halves, but once the portals had been roofed in to form an arch, and connected with the upper ranks of the seatings to complete the oval.

Besides the entrances at the portals, there were two additional, smaller entrances in the western side - the town side. This sort of entrance was called vomitorium. It has nothing to do with visitors bringing too much food and wine (though some did that); the name does mean 'spew out', but people, not breakfast. The seatings were divided by walks and a number of stairs to avoid jostling crowds.

(Arena wall with vomitorium and remains of the town wall in the background; one of the doors to gladiator chambers in the foreground)

If you look back to the wall surrounding the arena you will notice 15 doors. Those led to subterranean chambers for the gladiators and animals. The amphitheatre also had a cross-shaped cellar under the arena, with elevators and other technical equipment to add more thrill to the performances. It was added in the 3rd century. The cellar survived because it had been filled with wet clay during the centuries that preserved even part of the timber structures. The place gives a much better impression of the darkness and narrowness of arena cellars than the one of Vespasian's amphitheatre in Rome that today is open to the sky.

Like Caerleon, the amphitheatre in Trier had a drain that collected the rain water and led it through a channel under the south gate into a nearby rivulet.

Thanks to my slightly unsavoury connections (Celtic druids capable of time traveling are not people you mention in front of your centurion) I can also tell you a bit about the history past my time.

Gabriele's ancestors got frisky again in AD 275, overran the border to the Roman Empire and sacked Trier (Aelius, my ancestors were most likely Saxons, not Franks). Well, those Franks and some other Germanic tribes caused Rome enough trouble until Diocletian thoroughly reformed the administration and the military and put a stop to the raids. Trier - then called Treviris, and sometimes nicknamed Roma secunda - became one of the administrative centres of the newly organised Empire in AD 293. The Imperial towns closer to the borders pushed Rome to the second rank.

In the years to follow, Trier flourished; the amphitheatre and baths were rebuilt, a circus for chariot races added, the Imperial Palace got a complete Home Makeover and a new aula. During the 4th century, Trier had 80,000 inhabitants and was the largest town north of the Alpes.

Remains of one of the chambers for gladiators
Constantine the Great gave the last impulse to the building activities, with the Imperial Baths and the Aula Palatina as most outstanding projects. But when he later made Constantinople his residence, he left some half finished buildings behind, and the usual lack of further fundings. The Imperial Baths would become the garrison quarters while the Aula eventually got finished. (Gabriele tells me that her old post about the Aula Palatina is woefully short and that I should get my behind in a chair and scratch a better one onto my wax tablets. *sigh*).

Constantine dealt with some Frankish raider kings he captured, Ascaric and Merogais, and their merry band of robbers by feeding the whole lot to the lions in the amphithreatre. That's at least how the story goes.

Constantine also legitimised the sect of the Christians in AD 313. Those Christians had been around since the time of Tiberius; a small sect back then that believed someone called Jesus, whom Rome had crucified for insurrection down in Iudaea, was a god or the son of a god or something. I know that a few men in the army are Christians, but they never really speak about it because their religion is considered illegal. But it seems those Christians have grown in numbers and power in the future, and Constantine considered them valuable allies in his war against Maxentius.

The cellar under the arena
So when the Roman Empire collapsed and many Roman towns fell into ruins, Trier survived in a better state because it was the seat of a Christian priest, a bishop, and had several temples, what they call churches and cathedrals.

When Constantine left, the amphitheatre, situated in a handy position within the town wall, was turned into a fortress. The place gave shelter to the inhabitants of Trier when the Germans sacked the town in AD 406, the year of the great invasion across the Rhenus.

The Franks eventually conquered Trier and stayed put. They made the Aula Palatina their residence, and since they soon became Christians as well, the cathedral and most churches didn't fare too badly. The amphitheatre fell into ruins, but the vaults of the vomitoria were used as storage rooms.

View from the north across the arena
The stone seats and facing stones eventually made their way into other buildings. There's even a written contract form 1211 allowing the monks of some monastery to use the amphitheatre as quarry. In the 19th century, the place became a vineyeard, and that's almost Roman, heh.

Later, the interest in us Romans grew again, and some archaeologists dug the remains of the amphitheatre out of the earth - the earthen slopes had over time eroded and covered most of the remains. The first digs took place in 1816. The ruins were preserved and the inner wall was rebuilt so that the theatre can be used for performances today (though not involving lions and sharp weapons). The cellar has also been made accessible. Curse tablets which have been found there - what is that about gladiators and curse tablets, lol - can be seen in the Landesmuseum.

Source:
Klaus-Peter Goethert, Römerbauten in Trier. Burgen, Schlösser, Altertümer Rheinland Pfalz, volume 20. Landesmedienzentrum Rheinland-Pfalz, 2005

Busy Life. And Some Ammonites

2011-09-16T17:25:00.016+02:00

Life is still busy, and blogging is one of the things that got a bit of a short shift those last weeks. But I managed to drag our friend Aelius Rufus out of the baths in Trier and have him prepare a post about the Romans which I hope to publish come weekend. I also hope my private schedule will go back to something resembling normal, and blogging will return to a weekly-post routine of more substance than just rocks or monkey trees.

Meanwhile, have some pretty ammonites.

A medium sized ammonite, (aspidoceras, Upper Jurassic) found near Hannover
(Collection of the Department of Geology, University Göttingen)
Ammonites are an extinct subclass of marine invertebrate animals, the molluscs (cephalopoda). Ammonites were around from the Early Devonian about 400 million years ago to the Late Cretaceous when they died out together with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Over that time, they developed some 40,000 species from tiny 1 cm cuties to 30 cm exemplars. But there were also some really big ones that could grow to two metres.

A bunch of smaller ammonites and fragments,
found in shellbearing limestone sediments in Lower Saxony
Because of their frequency, variety and distinct details of their shells, ammonites make for excelllent index fossils. Some sediments are dated solely by the ammonite types found.

And some ammonites are really whacky. The exemplars below date from the so-called Campanium, a period within the Upper Cretaceous (83.5 - 70 million years ago).

A heteromorph ammonite (nostoceras; left) and a hoplitoplacenticeras (right)
The most common form of ammonite shells are planispirals, though there also were some non spiraled and helically-spiraled forms.The front part of the shell contained the body of the ammonite, the back part the buoyant element (phragmokon). Little is known about the bodies of ammonites because the only remains fround are some jaw fragments and the traces where muscles joined the shell. We don't know how many arms an ammonite had, either, or how exactly they moved in the water.

Some large ammonites
And below is the XXL model, a parapuziosa ammonite from Westphalia in Germany, with a diameter of 105 cm. The largest ammonite of this subgroup ever found (also in Germany) had a diameter of 2.50 metres. The big boy in the photo is 83 million years old, dating to the Campanium. Parapuziosa ammonites can weigh more than 3 tons because the body of the animal has been completely replaced by stone.

A giant - an exemplar of the parapuziosa ammonites
(Entrance Hall of the Geological Centre, University Göttingen)
The name 'ammonites' goes back to the Roman scientist Pliny the Elder (who died near Pompeii when the Vesuvius blew up in AD 79) who called the fossils ammonis cornu - horns of Ammon, the Egyptian god often depticed wearing ram's horns. I'll have to find out if the Romans understood those were fossilized animals.

Just Some Pretty Pics

2011-09-07T23:18:00.007+02:00

We had a family gathering near Mannheim this weekend, in a very nice hotel with several gardens. A lot of the plants growing there are not European but Asian and American, like this combination of bamboo and a Monkey Puzzle Tree from Chile.

Monkey Puzzlee Tree (right) and bamboo
Its official name is Araucaria araucana, a tree that is indigenous to Chile, Argentina and south Brazil. Araucania is a member of the conifer family and can grow to 40 metres tall. The first trees were cultivated in Britain in 1850, and that's where the nickname came up, 'it would puzzle a monkey to climb that'. Since Araucaria is a very old species, it is considered a living fossil. The trees had been around when dinosaurs still walked the earth.

Fossilized equisetum
This equisetum is the big brother of the small ones that have survived to our time. A hundred million years ago, members of their species could grow to the size of trees and dominated the Paleozoic forests. I found this one in the museum of the Department of Geology at our university. I knew they had some interesting stuff on display and finally managed to go there with my camera.

Another pretty corner in the hotel garden
This is part of the Japanese garden of the hotel. They got a tea pavillion as well, though our group met in another part of the gardens. The hotel can host 200 guests, but it's such a labyrinth that you'd never guess how large it is, and several groups celebrating at the same time won't get into each other's way.

A little lake
Another pretty view. In between the coffe table, the concert (an amazing performance of violin sonatas by Grieg and Dvořak), and the dinner, I took the chance to take a swim in the pool (the day was very hot) and walk around in the gardens with my camera.

Koi pond
Yeah, no Japanese garden without a koi pond. They were pretty elusive targets, but I managed to catch this photo of Big Daddy Koi and several smaller ones with very beautiful colours and patterns. They are like swimming jewels.

Sunset
Despite the fact they are not all named Henry, Erik, Margaret or Ingeborg, I can't sort out my extended family past the aunts and cousins; they're more complicated than Mediaeval nobility. But it was nice to meet some of my cousins again - we don't see each other very often.

Oh, and we managed to snatch another castle on the way home.

Münzenberg Castle
Münzenberg Castle dates back to the 12th century. Its most interesting features are two keeps and two palas buildings, one in Romanesque and one in the Gothic style. Only ruins remain, but substantial ones, and the keeps have been restored to their original height. The castle is the second most famous one in Germany besides the Wartburg. I'll get back to this one.

Münzenberg Castle, the Romanesque palas
Here's a link to the hotel website (German only). Bad Dürkheim is situated at the Wine Road, not far from the Rhine and some of the Roman towns like Worms and Mainz. This is the area where the Romans pushed further into Germania and erected the Limes border. The Roman villa at Wachenheim is close by as well.

More Rocks - The Karst Formations near Scharzfeld / Harz

2011-08-31T21:03:00.007+02:00

Life's been a bit busy this week, so here's another short post with some photos. This time you'll get some odd rocks one can stumble across in the Harz.

Gypsum and dolomite boulders in a karst landscape
Once upon a time ... well, 250 million years ago, what is now Germany hung out around the equator, and it was a sea, the Zechstein Sea which covered msot of central Europe-to-be. Like most seas, it had tiny critters swimming around, some with shells, it had coral reefs and nutrients like carbonates and sulfates. Since the climate at the equator is hot, the water evaporated, leaving behind layers of shells, corals and other organic material which over time baked together. Then the sea would flood back in. This happened several times over until the continental drift moved Germany further north.

The 'Steinberg' rock formation
About 100 million years ago, the Harz mountains began to fold up, and the layers of dolomite, limestone, and gypsum (all of organic origins, with dolomite being the hardest) shaped into hills and mountains along the fringes of the southern Harz. In other parts of the area, rocks like greywacke or granites came up on top. Below the gypsum layers in the southern mountains lies the 280 million years old rotliegend.

Rocks with view towards Scharzfeld
During the Ice Ages and interglacials, the landscape began to karstificate. Mildly acid water dissolved the soluble bedrock, seeping in through fractures and enlarging them. Over time, an undeground drainage system would develop (see the post about the Lonau Falls) which in turn carved out caverns and caves. Since karst landscapes are shortlived - not the formation iteself so much as the particular shapes - the caves, boulders and rock formations in the southern Harz are no older than 12,000 years.

The 'Sentinel'
The mining of gypsum in the Harz showed remains of the wooly rhinoceros, mammoth, cave bear, giant deer and other fauna of the Ice Age, as well as flintstone tools. One can also discern the regrowth of trees during interglacials, and the first traces of human settlements like man made clearings, and grain seeds.

The 'Bastion'
Dolomite areas can be arable or used for grazing, depending on the soil layer. Other features in the Harz are calcareous grasslands along the slopes, and forests of common beech on limestone ground. Including ant hills and pretty aggressive ants who found my bare feet in sandals irresistible.

The 'Knight's Stone', with a nose (an abris)
An abris is a half-cave opening at the base of a cliff. This one's very small, but larger such rock shelters have been used by the hunters of the Ice Age., also in the Harz.

The vales are running along the relief of the rotliegend; the dolomite layer was washed out in the channels and grooves, thus deepening the valleys.

One of several caves and hollows
There's one large cave that will get its own post one of these days, but I think I'll need to go back to the Romans for a change, or my Roman readers will run away. ;)

Source
Website Karstwanderweg Südharz

Fancy Some Cold Water? - The Lonau Fall near Herzberg / Harz

2011-08-24T21:16:00.012+02:00

Well, I don't think my British readers fancy any more cold water than they already got, but we have some very hot days in Germany, and the heat wave in the US seems to be still strong. And since the litte trip I did last Saturday included a waterfall (besides a cave and limestone rock formations), I'll share some photos with you.

Lonau river in the forest
The Lonau Fall is the only natural waterfall in the western Harz and a nice view even in summer. I've seen it at a time some years ago when the snow in the Harz mountains had just melted, and during such periods it is truly impressive. But the summer pics are interesting, too.

The Lonau river cascades 10 metres down a narrow ravine to confluence with the Sieber river about 100 metres further south. The most prominent feature of the surrounding landscape is a hornbeam forest with some moss-grown greywacke boulders.

Foaming over stones
Waterfalls are a sign for a disruption in the relief of a river, and a good chance to study the geological history of a landscape. The time that interests us here is the quartenary ice age, the the last 500,000 years of our history. Yeah, this goes a bit further back than the Romans.

Those millenia were defined by cycles of moderate, wet climates (like today) and dry, cold climates with permafrost, usually refered to as Ice Ages. Though the area in question was never covered by ice and thus we speak about glacial periods or glaciations; the warmer times are called interglacials. The last glacial period ended 15,000 years ago and we today live in an interglacial, the Holocene epoch.

(The first cascade)

The difference between greywacke and the softer limestone caused the beds of the rivers Lonau and Sieber to develop differently. The Lonau makes their way over the hard greywacke while the Sieber had to deal with the much softer limestone and over time carved its bed ten metres deep into the rock. Both rock layers meet at the Lonau waterfall.

Greywacke is a hard sandstone that developed during the Palaeozoic Era ( 542-251 million years ago). The clastic sedi-mentary rock is usually found - among other geological formations - at the bases of mountain areas that once had been deep sea ground. While greywacke is composed mostly of the eroded grains of other stones like quartz, feldspar (crystallised magma) and flint that baked together in a layer of clay and hardened over millenia, the limestone that also can be found in the area is a sedimentary rock composed of organic fragments like coral or foraminifera and thus also former sea ground.

Limestone is soluble to water, and over time the water and weak acids from the overlaying soil enlarged the cracks and fissures in the limestone by dissolving the calcium carbonate. The result is a so-called karst landscape, with oddly shaped rocks and caves (one such cave is not far from the Lonau Fall). Another feature of karst landscapes is the lack of visible groundwater, that is, there are no rivers and wells. The water drains through the soil into the porous stone until it meets a layer of hader rock - such water reservoirs may reappear several miles from the original source; the Rhume Springs is a good example for that (and not far from the Lonau/Sieber confluence).

(The second cascade)

During every glacial, the rivers delved deeper into the bedrock, mostly by congelifraction: the water in rock fissures froze, thus expanded its volume and caused erosion. One can easly see how that would be a lot more efficient in limestone. During interglacials, the riverbeds partly refilled with gravel from higher regions, which in turn worked a bit like mortars.

Both rivers changed their course during the millenia. The Sieber moved closer to the Lonau and basically tapped her. One can still find a mix of Sieber and Lonau gravel in the middle terrace of the fall, dating to the Saale Glacial about 130,000 years past. But the final touch, the further deepening of the Sieber riverbed and the waterfall with its cascades, developed during the last, the Weichsel Glacial, which ended 11,700 years ago.

The Lonau waterfall marks a geological border between the greywacke and the zechstein layer, another sedimentary rock. It can be found all the way from the east coast of England to Poland; the European Permian Basin or Zechstein Sea. The zechstein is the lowest layer of former Oceanic sediments in the Harz. It is harder than limestone but still easier to erode than greywacke.

The border between greywacke and limestone runs in such a way that the limestone extends into the Sieber valley like a tongue, but doesn't reach the Lonau which runs on the greywacke. That way the Sieber deepened its limestone bed and eroded the zechstein at the fringe of the mountains faster than the Lonau, increasing the difference in height to ten metres.

Second cascade, another view
The ravine through which the Lonau gushes down was washed out of a softer black shale strata (another sea ground sedimentary rock with organic grains) within the greywacke.

The greywacke along the fall does not show its typical grey colour but a red tinge instead. This is caused by the so-called rotliegend (why are half of the geological terms German, lol?) a rock layer immediately below the zechstein along the borders of the Harz mountains. The colour is caused by iron that had been dissolved when the Zechstein Sea flooded the recently folded mountains 260 million years ago.

Lonau river past the falls
The Lonau fall marks the end of one of the most affluent drainage areas of the Harz. The surrounding mountains get about 1500 mm percipitation; the 70 km² Sieber estuary has an annual average volumetric flow rate of 62 million m³ just before the fall (which makes 2 m³ every second), the Lonau estuary adds 10 miillion on 14 km². There are great differences in the flow rate of the fall between summer and winter, from 0.04 m³ per second in June to 3.00 m³ in January.

I hope you enjoyed the little geology lesson. :)

Source
Website Karstwanderweg Südharz

Akershus, Part 2: A Heir to Three Kingdoms, a Mistress, and Architectural Evoutions

2011-08-17T23:29:00.014+02:00

Some traces of the fortress built by King Håkon Magnusson and his great-grandson Håkon VI can still be seen, though much has either been changed or hides behind Renaissance and 19th century additions.

Akershus Fortress faced several more sieges in the years to come, but I'll spare you the details and more names with odd letters. The Mediaeval castle was never captured.

Another waterside view from the west:
Right to left: Monk's Tower, Virgin's Tower (with the red roof), Renaissance palace (South Wing),
central Romerike Wing with top of Romerike Tower, Mediaeval northern wing.
The most outstanding building dating to the time of King Håkon is the so called North Wing that once housed the great banqueting hall and the king's private quarters. You can distingush it by the crow stepped gable that reminds of the layout of the Håkon's Hall in Bergen. One of the towers, the Jomfrutårnet (Virgin's Tower) also remains unaltered. The lower storeys of the Romeriksfløyen (Romerike Wing; called after an area not far from Oslo) and the Romerikstårnet (Romerike Tower) are Medieaval as well.

In 1527, lightning caused severe damage, in particular of the inner bailey, so it looked like an afternoon walk for ex-king Christian II of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, to conquer the castle. The better part of the garrison was doing service elsewhere to boot - probably in castles with their living quaters still intact.

Munk's Tower (1559)
You may wonder how this guy became ex-king of three countries. Well, it goes back to the Kalmar Union from 1397. It was the doing of yet another Margaret, Margaret of Denmark who was married to Håkon VI of Norway and Sweden (we remember, his father Magnus had been king of both countries after Magnus' mother Ingeborg and her sister-in-law ousted King Birger of Sweden, who happened to be Magnus' uncle). Now the intermarriages had developed into a veritalbe Gordian Knot. A son of Håkon and Margaret could lay claim to all three thrones, and little Olav (* 1370) did. He was still a minor when his Danish grandfather, the king, died, and Olav became king with his mother Margaret as regent. In 1380, his father Håkon died as well. That made two crowns he got without too much hassle. The Swedes however, looked elsewhere for a king, so this position was still contested when Olav died in 1387.

That left Margaret of Denmark who must have been a capable women since she managed to get recognised as regent of Denmark and Norway ever after the death of her son. In the end, the Swedes decided they prefered a regent Margaret to Albert Duke of Mecklenburg, the other contender (his mother was Euphemia Eriksdottir, daughter of the unfortunate Erik of Södermanland and sister of King Magnus) as well. Albert was captured after a battle in 1389 and imprisoned in a Swedish castle for years.

Margaret adopted the grandson of her sister, a boy named Boguslaw (said sister had married into the Ducal House of Pomerania, an area today divided between north-eastern Germany and Poland, and they had names like that there) who prompty got renamed Erik, because we don't have enough of those already. ;) Erik, a boy of eight, was hailed king of Norway at the Thing of Trondheim, and he became King of Denmark and Sweden in 1396. He was crowned as king of all three countries in Kalmar a year later, probably at his coming of age, but his adoptive mother Margaret more or less remained in control until her death in 1412.

Pond between the old walls (right) and the 19th century buildings
Margaret also arranged Erik's marriage. Be prepared for another English connection. The girl she picked was Philippa of England, daughter of Henry IV (Henry of Bolingbroke), first king of the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenets. The marraige, which took place in 1406, seems to have been a happy one and Philippa was a ressourceful support to her husband. She died in 1430 without offspring.

At which point the nobles started to play Who's To Succeed the King. That and the ongoing troubles with the Hansa League and some dysfunctional German relations made life pretty difficult for Erik. One of the sieges of Akershus took place during that time.

Erik was deposed as king in Denmark and Sweden in 1439, whereof he retired to Gotland which was his personal possession (the Teutonic Knights had sold the island to Margaret). There must have been something about Gotland and pirates, because Erik followed the same career during his stay there, 'succeeding' some famous German pirates, the Victual Brothers. In 1449, he retired to Pomerania where he was still duke under the name Boguslaw. Erik died in 1459.

Seen from the park side; the brick and timber building is the former Double Battery from 1692,
today housing the Resistance Museum
The Kalmar Union from 1397, then known as Treaty of Kalmar, stipulated that the three realms would be united under one king (the king was elected, though usually among the sons of the previous king), but each country would keep its own government and laws. Foreign policy lay in the hands of the king and a group of advisors. The treaty also led to a situation that gave the nobles a good deal of power and independence.

The union survived several crises - the frist already under Erik - and lasted until 1523. So let's go back to King Christian II and how he became ex-king.

Munk's Tower, seen from inside the fortress
One of the problems was a pretty girl named Dyveke (little dove) Willoms. Christian II met Dyveke during a feast in Bergen in 1506 (before he became king), fell in love with the girl and made her his mistress, bought a house for her in Oslo and later took her with him to Copenhagen. Christian was crowned King of Norway and Denmark in 1513, and two years later married Elisabeth of Habsburg, but did not abandon Dyveke. Mistresses weren't that unusual in royal households, but it seems Christian really flung his pretty little dove into everybody's face and had no idea how to spell 'discretion'.

Dyveke died suddenly in 1517, and Christian suspected that she had been poisoned by Torben Oxe, governor of Copenhagen Castle. Christian had him beheaded - against the judgement of his council. The fact that Dyveke's mother Sigbrit was one of his chief advisors didn't improve matters, either - a commoner and a woman, and Dutch. Oh dear. One can almost see the faces of the council members.

Sortie Gate (1834)
The Swedes, as usual, had their own candiate for kingship, and it took Christian some work, a few battles, and a score or so executiions to gain that crown as well (in 1520). But the reforms Christian introduced which strengthened the position of the king and favoured the wealthy middle classes over the nobility, led to an increasing adversity of the nobles who began to rise in all three countries. There was a peasant revolt as well, soon exploited by the disgrunted nobles. Christian was forced to seek exile in the Netherlands in 1523. He tried to fight for the throne again in 1532 but was taken prisoner and spent the rest of his life in somewhat comfortable captivity.

Christian II died in 1559 at the age of 80. The Kalmar Union had broken up in 1523 and Sweden became a separate kingdom from Norway / Denmark.

The above mentioned siege of Akershus took place during the time Christian tried to win back the throne(s). He was unaware of the bad shape and meagre garrison of the fortress and concluded an armistice with its commander, Mogens Gyldenstjerne. The siege was relieved by Danish forces in the following year. Now, this is pretty amazing: there's an entire army camped outside the fort for months and some 20-30 soldiers obviously managed to have them believe there was a whole badass army inside as well. The fortress was repaired after the siege.

One of the outer bastions (Prins Carls Bastion, 1648)
But it was King Christian IV (1573-1648) who gave the most important impulses for the Renaissance style House Overhaul. The fortress was expanded, the fortifications strengthened by stone manteled earth walls, and the interior was remodelled in the new style. Since the mix of bricks and limestone that had been used for the Mediaeval buildings was used again, the blend between old and new buildings is pretty seamless - except of course, for the different ornaments and layout of the new palace and such.

Nothing remains of the old keep, the Våghalsen; it had to give way to the Renaissance palace. One of the smaller towers, the Romerikstårnet (Roman Tower) was extended in heigth and changed into a staircase tower, and the building called Romeriksfløyen (Roman Wing) that once housed the kitchen, had a storey added with representative rooms. The chapel was replaced by the southern wing.

Akershus at that time was still used for council meetings and other official functions, and sometimes the king lived there for a time. But in the late 17th - early 18th century, the buidlings became outdated and the fort was only used for military purposes, and even that declined.

House of the Royal Guard (1724)
At the beginning of the 19th century, Akershus was in pretty bad shape. There were intentions to completely abandon the place and dismantle the buildings, but resistance of the Norwegian people led to a change of plans. Akershus was reactivated and repaired instead, new building like a riding hall and a commander's house were added, and part of the fortress was used as prison, known as Slaveriet because the inmates could be rented for work.

A second round of renovations took place after WW2, mostly repair work (everyone with an old house has to deal with crumbling roughcast, leaky roofs, mildewy timber and other fun). Today, Akershus represents 700 years of Norwegian history.

King Eirik's Scottish Marriages

2011-08-10T04:55:00.027+02:00

And other dynastic messes lol. When researching all that fun about Alv Erlingsson, King Eirik of Norway, and those Ingeborgs, I realised that Eirik was married to Scottish ladies twice, which is unusual, considering the often strained relationship between Scotland and Norway. So I took a closer look into the dynastic tangles and those marriages (dates are lifetimes). The illustrations to this post will consist mostly of pictures of Bergen which was Eirik's main seat, with some Dunkeld and Dunfermline thrown in as well.

(Remains of Dunkeld Cathedral; main nave)

Among others, I hunted for a connection between King Eirik II Magnusson of Norway (House Hairfair) and King Edward I of England (House Plantagenet), and after drawing some diagrams and using the new marker function of Word 2010, I managed to find one.

Ok, let's go back a bit. Edward I (1239-1307, son of Henry III ∞ Eleanor of Provence) was married in first marriage to Eleanor of Castile (1241-1290; House Burgundy), daughter of King Fernando II of Castile and Leon, and Jeanne of Ponthieu. But Fernando had been married before to Beatrice of Swabia (also called Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen, † 1235), and with her he not only had Alfonso X of Castile, his successor as king, but several more sons, among them a Felipe (1231-1274). This Felipe was married to Christina of Norway (1234-1262), sister of Magnus Lawmender King of Norway (∞ Ingeborg of Denmark), who in turn was the father of Eirik II (1268-1299) and Håkon V (1270-1319).

The marriage between Christina and Felipe remained childless and Christina died only five years after her arrival in Spain 1257, but Edward I and Eleanor had several children, among them the future King Edward II (born 1284).

The father of Magnus Lawmender and Christina was Håkon IV (1204-1263), their mother was Margarete Skuledottir, daughter of Skule Bårdson. Skule and Håkon both claimed the kingship of Norway and in the end settled the conflict by a marriage. But the quarrelsome Skule had a sister, Ingeborg (yes, I know, that's the 4th or 5th of that name we've come across) who was married to the grandfather of our dear friend Alv Erlingsson, the pirate (~1260-1290). Which makes Alv related to Eirik II of Norway, and Eirik related to King Edward I of England, but spare me to actually name the degrees of relations here.

Edward I had a sister, Margaret (1240-1275) who was married to Alexander III of Scotland. (1241-1286; House Dunkeld). Alexander in turn was the grandson of William the Lion of Scotland (1143-1214, ∞ Ermengarde de Beaumont --> Alexander II ∞ Marie de Coucy). Alexander III and Margaret of England had a two sons who died childless (David in 1281, Alexander in 1284) and a daughter, another Margaret.

This Margaret, whose father was King of Scotland and whose grandfather (Henry III) had been King of England, married King Eirik II Magnusson of Norway in 1281. OK, can anyone besides Kathryn (who's written about Margaret of Scotland here) still follow this? Good, that's an A for all of you. :)

Sigil of Eirik Magnusson (Bryggens Museum)
When King Magnus Lawmender died in 1280, Eirik ascended the throne at the age of 12 and thus a minor. A guardianship board was established, led by the influential noblemen Audun Hugleiksson (~1240-1302) and Bjarne Erlingsson (~1250-1313; not related to Alv Erlingsson) who already had served as advisors of King Magnus; Audun even as marshal. Eirik's mother Ingeborg of Denmark was a member, too, and she brought Alv Erlingsson in as inofficial partifcipant.

Magnus Lawmender had maintained a politics of reconciliation towards Scotland. A long standing military conflict between both nations was ended by the Treaty of Perth in 1266. The Hebrides, which had been formally given to Norway under King Edgar of Scotland (1088) now were returned to Scotland, together with Man, for a financial recompensation of 4000 mark silver and an annuity of 100 mark silver. The Orkneys and Shetland Islands remained in Norway's possession.

But for some reason the Scots stopped paying that annuity, and Eirik and his advisors looked for a way out of the financial troubles of the Norwegian Crown. Marriage to a girl with a good dowry was a solution, and Margaret of Scotland had a good dowry, plus such an alliance would cement the peace between Norway and Scotland. So a marriage agreement was signed in Roxburgh in July 1281. The leader of that delegation may have been Bjarne Erlingsson; he also stood in as one of the hostages until the marriage was consumated. Yeah, this may sound odd, but Eirik (born 1268) was only thirteen at the time the wedding took place, Margaret 20 (born 1261). It turned out though, that the boy was perfectly capable of doing his duty.

The Treaty of Roxburgh also included a provision for Margaret's childern, or herself, to inherit the throne of Scotland should Alexander III die without male issue. Her dowry was 14,000 mark silver, partly in coin, partly as income from lands in Scotland.

Håkon's Hall, Bergen
(Håkon's Hall was built as royal banqueting and representation hall by king Håkon IV Håkonarson between 1247 and 1261. It is part of Bergenhus fortress and a fine example of a Gothic hall, influenced by Anglonorman architecture.)
The Lanercost Chronicle says that the marriage was not happy and that Margaret came into a barbarian court and had to teach her husband French and English. Well, said chronicle also manages to mix up Eirik with Magnus and get his age wrong, so I won't consider it the most reliable souurce (and it seems to be anti-Alexander biased, too). Already Eirik's grandfather Håkon had introduced chivalric culture in Norway, had French romances translated and built the above hall in Anglornorman style. Eirik's sigil (photo above) shows him in the same knightly stance you'll find on French or English sigils of the time., Audun Hugleiksson too, depicted himself as knight on his sigil. What Margaret most likely did was to give further impulses to introduce chivalric culture in Norway.

Another point mentioned in the chronicle is that Eirik's mother Ingeborg was against Margaret's coronation as Queen of Noway following the wedding. We don't know why she opposed the coronation, but one proof that the Lanercost Chronicle may have got a point in this case is the absence of Ingeborg's favourite, Alv Erlingsson, from the marriage negotiations. Ingeborg may also have feared that Margaret, who was a grown woman after all, would gain more influence over Eirik than his mother. (This is pure speculation, but maybe Ingeborg would have prefered an English marriage - King Edward had two daughters of suitable age.)

Another photo of the ruins of Dunkeld Cathedral
Queen Margaret gave birth to a daughter, another Margaret, in April 1283, and died shortly thereafter, most likely from a fever. She was buried in the Old Cathedral (also know as Christ's Church) in Bergenhus Fortress. Nothing remains of the church today, though.

King Edward I of England seems to have had an early interest in a marriage between his son and little Margaret, who came to be known as Maid of Norway. There is some correspondence between Edward and Alexander to the effect, dating shortly after the birth of Edward II.

When Alexander's son died without issue, the little Maid remained the only heir to the throne of Scotland, and offspring from.Alexander's second marriage to Yolande de Dreux (1285) was still only a chance. So the king summoned the earls and barons of Scotland as well as the leading westcoast chiefs (Alexander of Argyll, Angus Mór of Islay, Alan macRuari of Garmoran) and had them formally recongise the little Margaret as heir and domina. Surprisingly, they agreed, lol.

This agreement would prove important shortly thereafter, since Alexander died of a riding accident im March 1286, and Yolande's baby later turned out stillborn. I dunno what was the matter with riding accidents at the time; King Eirik had one back in 1283 that left him lame and obviously gave him times of pain when he withdrew from most official duties.

(right: Dunfermline Abbey)

Alexander III was buried in Dunfermline Abbey in March 1286, and the magnates and clerics of the realm assembled to select guardians for the three year old Margaret. But the guardians didn't seem particularly eager to call their little queen back to Scotland.

Eirik, who meanwhile had come of age, sent two embassies in 1286, one to Scotland to establish the claim of little Margaret and her father, and one to King Edward. The latter was the one led by Alv Erlingsson - officially to loan 2000 mark silver (I hunted that letter down in the Regesta Norvegica). Things are a bit murky here and some of the too many Danish Eriks got messed up, but it seems that Alv learned of the peace between Denmark and Norway, and the assassination of Erik V Coin Clipper (dowager Queen Ingeborg's nephew) during his embassy to Paris and London, and informed King Edward *. That's just the sort of political information that could lead to marriage negotiations, and we know that Edward was interested (see above).

The negotiations with the Scottish guardians came to naught that time; Robert Bruce 5th Lord Annandale (1210-1295, grandfather of King Robert I) and John Balliol didn't want the girl around - they didn't want each other around either, but there was not much they could do about that. Robert was also mightily miffed that he didn't get a seat among the guardians but his rivals, the Comyns, did.

King Eirik sent another embassy in 1289, this one led by Audun Hugleiksson, and all parties sat down and played nice for a change. Eirik and Edward had already concluded a marriage between Margaret and the crown prince Edward of Wales, and Edward I had seeked papal dispensation (we remember, Ed's sister was Margaret's grandmother and young Edward's aunt). Edward then met with Robert Bruce and the guardians and made it clear to them that they better play along and agree to the marriage, and stop that Bruce / Balliol feuding. So it was concluded in the Treaty of Birgham (October 1289) that Margaret would be sent to Scotland and marry Edward of Wales; and both would rule each their kingdom one day; Scotland would remain independent. I'm not guessing how that would have worked out, lol.

Unfortunatley, little Margaret died on her way to Scotland. Edward had sent a ship, equipped as comfortably as possible, to bring the girl over, but the Norwegians, ol' Vikings that they were, decided to use one of their own ships. The vessel set out from Bergen and came in a nasty storm on its way to the Orkneys. Margaret obviously took ill during that storm and died on the Orkneys in October 1290 (those islands had already proven fatal to another Norwegian ruler, Håkon IV Håkonarson who died there on his way home from the war in the Hebrides, 1266).

The remains of Margaret were buried beside her mother in the Old Cathedral in Bergen.

St. Mary's Church in Bergen, where Margaret and Eirik married.
(St Mary's Church is the oldest remaining stone building in Bergen, completed about 1180; so Erik's wives would have known it. It is a three naved Romanesque basilica with a Gothic choir that was added after a fire in 1248.)
Let's stay in Scotland for a moment longer. After the death of the Maid of Norway, Scotland was at the brink of civil war between Robert Bruce 5th Lord Annandale and John Balliol. Both claimed the throne by descendance from David of Huntingdon, younger brother of King William the Lion (who was Alexander's ancestor). And soon more claimants crept out of the woodwork, several of them tracing back to illegitimate children of King William, but there was also King Eirik of Norway. In the end there were thirteen.

To avoid civil war, King Edward I of England was asked to abritrate (oh dear, if only the Scots had had a crystal ball that showed them the future). Edward started out with claiming suzerainity over Scotland (at which point Bruce and Balliol should have put their own war to rest and kicked Ed out). After some hackling, the claimants did swear homage and the guardians had to concede.

Eirik knew his claim was not strong, and used it mostly to get financial recompensation, fe. for the lands of his late wife in Scotland. The main contenders were Bruce and Balliol; Balliol claimed the throne by primogeniture, Bruce by the older laws of tanistry. In 1292, Edward decided that Balliol had the better claim, and John Balliol was crowned king in December.

I'm not going into the troubles that would follow. Worth mentioning is the fact that Robert Bruce resigned the lordship of Annandale in favour of his son, another Robert (1243-1304), who was married to Marjorie of Carrick ( † 1292). The couple had a bunch of kids, among them the future King Robert of Scotland, and the second wife of Eirik of Norway, Isobel (also spelled Isabella).

King's Hall in the Rosencrantz Tower
(The Rosenkrantz Tower in Bergenhus fortress dates back to 1270 but has been expanded in Renaissance times. It had been the residence of King Eirik, the last king to hold court in Bergen. Some of the original rooms still remain.)
Isobel traveled to Norway with her father in 1293 (the letter of safeconduct still exists) to marry King Eirik who was 25 at the time; she was 12 (born 1280). I suppose negotations for that marriage were a little side product of the meetings during the succession troubles in Scotland. We know that Audun Hugleiksson was member of the Norwegian delegation there, and he also witnessed the list of Isobel's trousseau, listed in the Diplomatarium Norvegicum (no. 390; where Audun signs as Odoeno Vglaci). Isobel brought an array of robes made of scarlet and other expensive materials, fur lined cloaks and a collection of shinies (among them two little crowns, parue corone) and tableware: 2 golden cauldrons, 24 silver plates, 4 silver salt dispensers; plus three chests for wardrobe, and more.

Isobel and Eirik had a daughter, Ingeborg, in 1297; she would remain the couple's only child.

Somehow, the marriage of Eirik to a Bruce, a family that was going to cause King Edward a lot of trouble, would prove to be fitting in that respect, because the relationship between Norway and England detoriated as well. Main reason seems to have been missing recompense payments that had been agreed upon in 1290; both John Balliol and King Edward sat on their money chests. Things got so bad that Eirik sent the omnipresent Audun Hugleiksson to France to establish an alliance with King Philipp IV 'the Handsome' of France - England's arch emeny. One expected result was that Philippe would use France's alliance with Scotland to force Balliol to pay that money already. But the new alliance never became important because there was an armistice between England and France in 1297 (and the betrothal between Edward of Wales and Isabella, daughter of Phillippe, in 1303).

King Eirik died in 1299 and was succeeded by his younger brother Håkon V Magnusson.

(One of the walks in Bryggen. The quarter of the members of the German Hansa in Bergen, called Tyske Bryggen, was established in 1360, but the timber houses of the town Isobel would have seen didn't look much different.)

Isobel remained in Bergen after her husband's death and didn't return to Scotland even when her brother Robert became king in 1306. One can't blame her - several of Robert's brothers got executed and two sisters imprisoned; Bergen was a much safer place for a Bruce than Scotland. And it rains a lot in both places.

Isobel seems to have had a good relationship with her brother-in-law Håkon and his family. She was a politically active woman; arbitrating peace between a divided family on the Orkneys and in Scotland, and personally negotating the betrothals of her daughter Ingeborg (first with the Jarl of Orkney, Jon Magnusson, who did untimely, and then with Valdemar Duke of Finland (brother of King Birger of Sweden). I mentioned the double wedding in 1312, between Ingeborg Eiriksottir with Valdemar of Finland, and Ingeborg Håkonardottir with his brother Erik of Södermanland, as well as the unhappy fate of both men, in the post about Akershus .

Ingeborg must have had some of the Bruce blood of her mother, to come down on the killer of her husband, together with her sister-in-law and both their men, and kick him out of Sweden. Ingeborg, who had no children of her own, continued to live in Sweden after Valdemar's death but little is known of her; she must have been dead in 1357, since her mother inherited after her.

Håkon V died in 1319 (his wife, Eufemia of Rügen, had died in 1312) and was succeeded by the son of his daughter, Magnus Eriksson (who became Magnus VII of Norway and Magnus II of Sweden). Isobel Bruce, dowager Queen of Norway, died in 1358 - she had survived her brother King Robert († 1329).

Isobel had made generous donations to the Church during her life, and set out 20 mark silver in her will for masses to be held and the poor to be fed, and the bells should toll in the morning and eveing as befitting a chieftain. Proud and humble both, it seems.

View towards the old town, with the Bryggen to the left
If we play the What If game Kathryn suggested in one of her blogposts and wonder what would have happened had the Maid of Norway survived and married Edward II of England, and produced a son, my guess would be that instead of a Hundred Year War with France, there would have been big troubles with Norway and the other Scandinavian countries (since they're such an intermarried lot). Since Håkon died without male offspring, a grandson of his older brother Eirik would have had a better claim than his own grandson, and I'm not sure all the Norwegian nobles would have liked an half-English, half-Scottish king. If you look close enough, you can always find other options in those geneaological tangles. ;)

* The Regesta name Erik IV Plowpenny, but that king had died in 1250 and it seems unlikely that it would take 36 years for the news to reach King Edward. The letter also says that Alv was to loan 2000 mark, not 6000. It moreover is interesting to see that Alv obviously had learned about the changed situation in Denmark before he returned to Norway. Maybe he thought it would remain messy and his mercenaries would indeed be needed, even after the Coin Clipper's death.

Sources:
Chronicle of Lanercost 1272–1346, ed. H. Maxwell. Glasgow, 1913
Fordun, Cronica Gentis Scotorum, ed. W.F. Skene. Edinburgh, 1871–72,
Regesta Norvegica online (Norwegian translation)
Diplomatarium Norwegicum online (Latin)
Biographies in the Store Norske Leksikon

A Norwegian Fortress in the South: Akershus - Part 1: Kings and Pirates

2011-08-01T03:03:00.015+02:00

I've mentioned that King Håkon V Magnusson who built Vardøhus Fortress, also built Akershus in the south and made Oslo the capital of his realm (until that time it had been Nidaros, modern Trondheim). While Vardøhus retains the charme of a border fort with its timber houses and grass roofs, Akershus has developed into a large fortress with mostly stone buildings, due to its strategical importance.

I only paid it a brief visit between the arrival of the Copenhagen ferry and the departure of the train to Bergen. Left the luggage at the station and walked over to the place with my camera. The fortress is sitll military terrain but parts of it are open to public; there wasn't even any control at the entrance and when I climbed a wall I wasn't supposed to climb, I got a grin from the guard. I hope Norway can keep this sort of freedom even now.

The inner yard of the palace and some rooms can be visited on guided tours, but I was too early for that. Opening times in Norway during winter season are very limited. The advantage is that there are few tourists around.

Akershus Fortress, seen from the land side
Akershus is one of the most important fortresses in Norway. It started out as fortified king's seat in ~1300, was turned into a Renaissance palace with bastions in the early 17th century, used as prison in the 19th century, and today houses the Ministry of Defence and two museums; some of the rooms in the palace are used for representation. Akershus has seen several sieges but was never taken.

I could start with King Håkon V building Akershus some time between 1299 and 1304, but I'll start a bit earlier and say that it was all Alv Erlingsson's fault. *grin* Well, it was not his fault that the old king's seat in Oslo couldn't withstand a siege, but he brought the point home. Plus, his story is interesting and so I'll tell it to you.

Alv Erlingsson was member of the powerful Tønsberg family and second cousin of King Magnus VI Lawmender (who in turn was son of Håkon IV, the one who lost the Hebrides to Scotland at the battle of Largs in 1263; Alv's father had fought in that battle, too). Alv was governor of Borgarsyssel (today county of Østfold at the Oslofjord) and jarl of Sarpsborg (comes de Saresburg, as he styled himself in documents). When King Magnus died in 1280, he left his sons Eirik and Håkon as minors, and a guardianship board was established. Alv was not an official member of that board but nevertheless wielded great influence because of his position as governor of an important province and because the dowager Queen Ingeborg held him in high esteem.

Akershus, seen from the fjord
(The main building is the Renaissance palace; the older north wing can be seeen to the left)
In 1284, the problems between Norway and the Hansa League reached a new peak (I'll get back to details about that when I'm covering the Hansa history), with the League basically blockading Norway. Alv wasn't going to play that game and personally led some privateers, sinking a bunch of Hansa ships and gaining renown as 'mighty pirate'. A year later, the Danish king Erik V 'Klipping' (Erik the Coin Clipper) joined the side of the Hansa League. Erik was a cousin of the dowager Queen Ingeborg, and there was still the issue of an unpaid dowry between her and the rest of her family. So Alv had a double reason to add good ol' viking-ing to the privateering, and started to harry the coasts of Denmark.

But in the end King Eirik Magnusson of Norway made peace with the Hansa League - sinking ships doesn't really help with the economy in the long run. He had to pay a fine of 6000 mark silver, a huge sum at the time, and a sum he didn't really have. Plus there was still war going on with Denmark. A number of nobles, centered around Eirik's younger brother Duke Håkon (the later King Håkon V), started an opposition against Alv Erlingsson whom they held responsible for the mess. Though for the time being Alv remained in power.

He went on an embassy to King Edward I of England where he - successfully - tried to loan 2000 mark silver and hire mercenaries for the war with Denmark. I wonder a bit why Edward would be willing to help Alv and/or the King of Norway, but maybe Kathryn can shed a light on that (if it were Edward II, I'd have said he had a soft spot for pirates, lol). Meanwhile back home, the Danish King Erik had solved his little civil war that had prevented him from participating in the peace negotiatons between the King of Norway and the Hansa League. He now made his own peace with King Eirik Magnusson of Norway.

Fortress Entrance (Festningsporten, 1553)
with the Jomfrutårnet in the background left
and the 13th century great hall (crow stepped gable) to the right
So when Alv returned with a large group of mercenaries, they were no longer needed. In 1287, Queen Ingeborg died and Alv lost his most important support at court. The problems with the young Duke Håkon increased into a military conflict. Alv refused to hand over the 2000 mark silver (he probably needed the money to pay the mercenaries he also kept), conquered the king's seat in Oslo, burned the town and took the garrison commander Hallkjell prisoner and later killed him. For that he was declared an outlaw. After Alv lost a battle against Håkon where most of his mercenaries were killed, he fled to Sweden and further to Riga.

In Riga, he went back to his Viking life, setting up a new base, obviously a mix of pirate and highway robber activities. The grand master of the Teutonic Knights complained about the 'harmful wolves led by the Count of Tønsberg'. Though Alv Erlingsson seems to have tried to make peace with King Eirik; there's a letter to King Edward I of England, dating to 1290, asking him to act as arbiter between Alv and Eirik.

Alv obviously was on his way to England when he got captured at the Danish coast. The local sheriff had him tortured and executed at Helsingborg (another fortress in my collection). The interesting point is that Norway and Denmark were at war again at the time - looks neither king cared much about Alv's fate. Thus died the man who would later be refered to as 'the last Viking'.

Inner gate at the Knutstårnet
Håkon became king after his brother's death in 1299. The previous events had shown him that Trondheim was too far north and a capital further south would be more useful, with all those troubles going on with Denmark and Sweden, and that it needed to be well fortified. He also tried to curb the power of the great old families - Håkon didn't want another Alv Erlingsson.

Akershus Festning is situated on a liittle salient in the Oslofjord. Today, the town envelops the shores on both sides and the hinterland, but in the 13th century, it was a place that could be easily defended. Akershus was built of stone and bricks from the beginning, not of timber like Vardøhus, but much of the original buildings are either gone or has been changed during time (the north wing is the oldest part of the palace). Some parts of the inner defenses still date back to the late 13th / early 14th century, like the Jomfrutårnet (Virgin's Tower) and the partly reconstrcuted Knutstårnet (Knut's Tower).

Akershus is first mentioned in a charte dating to 1300, and thus it's assumed the fortress was built shortly before that date. Maybe Håkon had it started already while he still was duke.

View from the bastion walls to the fjord
It didn't take long for the place to see its first siege. Ok, this is getting complicated again; kings should not produce three sons, that only leads to trouble. But the King of Sweden, another guy called Magnus, did, and the two younger brothers promptly didn't get along with the eldest. So Erik and Valdemar fled to Norway while the oldest, Birger, found an ally in his brother-in-law King Erik VI of Denmark - not the Coin Clipper but his son. King Håkon gave Erik, who was Duke of Södermanland already, the lands of Kungahälla (the place is today in Sweden) and promised him marriage to his daughter Ingeborg once she came of age.

In 1306, Erik and Valdemar snatched their brother Birger during a feast in Sweden (later know as the Håtuna Games) and threw him into the dungeon in Nyköping. But alliances shifted and things turned against Erik and Valdemar. In 1308, King Håkon was at the side of King Birger of Sweden who had been released from captivity, claimed Kungahälla to be returned to him and refused to marry Erik to Ingeborg. From what I could find out, it seems that Erik had played the game of shifting alliances as well, and behind Håkon's back made peace with King Erik of Denmark. But now it was Erik of Denmark and Håkon of Norway against Erik of Södermanland and Valdemar, with Birger watching from the stands.

Erik laid siege to Akershus at some point during the war, but his troops were defeated by a Norwegian army. Though overall Erik was able to ride out the storm without too many losses, and in 1310, there was peace again. What consisted as Sweden at the time was more or less divided between the three brothers.

Despite the war, despite never having returned Kungahälla, breaking almost all promises to Håkon and for some time having been betrothed to another woman, Håkon agreed to the marriage between his daughter (who was 11 at the time) and Erik in 1312. Makes you wonder about politics.

Munk's gate (dating to the Renaissance)
It was a double marriage: Erik married Håkon's daughter, while his brother Valdemar married the daughter of the late King Eirik, Håkon's brother, another Ingeborg. Sorry, I didn't name the lot. ;) To make it a bit easier, one was named Ingeborg Håkonardottir (modern spelling also Haakonsdatter) and the other Ingeborg Eiriksdottir.

But there was not to be a Happily Ever After. A few years later, in 1317, their brother Birger, de jure King of Sweden, invited Erik and Valdemar to a Christmas banquet in Nyköping. There he had them put in chains and thrown into the same dungeon he'd been in, where they starved to death. Revenge best served cold and all.

But Birger had misestimated the political situation and the lack of support. The two Ingeborgs came swooping down on him with the followers of their husbands and chased him out of Sweden; his son got killed. Birger found an exile with Erik of Denmark, and Magnus, the son of Erik of Södermanland and Ingeborg Håkonardottir, was installed as King of Sweden.

Magnus' son Håkon VI later would spend a lot of time in Akershus during the years 1360 - 1370 and have the fortress expanded.

Part 2 can be found here.

A Mixed Bag of Pics

2011-07-24T22:06:00.004+02:00

Just a few things from my camera memory card which I collected those last days. Because I'm lazy like that. :)

Thunderstorm clouds, seen from my balcony
Yep, it that sort of summer again. Cold and rainy - too hot and humid - big nasty thunderstorms - cold and rainy - too hot and humid - big nasty thunderstorms ... Rinse and repeat. But it makes for some interesting clouds.

One of the bands at the parade
The annual marksmen's festival is taking place this weekend. Not something I care much about, to be honest, but the parade passes right by my house and so I went out and took some photos. This one's the Fanfare Corps from Eschwege.

Star spangled cheerleaders
They are not actually from the US but a local group that does some cheerleading and square dancing for the fun of it. They were one of the few more exotic sights; the parade has lost much of its appeal since horses are no longer allowed.

My father
My father's member of a shooting club, one of those where the actual shooting is more important that the parties and parades, but they're obliged to walk in the Sunday parade. This is close to the final destination, and my father 'lost' his way and somehow ended up in my flat to get some coffee. *grin*

Pretty flowers on my balcony
Some hanging geraniums and begonia semperflorens. They like this weather and are growing quite spectacularly.

Veiled sunset
One of the reasons I like having a balcony. That, and the herbs and flowers I can grow there. Though I need to do something about the thyme; it's busy developing into a giant shrub. :)

The World's Northernmost Fortress - Vardøhus Festning

2011-07-19T23:16:00.013+02:00

I've heard there is a heat wave in parts of the US, so I'll stay in the north and post something cold. My readers in the rainy UK may think that it could be worse - at least it's not snowing, lol.

So let's go on a little tour through the world's northernmost fortress (situated at 70°22'N) in the long twilight of an Arctic spring evening. I loved those hours; you don't get colours and shades like this here.

View from fort to the sea
The town Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway, located at 31°5'E, which is east of Saint Petersburg, Kiev and Istanbul. That puts Vardø (and Kirkenes) in a different timezone from Oslo, but Norway keeps one time throughout. Thus the easternmost towns are 1.20 hours ahead and at odds with daylight hours (though with the polar night and the midnight sun, that's only an issue for a few months in spring and autumn). The night before there had been dawn already at 2.30 am which did feel a bit odd, but the daylight was out of sync with Germany already in Bergen - the sun sets later in the north past equinox; I remembered that from the time I lived in Stockholm.

View to the garrison barrack
Vardø lies on an island that is separated from the mainland by the 1.7 kilometres wide Bussesund. The town is connected with the mainland by a tunnel under the sea since 1984. Vardø is the starting point of the E75, the Europe Road that goes all the way to Sitia on Crete (4,340 km).

There is proof for human presence in the area dating back to Neolithic times, but Vardø as a settlement grew with the fortress from 1306 onward and became a town in 1738. It was destroyed during WW2 (though the fortress itself was only damaged) and there were plans to rebuild Vardø on the mainland, but in the end it remained where it had always been.

Main storage building (left) and well house
Vardø is port of call for the Hurtigruten ships. The harbour remains free of ice all year thanks to the North Atlantic drift, the little brother of the Gulf Stream. Passengers usually have some time to briefly explore the fortress, but we were lucky; the ship had made good progress thanks to the calm Barent Sea and was ahead of schedule, so those interested got a guided tour.

We were met by a man in uniform, carrying a banner on a pole, with the crisp air and fast stride of an ex-centurion. "Follow me!" He actually said it in German because the majority of the passengers were German, and the rest got it anyway. Drill sergeants do that to people.

One of the batteries in the twilight
The first fortress on the site dates back to 1306 and was built by King Håkon V Magnusson in reaction to decades of border skirmishes between Norway and the Republic of Novgorod, at the time stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Ural. There never was an actual war, but conflicts about the tribute of Sami tribes. The Sami are a people living in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia (not to be confused with the Eskimo / Inuit in Siberia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland) - the area is today refered to as Sápmi.

They were knows already to the Romans, though only from tales of traders and such - even the Romans didn't go that far north. Tacitus - in his Germania - refers to the Sami as Fenni (hence the names like Finnmark and Finland).

Commander's residence
The conflict was an overspill of the war between Novgorod and Sweden about Karelia, a Sami-inhabited region (today diveded between Finland and Russia). The borders of Norway and Russia meet above that region until today, so it's no wonder things got a bit messy up there. Novgorod made peace with Sweden in 1223 (Treaty of Nöteborg); Karelia was divided between the two. In 1326, Novgorod and Norway also came to terms in the Treaty of Novgorod where it was decided which Sami tribes should pay tribute to which country, and thus a bufferzone was shaped - with the Sami the losers. That treaty actually held until the 19th century.

If you wonder why people would fight over a land with snow for six month and darkness for three .... well, it's about trade, fur and stockfish in particular. The fur trade eventually went over Novgorod (since fur came mostly form Karelia), a member of the Hansa League, while the stockfish trade remained with Norway and went via Bergen, another member of the Hansa League. Guess who was the real winner here. :)

The garrison barrack, today the museum
The first fortification - founded by King Håkon V - was a rectangular structure of 30 x 40 metres, with 4 metres high walls, and palisades. Within were a row of buildings and a well. The buildings probably didn't look very different from the grass-roofed timber houses you can still see besides the more modern buildings like the commander's residence. The Mediaeval houses I've seen in the open air museum near Trondheim were not whitewashed, so one can imagine that the buildings may have looked more like those.

The Archbishop of Nidaros (Trondheim) consecrated the first church in Vardø in 1307, by which date the construction of the fortress is infered to have been 1306.

The landside fortress walls
Håkon V Magnusson (born 1270), also know as Håkon Longshanks (Háleggr), was the younger son of Magnus Lawmender and became king after the death of his brother Eirik in 1299. He's the last male descendant of the dynasty that began with Harald Fairhair (850 - 933) who united several smaller kingdoms and became the first to call himself King of Norway.

Håkon moved the capital from Nidaros to Oslo in 1314 and also built the big brother of Vardøhus fortress there, the Akershus Festning - that one really has grown over time (I've managed to get a few pics of it, too). Håkon died in 1319.

He was succeeded by Magnus IV of Sweden, son of his only legitimate daughter Ingeborg and Duke Erik Magnusson of Sweden. Magnus became king both of Sweden and Norway, a connection that was not without problems. Magnus was also the one who concluded the treaties of Nöteborg and Novgorod.

View from the walls to the fort, with the main magazine in the foreground
The second fort was moved a few hundred metres to the east, and erected around 1460. It was rectangular as well, with two corner bastions. This fortress, sometimes refered to as Østervågen (East Bay), appears on several maps from that time.

Fishing and the trade of stockfish still played an important role in the area. Stockfish, or dried cod, preserved well and it was a food allowed during Lent season. The captain of the fortress held fishing rights which obviously gave him a nice extra income. Well, you'll have to make up for sending people to such a desolate place, pretty sunsets nonewithstanding.

Commander's residence, interior (the 18th century drawing room)
England recognised Norway's rights to the Arctic Sea in 1583. Since then, each vessel passing from the Barent Sea into the White Sea had to stop and Vardøhus and pay duty. I don't know how many ships there were every year, but obviously enough to wrestle the taxation rights from England.

Vardø also saw some of the most severe witch processes in Norway in the 17th century; 88 women were sentenced to the pyre here. Unfortunately, I could not find out if the fortress itself played a role there, maybe as prison.

Cannons on the wall
(I went for an atmospheric shot here, since we all know what a cannon looks like.)
When King Christian IV of Danmark and Norway visited Vardø in 1599, he prefered to stay aboard his ship because the fortress obviously wasn't in best shape. Or he just didn't like grass-roofed timber houses.

Well, repairs seem to have been necessary. The fortress we can see today dates from 1738 with only minor changes since then. The fort was completely renovated and reshaped. The new design is an eight-pointed star, with a quadratic interior that houses the various buildings: commander's residence, the house for the officers, the garrison barrack, prison, main storage house, powder magazine, armory, and well house. Except for the slightly more luxurious commander's house, they are still built in the traditional way. The star shaped fortifications are earth walls supported by ashlar and armed with batteries.

Powder magazine and armory
Cannons and all; Vardøhus never saw any action until WW2. When Germany invaded Norway, Vardøhus first served as POW camp for German prisoners, then as field hospital and as radio station. There was one German airborne attack on the fort in 1940 that damaged the radio station, but was repelled by the anti-aircraft defence missiles mounted on the fortress walls.

The Germans occupied Vardø from summerr 1940 until 1944. They added more coastal artillery defenses and used the fort as headquarter. When they retreated, they destroyed the town and dismantled the batteries along the shore, but for some reason left the fortress intact albeit a bit worse for the wear.

Another view from the fort to the sea
Today the fortress is subject to Akershus Command. It's still garrisoned by a commander and four men and has salute duties (Nationl Day, royal birthdays and such). The most unusual of those is the firing of two rounds when the sun first appears in full over the horizon after the polar night on January 21. It's a holiday in northern Norway and the kids get a day off at school.

We went back aboard the ship where it was soon time for a nice dinner. Dinners usually involved fish or reindeer, and yummy desserts.

To the South Pole - The Fram Museum in Oslo, Part 2

2011-07-11T19:01:00.009+02:00

Here we go on our second expedition with the Fram (actually, it's the third voyage the ship made, but the more interesting one to go with photos of the interior of the Fram), Roald Amundsen's little trip to the South Pole. :)

The interior of the ship is very dark and cramped. They did put in some lamps but you still get a feel how it must have been like when the Fram drifted through the Polar night.

The cabins were small, a bunk bed that doubled as seat, with storage room underneath, a nightstand with drawers that also served as workikng table, a few hooks and a bookshelf (in some cabins). My cabin on the Hurtigruten tour was quite a bit larger. :)

Interior of the Fram, mess room
(The grammophone and piano were the few traces of luxury.)
Roald Amundsen (born 1872) came form a family of shipowners and captains, and abandoned his studies of medicine in order to become an explorer. His first independent tour led him through the Northwest Passage (1903 - 1906) on a rather small yacht called Gjøa. He traveled via Baffin Bay and stayed in Gjøa Haven (Nunavut, Canada) for two winters; until he eventually managed to clear a way to Beaufort Sea and from there into the Bering Strait, thus completing the navigation of the Northwest Passage.

During the time Amundsen spent in Nunavut, he became fascinated with the culture of the Inuit. He learned a lot from them: to build an igloo, to coat the sledge runners with ice to speed them up, to hunt with a harpoon; the advantages of sealskin clothes (the Goretex of the time) compared to the heavy woolens of western people. All this would prove useful on his later expeditions.

The Fram Museum displays pieces of the equipment in the cabins. Most of those are protected from the public by glass windows in the doors (I suppose the danger that smaller items somehow would grow legs is too big, since the ship is a labyrinth a guard could not oversee). So it was photographing through glass again, and with bad illumination to boot. Fun.

The galley
For his next expedition, Amundsen planned to reach the North Pole. He wanted to use the same approach as Nansen, have a ship drift through the ice, only starting from a different point - approaching from the Bering Strait - that would get him closer to the pole. But then news spread that Frederick Cook as well and Robert Erwin Peary (both Americans) claimed to have reached the Pole in 1909, which made Amundsen's plan sorta pointless - reaching a particular spot in a vast desert of ice and planting a flag there only counts if you're the first to do so.

Amundsen had already gotten the Fram for his expedition (which he equipped with a Diesel engine) and collected some money, so he merely changed his plans, all in secret, too - only his brother and the captain Thorvald Nilsen learned about it. Since reaching the Bering Strait would have meant sailing around Cape Horn anyway, he aimed for the South Pole instead. One of the reasons Amundsen was so sneaky about the changed destination was the fact that he didn't want to alert Robert F. Scott of the competition too early. The British marine officer planned to set out for the South Pole in August 1910.

Amundsen picked 18 men to accompany him (though some would remain on the Fram while the pole expedition was going on; the ship should meanwhile explore the southern Atlantic). One of the members was Hjalmar Johansen who had been with Nansen in 1896, and it seems that Amundsen felt somewhat pressured to accept him.

One of the cabins; probably the one of the the carpenter Olav Bjaaland
The Fram left Oslo on August 10, 1910 and reached Funchal / Madeira on Sept. 9. Here Amundsen informed the men about his intention to go for the South Pole instead of the North Pole. They all enthusiastically agreed to accompany him. Well, they must have been the adventurous types anyway and probably didn't care whether they got their frostbites on the South Pole instead. Amundsen's brother Leon would inform the public and the Norwegian government (which finally found out where their money went). Amundsen also sent a telegram to Robert F. Scott, "Beg leave to inform you. Fram proceeding Antartic. Amundsen." Scott got that unexpected invitation to a race to the Pole in Melbourne in October 1910.

The Fram rounded the Cape of Good Hope and proceeded into the Ross Sea where she anchored in the Bay of Whales on January 14, 1911. The Bay of Whales was the southernmost place to be reached by ship and a good hunting ground for seals and penguins - fresh meat was needed to enrich the diet and avoid skorbut, as well as to feed the 116 dogs. That's a lot of dogs, btw, I don't want to imagine what noise they made during the voyage; the ones in Kirkenes were loud enough in the open air.

Eight men would participate in the Pole expedition, the rest remained on the Fram. Amundsen had brought a pre-fabricated cabin that was now set up as main building of the base the men called Framheim. The cabin was 7.8 x 3.9 metres, with two rooms, one serving as kitchen, the other as sleeping and living room. Above was a garret for storage. Other storage was kept in deposits around the cabin (esp. 60 tons of fresh meat); a workshop and a sauna were added, and all the buildings connected by tunnels so the men had to stay outside as little as possible during the southern winter.

Amundsen began to set up depots some way towards the pole, so the team would have to carry less from the beginning. Those trips took several days, but it was worth the effort - the weight / provisions ratio was going to be a problem during longer tours (remember, Nansen had to turn back before reaching the North Pole because he was running out of food). The main depot was at 80°S. The men spent the winter improving their equipment (fe. they managed to get the weight of the 3.6 metres long sleds down from 156 to 53 pound without losing stability).

Skiing equipment
(The ski were 1,8 metres long and made of hickory wood
The first attempt to reach the Pole started on Septermber 8. Eight men set off with seven sleds, some 90 dogs, and provisions for 90 days, but they soon realised that they had started too early - something Hjalmar Johanson obviously had warned about. The temperature fell to -56°C, too cold even for the dogs. Amundsen decided to travel only as far as the depot 80° and leave most of the provisions and equipment there. They reached the depot after six days and fought their way back. A number of dogs died. What exactly happened isn't so easy to determine. The Museum Guidebook has a very short account of the expediion that doesn't include this first failed attempt. Looking around in the internet gave me a few contradictory versions, but the most likely seems to be that the return journey was disordered. Amundsen who had the fastest dog team, got ahead, and the others followed as best as they could, leaving Johansen and Kristian Prestrud without tent and cooking gear when a blizzard hit. Johansen, who must have been a very strong man, carried the exhaused and frostbite-suffering Prestwick back to the camp, saving his life.

Johansen confronted Amundsen about his, in Johansen's eyes, bad leadership, starting too early in the season and not keeping the team together in difficult conditions. To reestablish his authority, Amundsen excluded Johansen from the expedition to the Pole, setting him and Prestrud (and a third man) onto exploring King Edward VII's Land instead. The two versions are basically that either Johansen was a troublemaker with a drinking problem who needed to be put in his place and Amundsen did the right thing, or Amundsen was a meanie who punished Johansen because he was afraid of the man's greater experience.

The truth, as usual, seems to lie in the middle. My impression from - admittedly limited - research is that Amundsen could not risk quarrels, side-taking and a possible divison among the men on a such a dangerous mission and that he was right to settle things by excluding Johansen from the main expedition. But that he gave the command of the sub-expedition to the inexperienced Prestrud who was younger than Johansen and a lieutenant of the Norwegian marine while Johansen was a retired captain, must have hurt Johansen, and could imho, have been avoided. There's no reason to not having given Johansen the command.

Inuit style sealskin clothes
On October 20, Amundsen and four other men set out again with four sledges and 25 dogs. The sleds were only for transport; the men moved by ski. The temperature was now a comfortable -20°C to -30°C. *grin* They crossed the Ross Shelf (which is the size of France, to give you an impression of the dimensions), leaving a few depots on the way to have provisions on the way back and travel more lightly. One not so nice but necessary measure was the killing of dogs (which were fed to the other dogs) when they were no longer needed because of the lessened weight of the sleds.

They reached the barrier between the shelf and land, the Transantarctic Mountains, on November 17. Try crossing the Alpes with dog sleds and by temperatures that would make even penguins put on an extra fur cloak, and you get an image of what it must have been like. But the men managed to make pretty good time until they came across a glacier halfway up, the Axel Heiberg Glacier. Amundsen decided to tackle it instead of going around. When the men reached the plateau, they promptly got hit by one of the blizzards the travel catalogue had promised, and which lasted for days. They had to cross another glacier which they named 'Devil's Ballroom' because it was it was full of crevices, often hidden under a layer of caked snow. Several times a man or some dogs broke in, but they all survived.

The Antarctic Polar Plateau, situated 3000 metres above zero, is the most desolate place in the world. The penguins don't go that far - it's a bout 1000 kilometres from the open sea; and if other birds get there, they've been driven in by a storm and won't survive because of lack of food and water. It sounds odd, with all that ice and snow around, but the climate in the inner Antarctic is very dry. During the polar night, the temperature can go below -80°C (one of the reasons Amundsen traveled during the southern summer). But all that doesn't prevent us curious humans from having several research stations there.

Another view into a cabin, with sealskin boots and harpoons
The men reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911. They planted the Norwegian flag into the ice and rested a few days in a temporary camp which they called Polheim. They had journeyed 1400 kilometres with a daily average of 25 km - not bad considering they had to cross the mountain ridge and two glaciers which slowed them down during those days.

They set out for the return journey on Dec 18. Amundsen left a tent behind and a letter to the King of Norway which Scott should take, in case Amundsen would not survive. The men found a better way to traverse the Devil's Ballroom this time, and later followed the Axel Heiberg Glacier all the way back down to the Ross Shelf. Amundsen's strategy of setting up depots on the way paid off; there doesn't seem to have been any shortage of proviant, fire wood and other necessary things. The average on the return journey was 36 kilometres per day.

Amundsen and his men returned to Framheim on January 26, 1912. They had covered a distance of 3000 kilometes in 99 days - with ski and dog sleds in a hostile landscape.

Robert F. Scott reached the Pole on January 17th. He became the true tragic hero because of his - and his mens' - death and the struggles he described in his diary. It is true that Scott's expedition suffered from particularly bad weather on the way back, but Scott had also made several mistakes. He used ponies, motor sledges and dogs, but the ponies died, the sledges worked but unreliably (and the fuel cans leaked in the cold), and none of his men was a musher (like Amundsen). The men had do drag the sleds most of the time and made an average of 13 km per day. Scott had brought too little provisons as well and in the end, tragically, missed a major depot by only a few miles.

Surgical instruments and some shooting equipment
(Amundsen didn't bring a surgeon, but sent two of his crew to attend medical courses. Luckily none of the men got seriously ill, and the wannabe surgeons seem to have been able to deal with frostbites.)

Meanwhile, the Prestrud / Johansen team went eastward to explore King Edward VII-Land. While the expedition was first of all aimed at reaching the South Pole, research also played a role. The Fram woud come home with a lot of data and samples the men collected. Here, closer to the sea, the men actually found some mountains that were not completely covered by snow, and took samples of moss covered rocks with them.

The Fram herself returned to Buenos Aires with the remaining crew. After some repairs, she set out to explore the southern Atlantic on June 8, 1911. The men measured the depth of the water in different places, its temperature, took plankton samples, and did lots of other research. There's a display of several instruments, hydrometers, thermometers and whatnot in the museum, but you need to understand how they work in order to really enjoy that techno geekery. It has a steampunkish air, though.

The Fram returned to the Bay of Whales on January 9, 1912 and took up the members of the land crew. She set out for the voyage back home on Jan. 30. Thus, the Fram had sailed further north (85°6'N) and south (78°5'S) than any other wooden ship.

On March 7, the Fram reached Hobard in Tasmania, from where news of the successful expedition to the South Pole reached the public.

Cabin, nightstand with miscroscope
Amundsen sent Hjalmar Johansen ashore in Hobard, with barely the means to travel home to Norway on his own. That act effectively excluded Johansen from sharing in the fame of the other members of the expedition, and it would indeed take until 1997 when a biography about him appeared to restore his role in the eyes of the public (Ragnar Kvam, The Third Man). But I'm not to decide whether this was an act of petty revenge from Amundsen or a necessary measure. Johansen was not the most stable personality (he had problems with alcohol and was bound to depression), so he may have caused trouble during the voyage by confronting Amundsen again. The Fram was too small to get out of each other's way, after all.

But whatever the reason, Johansen did save Prestrud's life and was a member of the expedition, so he should have gotten some acknowledgement during his life, and that was denied him. He committed suicide in 1913.

The Fram returned to Norway on July 16, 1914. She had been destined to be one of the first ships to cruise the newly openend Panama Canal, but the opening was delayed, so Amundsen decided to travel round Cape Horn instead. He already had plans for another expedition, though not on the Fram who was allowed to retire.

Roald Amundsen disappeared during an airborne rescue mission in the Barent Sea in 1928. His body was never found.

Bearded Seals

2011-07-03T22:05:00.007+02:00

Only a little intermediate post today. Sort of fits the weather, though. We got our summer in April and now it's autumn, at least on the temperature and rain scale.

So let's visit the bearded seals in the Polaria in Tromsø, a mix of aquarium, museum, and research centre. Polaria was established in 1997, in order to make people acquainted with the Arctic flora and fauna, and environmental problems. It is part of the Polar Environment Centre, an institution which includes a number of research bodies, among them the Norwegian Polar Institute.

The seal swimming pool in the Polaria
Seals are cute, and that's reason enough to post some photos. Unfortunately, they were the only ones I could catch with my camera. There's a big aquarium with a walkthrough tunnel and all, but it's impossible to get pics through the glass. Arctic waters are no sunlit coral reefs, but amazingly full of life nevertheless.

At the time I visted Polaria, there were six seals, but not all of them full grown. They get fed twice a day, but the little tricks they have to perform are not so much for the vistors but to mentally stimulate the seals which are quite intelligent animals.

Those humans always make us work before we get that fish
Bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus) are medium sized seals that can reach a length of about 2.25 to 2.7 metres (7.4 to 8.9 foot) from nose to tail, and weigh about 275 to 340 kg (600 to 750 lb), with a body fat content of 30-40%.

No wonder they are the favourite dinner of polar bears. Seals are also a main food stock of the Inuit who not only use their meat and blubber, but the rest of the animal as well. The traditional Umiak boats are covered with seal skin, for example.

Both sexes are the same size. Other distinguishing features of bearded seals are the square fore flippers and the thick bristles on the muzzle.

That's why we're called Bearded Seals
Bearded seals feed on small prey found on the ocean ground, like clams, squids, and fish. That's where those whiskers come handy; they serve as feelers in the soft bottom sediments. Bearded seals prefer the shallower coastal areas and seldom dive deeper than 300 metres (980 ft) though they have been spotted at 450 metres (1480 ft) on occasion. Esp. the younger ones are more adventurous.

Pups are born on drifting floes in shallow water in spring (late April / May). They weigh 30-40 kg and they grow. Fast. About 3 kg a day. It takes about 8 litres of mommy's milk every day during the 18-24 days mom feeds the pup. You have to hurry things up in the short Arctic summer. Baby seals also get into the water a few hours after they've been born, and soon become good divers.

Lazing out on fake ice in a polar bear-free zone
The mother will stay with the pup and protect it for some time after it is weaned, but a new mating cycle takes place immediately. The bearded seals - like many Arctic mammals - have a delayed implantation; that means, the embryo will only start to develop a few months after the egg has been fertilised. Thus the gestation period is 11 months but the active part only 9 months.

Males are territoriall. When they want to proclaim their territory or attract a female, they emit a long, warbling note ending in a sort of moan; their 'song'.

'Twas King Arthurs Table Once - The Amphitheatre in Caerleon

2011-06-27T00:38:00.009+02:00

Since gladiatorial fights, play performances, and the occasional public execution were so popular with the Romans, it's not that difficult to find the remains of amphitheatres. After the earth and timber one of Birten that may date as far back as Augustean times, we'll visit another one attached to a legionary fort, the stone and timber amphitheatre of Caerleon, dating to AD 90. In a lose series of blogposts, we'll move on to the grand 2nd and 3rd century stone amphitheatres of Trier and Chester, and finally visit the partly reconstructed one of Xanten, as well as the remains of the stage theatre in Mainz.

Roman amphitheatre in Caerleon
The amphitheatre of Caerleon is one of the prettiest today because the arena and the remains of the earthen support walls are overgrown with grass and make for a nice green oasis even on an overcast and dreary day.

To explain the title of this post:
Caerleon, the 'City of the Legions', has been connected with King Arthur since Nennius, author of the Historia Brittonum (~ 820, though the date is not undisputed) mentioned the place as localisation of one of the tvelwe battles the dux bellorum Arthur fought against the Saxon invaders (the most famous one is Mount Badon).

Remains of the southern entrance (seen from the arena)
Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was born not far from Caerleon, gives us a lively description of the City of the Legions in his Historia Regum Brittaniae (1136). After he has not only defeated the Saxons, but conquered Scotland, the Orkneys, Ireland and even Norway, King Arthur holds court at Caerleon to receive hommage of the princes and warlords. Monmouth describes the situation of the city, the river Usk and the meadows and groves surrounding it. At that time more Roman remains had been visible than today, as a visit by Gerald of Wales in 1188 proves. He doesn't make a connection to Arthur, but he mentions a tower, the baths, and the many subterranean passages and hypocausts.

The French verse adaption of Monmouth's Historia, de Wace's Brut (1155), introduces the Round Table. The table had been connected with the remains of the amphitheatre when some of the French who came in support of Owain Glyndŵr, visited the site, and an Elisabethean poem makes the same connection (Thomas Churchyard, The Worthines of Wales, 1587), albeit at that time a good deal of the stones had, erm .... migrated to the nearby houses.

Northern main entrance (with remains of the original pavement)
Caerleon, to the Romans knows as Isca Silurnum, was founded by S. Julius Frontinus, one of Vespasian's generals, in train of his conquest of the Silures AD 74 or 75. Isca was a legionary fort garrisoned by the Legio II Augusta - albeit not always in full strength - until about AD 290 when the fort was partly dismanted.

The fort lies in the territory of the Silures (let's show those pesky Welsh what a badass Roman army looks like), on a gently elevated plateau close to the river Usk, so that the garrison could by supplied by water - we know from my post about the Roman transport on the Rhine how important that was.

As usual, the fort attracted a cannabae legionis. The amphitheatre was situated in the settlement, near the public baths for the civilians.

Inside view
The amphitheatre dates to about AD 90. The legionaries had to wait much longer for that than for their baths; those were built the same time as the fort itself. The construction is interesting, a stone foundation of 4 metres height, filled with earth - the outer wall was 2 metres thick and buttressed to resist the pressure of the earth; the buttresses were repaired and reinforced several times. The outer layer of the walls was finished with smooth plaster decorated with red lines, imitating regular stones.

Above this was an open-framed tmber grandstand with the wooden seating. It is assumed that it originally had been intended as temporary, but the amphitheatre never was completely rebuilt in stone, for whatever reason. It could hold 6000 spectators, that is, the entire legion plus guests (and the legion was rarely in Caerleon in its full strength, detachments would have been sent elsewhere).

North gate, from a different angle
The arena itself, somewhat below the outside ground level, is an oval of 56 x 41.5 metres, about the same size as Birten, though the latter looks much smaller today because of the trees and the partly collapsed earth walls. There were eight entrances; the ones on the long axis (north and south gates) were larger portae pompae through which processions and parades could march. They were vaulted on both ends, but the ceiling in the middle was left open (makes you wonder if the governor, emperor or whoever commissioned the building got short of money halfway through). Those entrances did not give access to the seating.

The entrances were paved and the arena covered with fine sand; grass would have been way too slippery, esp. in wet Wales. There also is a drain running all the way from the north to the south gate and further down into the Usk river. The drain still works today.

Western entrance with 'gladiator cell'
The spectators would use the six remaining entrances. The entrances on the short axis had cells above the gate, between the staircases leading up to the seatings on both sides of the entrance. Those had access to both the outer staircase and the arena (by another small staircase) and held the gladiators or animals. The two gates also had a terrace and a private room above the gladiator cells, at the inner stone wall level. Those were occupied by special guests.

The gate vaults outside and leading to the arena were made of stone, but most of the inner construction was made of bricks. The brick wall of the 'gladator cell / animal pit' in the western entrance can still be seen. For some reason, the entrance was filled up to outer ground level during the renovations under Caracalla (AD 212), and access to the left staircase was blocked, which resulted in the gladiator cell opening only towards the arena. Today the level is back at the original one.

Eastern entrance
(The brick niche is visible above the remains of the arena gate)
The eastern gate was altered even more. During a renovation taking place around AD 125, one of the staircases was blocked and the gladiator cell was partly walled in and furnished with a counter for a ticket collector. I have no idea where gladiators and animals were kept at that time during the hours before they entered the arena.

Later the ground level was filled in here as well, and a brick niche was inserted in the gladiator room which is assumed to have held a shrine dedicated to Nemesis, the goddess of fate and vengeance who was very popular with the gladiators (the arena in Chester has a Nemesis shrine as well). A leaden curse tablet asking Nemesis to do ill to the thief of a cloak and a pair of boots has been found on the site.

The 'chamber for honoured guests' must have been situated above the shrine.

Outside buttresses
The town of Caerleon had for a long time occupied but part of the former fort, but in the early 20th century, it threatened to extend further onto Roman remains. Fortunately, interest in the old remains grew, and a local excavation commitee was set up, led by the director of the National Museum of Wales, Sir Mortimer Wheeler. Wheeler started media campaigns to fund an excavation of the amphitheatre and buy Prysg Field where he assumed parts of the Roman fort could be found and which was going on the market as building land (it now shows the remains of some fort barracks). Excavations at the amphitheatre took place in 1909 and again 1926-27.

Today, the amphitheatre in Caerleon is the best preseved in Great Britain.

Sources:
Volker Mertens, Artus. In: V. Mertens and U. Müller (ed). Epische Stoffe des Mittelalters. Stuttgart , 1984; pp. 290 - 340
The Caerleon Guidebook by CADW

Baiting Bears and Torturing Martyrs - The Amphitheatre in Birten / Xanten

2011-06-18T22:27:00.005+02:00

The first legionary fort on the Fürstenberg hill near Xanten, known as Castra Vetera I, goes back to at least 12 BC when Drusus started his campaigns into Germania. Digs during the first third of the 20th century have shown a number of at least five forts that were built partly over each other, so that most traces of the older ones have been obscured. Moreover, the first forts had been constructed in half-timbered style with earth or timber/earth walls. Aerial surveys in the last years have rendered more traces of those. But the best-researched is the fort from Nero's time that later got destroyed during the Batavian rebellion in AD 70.

Amphitheatre Birten, entrance
After the war, the fort was rebuilt nearby as Vetera II, in a space now under the waters of the shifting Rhine. The various version of Vetera I lie under agricultural fields these days.

Vetera I had been a fort for two legions since the time of Germanicus (AD 14) if not earlier. As such it attracted a cannabae legionis, but those civilian settlements have left even fewer traces and were never really researched, though aerial surveys show a regular Roman street pattern outside the Neronic fort, so one can conclude that the the place became a Roman-planned settlement at some point. There also seems to have been a 100 metres 'safety distance' between fort and settlement.

View from above the spectator rows
The cannabae were destroyed during the Batavian rebellion as well, and when the fort was moved, a new settlement - later to become Colonia Ulpia Traiana - was created in the place that now hosts the Archaeological Park. The only remains of the old cannabae today is an amphitheatre in the village of Birten.

When we think of amphitheatres today, we have an image of the often stunning stone buildings that are spread all over the Roman Empire. But they started out much smaller: For a long time, the arenas for gladitorial combat were timber structures that would be dismantled again after the performances. But some of those collapsed and killed people, so during the time of Caesar, the specatator rows more and more often were erected on firm ground, using natural slopes or earth and timber walls (like Augustean fortifications), and eventually developed into stone buildings which also allowed for much larger constructions.

View from the arena to the entrance
Leginonaries got grumpy when they couldn't watcht the occasional gladiator fight or bear baiting (bear bones have been found in Birten), so it's no surprise that a large fort like Vetera would eventually get its own amphitheatre. It's an oval earthern structure of 98 x 84 metres; the arena proper measures 55.5 x 42.5 metres. The walls had originally been 8 metres high, and the theatre could hold 10.000 spectators. The seats once had been of wood, but now there are modern chairs on one side of the arena because the theatre is used for concerts and play performances today. It's a pretty place, surrounded by trees and deceivingly peaceful, considering its violent past.

Another view from above
A reason the amphitheatre survived is its connection with the martyr St.Victor who is said to have been executed in the arena. Victor was a member of the Theban legion of legends and Christian historiography. It is said to have been a 3rd century legion entirely converting to Christian faith, which got decimated several times on the march through the Alpes, France and along the Rhine. Victor and some 300 of his men were the last ones to end that way - well, Xanten was the last place to kill them before they would have reached the sea. The legion became the collection bin for pretty much every saint along the way, most prominently among them St.Maurice (aka St.Mark).

The reconstructed amphitheatre in the APX Xanten
I don't know why the connection was made between Victor and Birten in the Middle Ages; if he was indeed member of a Roman legion and executed for his faith somewhere near Xanten, the stone amphitheatre in the Colonia Ulpia Traiana would have been a more likely place. It was still in use at the time of Constantin the Great († AD 337), while Victor's martydom took place somewhat earlier. One explanatiion could be the fact that the veneration of St.Victor can be traced clearly only to the 8th century, and by then a transfer of the legend to the amphitheatre in Birten would be possible.

Sources:
Norbert Hanel, Die Militärlager von Vetera I und ihre Lagersiedlingen, in:
M. Müller, H.-J. Schalling, N. Zieling (ed), Colonia Ulpia Traiana - Xanten und sein Umland in römischer Zeit. Mainz 2009, pp. 93-107

Forward, Drifting North on Ice - The Fram Museum in Oslo

2011-06-14T02:57:00.012+02:00

And now for something completely different that's not Roman or Mediaeval, lol. After visiting the Viking Ship Museum and a stave church in Oslo, I had some time left and decided to take a jump to the late 19th / early 20th century and look at the Fram; Fridtjof Nansen's ship for polar expeditions. The ship is located inside a hall today, so I couldn't take a shot of the complete vessel; you'll get her in bits and pieces.

That's what the Fram 1 looked like. Fram means Forward, btw, thus the title of the post.

Model of the Fram-1
In the late 19th century, the poles were some of the few white spots left on the world map. One of the arctic explorers trying to tackle those white spots was the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen. He liked cold, ice and snow, it seems, because he'd already done fun things like crossing Greenland on ski. Visiting the North Pole was another voyage no one had done before, and so he put it on his To Do List (which also included finishing his PhD in Zoology and participating in ski jumping competitions).

Nansen was convinced there must be a current flowing from Asia to a point between Greenland and Svalbard and maybe crossing the North Pole. Not many people believed him, so Nansen looked for a way to prove it. Sticking something into the ice near Siberia and watch it come out near Svalbard sounded like an idea. Nansen wanted to stick an entire ship into the ice, plus he could get a free ride to the pole that way. Now, the problem with ice is that it can crack a wooden ship like a nut. Nansen needed a special ship that would be pushed onto the ice instead of ending up as haggis between the ice blocks, and he needed money.

View from the bridge of the Fram to the quarterdeck
Nansen managed to convince the Norwegian National Assembly to grant him a fund, and he also found some private contributors (weren't that good times when people were willing to invest money in something that would not give them any profit but knowledge?). Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, another arctic explorer, and Colin Archer, a ship architect whose parents had imigrated from Scotland, put their heads together and designed the Fram.

The ship should be small and light, but sturdy, yet offer enough comfort for a dozen men to live onboard for what looked like years. What they came up with was a three mast schooner of 39 metres length, a beam of 11 metres, a draught of 5 metres (which makes her unusually wide and shallow) and a displacement of 800 tons. The hull was designed so it would be lifted onto the ice, plus the Fram has almost no keel; rudder and propeller could be retracted into the ship. The outer layer is made of extremely durable greenheart wood. Besides the sails, the Fram has a triple expansion steam engine, and could make a speed of 7 knots (13 km/h). There was also a windmill to generate electricity for the lamps (that would come handy during the polar nights).

Fram (with Sverdrup's changes), the hull
The Fram set out on her first expedition on June 24, 1893. Fridtjof Nansen as leader of the scientific part and Otto Sverdrup as captain were among the thirteen brave souls to participate in the adventure. They left Oslo and went along the Norwegian coast all the way do Vardø at the Barent Sea (that's an extended Hurtigruten tour there, lol). They stopped in Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø where our explorers were celebrated and banquetted even before they had explored anything. On July 21, they departed for the route to Novaya Semlya and some other Russian harbours where they took in dogs, and further to the North Siberian Islands. They reached the ice on September 22 and the long journey back to somewhere near Svalbard began.

A few days later, the rudder and propeller were taken in, the dogs moved to kennels on the ice, and the men made themselves comfortable.The ship rose and fell with the ice pressure but didn't suffer any damage. Polar night set in on October 25.

Boredom seems to have been one of the biggest problems (I think the men would have loved the idea or e-readers and Netflix; the piano on board only went so far, obviously). The drift was about 1 mile per day (1.6 km/h; which is still better than the speed in a London rush hour). Only once, in January 1895, the pressure of the ice became so dangerous that the men put the equipment out onto the ice and prepared for abandoning the ship, but the Fram held and was pushed out of the trap.

View from the bridge to the bow (the bowsprit is visible close to the wall)
During the summer 1894, Nansen realised that the Fram would drift quite a bit away from the pole. He had planned to reach the North Pole on an excursion if the ship wouldn't touch it, and now began preparations for a nice little walk on the ice. Sledges and Inuit style kayaks were built; Nansen started to learn the job of a musher and had the men train skiing. It soon turned out that a combination of the men skiing and the dogs dragging the sleds with proviant and equipment was the best way to proceed.

Nansen intended to reach the pole, then continue to the Franz Josef Land archipelago and further to Svalbard on the pack ice, using kayaks to cross open waters, and get a hike back home from there (he must have been quite an optimist; that island isn't exactly located on a main shipping route). He had no illusions about ever again finding his little ship drifting in a vast desert of ice without GPS.

Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen, a world championship athlete with a fondness for adventure and, as it turned out, a good hand with dogs, who had hired on the Fram as stoker, set off on March 14, 1895, with the ship at 84°4'N. They had their skies and three dog sleds with equipment and food.

The diesel engine added by Amundsen in 1910
At first, the men made good progress, but eventually, the terrain became more difficult to traverse, with "a veritable chaos of ice blocks stretching as far as the horizon," as Nansen noted in his diary with half-frozen fingers. They also hit a southerly drift that carried them off, and began to run low on food if they wanted it to last for the retour pass to Franz Josef Land. On April 7, Nansen decided they would turn back. They had reached 86°14'N, the closest to the North Pole anyone had ever gotten by then.

The journey to Franz Josef Land was a difficult and dangerous one. Since it was summer, the ice broke up and forced the men to cross open water and floes. Provisions ran even lower, and they had to kill most of the dogs. Once the men had to camp on a floe for a month (July), though by that time they could add seals and birds to the diet.

Soon thereafter they reached the end of the pack ice and sailed over to Franz Josef Land on a catamaran which they had created by lashing the two kayaks together, fixing the sleds on top, and setting up a makeshift sail.

The crankshaft
Futher progress to Svalbard was hindered by the approaching arctic winter - the first ice began to form again - and on August 28, Nansen decided they would spend the winter on the archipelago. They built a pit house style hut of stone, moss and walrus skins. Food was less of an issue at the coast; there was plenty of polar bear, walrus and fish to stock up on. It would later turn out that the men had gained some weight despite their privations and exercise. Walrus blubber does that to you, obviously. Walrus oil also provided for lamps.

Nansen and Johansen spent eight months there, being pretty bored (not even a piano around this time). On May 19, 1896, they set off along the coast in search of a spot to cross over to Svalbard. That trip surely was not boring. They were attacked by a walrus, Nansen had to swim after the eloping kayaks in barely liquid water, and other fun. But they had some luck this time. Before they set out for Svalbard on that questionable catamaran, the men met with another expedition at Cape Flora in the south of the achipelago. The British explorer Frederick G. Jackson picked them up, gave them a bath and a haircut, and ride back on his supply ship, the Windward. Nansen and Johansen arrived in Vardø on August 13, 1896.

Fram, view to the stern
Meanwhile, the Fram, under command of Otto Sverdrup, continued to drift in the ice. Boredom was still an issue, so Sverdrup orderd all sorts of programs to keep people busy, from spring cleaning the ship to skiing practice. Research was also going on; the Fram had developed into a biological, oceanographic, and meteorological laboratory. They data the men collected would take years to evaluate and publish.

The ship reached open waters again pretty much at the spot near Svalbard which Nansen had predicted the same day Nansen arrived in Vardø, August 13, 1896, and on August 20, the Fram arrived in the little harbour of Skjervøy in Norway. Six days later, Sverdrup and the crew of the Fram met with Nansen and Johansen in Tromsø where they were celebrated. The way back along the coast to Oslo (then still named Christiania) likened a triumphal parade with a lot more stops and banquets than three years ago. In Oslo the explorers were received by the king and invited to an extra big banquet (I bet the guys stayed away from any scale those weeks).

Foredeck with anchor chain
Nansen's successful expedition - the first into the polar zones from which all members returned safely - started a wave of interest in Arctic explorations. Otto Sverdrup was to lead the Fram north again to chart and explore the northern fjords of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Islands. It would be the most scientific of the ship's journeys, taking place from June 1898 to September 1902. The material brought back was even more extensive than that gathered during the first expedition; it was published in 5 volumes between 1919 - 1930 (and that's not counting the 2000 glass containers with samples).

Sverdrup had altered the Fram a bit, raising the freeboard by 6 feet and adding a new deck that extended from the engine and could hold six more cabins - his team had 16 members instead of 13, and more space was welcome. This is the version we can see today.

Steering wheel on the quarterdeck
On Sverdrup's return, the Fram was laid up, but it was not the end of her voyages. Roald Amundsen would take her to the Antarctic on his South Pole expedition (1910-1912) but I'll leave that for another post, together with some photos of the interior of the Fram and the museum exhibits.

Though I'll probably post something Roman in between, or my Roman interested readers may de-follow my blog because it's full of castles and steam engines. ;)

Sources:
'Fram: Norsk Polarhistorie'; a booklet avaliable at the museum

Castles of the Welsh Princes - Criccieth Castle 2: King Edward's Buildings

2011-06-05T17:37:00.011+02:00

Edward's conquest of Wales should get its own post because he's to blame for some of those big castles I visited, but I'd need to find some reliable books or essays to draw upon. Well, here's a short version for starters.

Despite the Treaty of Montgomery, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd continued to face troubles with his Welsh neighbours (esp. the princes of Powys and Deheubarth) who didn't like being the vassals of another Welsh prince; the English Marcher lords who kept trying to nibble bits off Wales; and his brother Dafydd who, like any good Welsh brother, tried to kill Llywelyn and, when the plot failed, ran off to the king of England.

Criccieth Castle seen from the town
When Edward I ascended to the throne and summoned Llywelyn to renew his oath of fealty, Llywelyn replied that Edward should first address his grievances about Marcher lords and hiding brothers. From Edward's point, Llywelyn's refusal to swear fealty was, of course, treason. Moreover, Llywelyn was planning to marry Eleanor de Montfort, a daughter of that rebellious baron.

So Edward kidnapped Eleanor, took her into royal custody, and declared war on Llywelyn in 1276. Several of the Welsh rulers fell over each other to make peace with Edward (isn't that so Welsh?), and so the King of England could surround Llywelyn's lands and force him to surrender without too much trouble. The treaty of Aberconwy restored more or less the situation of the 1240ies: Llywelyn's possessions and feudal influence were reduced to the lands of his family, he had to pay out his brother's share in the heritage, accept the king's right to build castles and overall was reduced to a vassal at the king's beck and call, though he was allowed to keep the title Prince of Wales and marry Eleanor.

Inner curtain wall seen from inner ward
Edward could have had peace, but he overacted his authority and hammered it home to the Welsh lords who was boss. Plus he sent his lawyers in and they did what lawyers do best: dragging out processes and finding loopholes to use English law instead of the Welsh one. By 1282, Edward I had managed to alienate pretty much every Welsh noble in the area he had conquered a few years earlier; including Llywelyn's brother Dafydd. This second war - not a punitive expedition like in 1276, but a war of conquest - would not be an easy win for Edward; he had to fight for every castle and every path in the mountains because the Welsh had realised what was at stake.

Unfortunately for the Welsh, Edward could draw upon military ressources and money not all the Welsh chiefs combined could muster, and he was a skilled commander who went on his campaigns very methodically. Nevertheless, it took Llywelyn's death in an ambush for the Welsh resistance to break. Dafydd was captured and exedcuted by quartering soon thereafter. The war ended with a complete conquest of Wales in June 1283. In the following year, the Principality of Wales was incorporated into the English system of administration with counties policed by sheriffs, and English settlement in Wales increased.

Outer ward
Edward had started to build castles in northern Wales already after 1277 (like Rhuddlan and Aberystwyth) but now he planted some real monsters: Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, Beaumaris. I've already introduced you to the man tasked with building those castles: Master James of St.George. Edward had been on a crusade, and so he and his leading architect introduced some features from the castles in the Holy Land, like arrowslits (thus those may have been part of the later additions to the gate towers in Criccieth) and the concentric layout.

Criccieth was taken by English forces in 1283, and renovated and extended (a job that was finished only in 1292). Master James got £ 500 for the task, a considerable sum at that time, which proves that Edward saw the strategic importance of the castle.

South-east tower (Leyburn Tower)
Among the added features was another tower adjacent to the wall of the inner ward, Leyburn Tower, which overlooked the northern gate. The main gate towers had another storey added, and the so called Engine Tower was either built or at least refortified by Edward (or rather, Master James).

The Engine Tower and the northern curtain wall are subject to some discussion about whether they were already built by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd or date to the time of Edward. The curtain wall extends the landward protections of Llywelyn the Great in a seamless way and thus could well date to his grandson's additons; after all, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd also added the seaward curtain wall and outer bailey at the south side. It would then have made sense to build a tower in the outermost corner, thus dating the first version of the Engine Tower to Llywelyn. The massive structure we can see today dates to the time of Edward, though.

Way along the landward curtain wall with view to Engine Tower in the background
The tower got its name because it served as foundation for a catapult that could reach any attackers from the land side, and that was an Edwardian feature as well. Siege warfare became more important, and more deadly.

As mentioned in the first post, the principial residence during the times when members of House Aberffraw lived in the castle had been the south-west tower. But with the added storey under Edward, the main gate towers also became the main lodgings, and timber buildings, including a great hall, were erected in the inner bailey - one may wonder if they were planned to be replaced by stone buildings like in Caernarfon; though in both cases that step was never made.

Remains of the Engine Tower
You didn't think the Welsh would meekly accept English overlordship, big castles or no, did you? Well, you're right. Two years after Criccieth Castle had partaken in the House Overhaul Program, a distant relation of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, one Madoc ap Llywelyn (he styled himself Prince of Wales), rose against the English. The rebellion quickly spread - Edward still hadn't learned how to make friends, it seems - and several towns were razed, Caernarfon taken; the castles of Criccieth, Harlech and Aberystwyth were besieged. The English garrison at Criccieth could hold out because they got supplies by sea. But this uprising ended like the ones before. Edward managed to win the battle of Maes Moydog, Madoc was taken prisoner, the English sheriffs, lawyers and tax collectors reinstalled in Wales .... and the next Prince of Wales would be English: Edward II, born in Caernarfon Castle 1301.

Outer gatehouse seen from outer ward
Criccieth was captured by the Welsh in another rebellion, though, that of Owain Glyndŵr which lasted several years (1400-1412). This time the garrison could not get resupplied by sea because Owain had the support of the French and a nice little fleet at his disposal. The castle fell in 1404 and was partly destroyed - there are still some scorch marks to be seen.

The rebellion was put down by Henry IV after the French had withdrawn their support, and Owain Glyndŵr vanished into the Welsh mountains and legends. Criccieth obviously lost its importance as coastal fortress and mostly disappears from the sources. It was in possession of the Lords of Harlech until 1933 when it came under the protection of the CADW trust.

Sources:
R.R. Davies, The Age of Conquest, Oxford 1987, repr. 2000
The essay about Criccieth Castle by Lise Hull, 1996, on the Castles of Wales website

Castles of the Welsh Princes - Criccieth Castle 1: Llywelyn's Buildings

2011-05-27T23:45:00.010+02:00

I'll jump ahead a bit and leave Llywelyn the Great of House Aberffraw to another post. He is most closely connected with Dolwyddelan Castle, but I did some research on Criccieth first and that's in my notes already. I really have to clean out those and turn them into posts.

Criccieth Castle is situated on a rocky promontory overlooking Tremadog Bay. I visited it on a sunny evening and got some nice pics for you.

Criccieth Castle atop the cliff
It is first mentioned in Brut y Tywysogyon, a Welsh chronicle. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was kept prisoner there by his half-brother Dafydd. They both were sons of Llywelyn the Great, but Gruffydd was born on the wrong side of the blankets, while Dafydd was the son of Llywelyn and his wife Joan, an illegitimate daughter or King John of England. Now, according to Welsh inheritance laws, it was perfectly fine for an illegitimate son to be treated the same way as legitimate offspring, and thus Gruffydd, who was the older of the two, could have become the main heir. But Llywelyn wanted to introduce the Anglonorman laws that only allowed for legitimate children to inherit (he got thumbs up from the Pope, too). Thus Dafydd got the lion share which didn't sit well with Gruffydd. He visited his brother with some friends, but Dafydd obviously had more friends, and imprisoned his troublesome half-brother in Criccieth Castle in 1239.

Inner Gatehouse with twin towers
The castle was built in the early 13th century by Llywelyn the Great who clearly saw the strategic advantages of the place, including the fact that the garrison could be provisioned by the sea. But the castle was extended and partly remodeled in later times, mostly under Edward I, and since several of its features are unique for a Welsh (non Norman castle), there have been discussions as to which features belong to what period.

While most scholars agree that the massive gatehouse with its two D-shaped towers and the inner ward were built by Llywelyn, some historians contend this and want to date the gatehouse to the time of Edward I because the structure appears to be too grand for a Welsh castle.

Gatehouse seen from the inner ward
But considering the rather late date of construction and Llywelyn's position and ambitions (marrying a daughter of the English king, introducing legitimate primogeniture), it is more likely that he would imitate the castles of his Norman neighbours. Maybe he even hired a Norman master mason. Moreover, a castle was also a political demonstration. The D-shaped towers were a typical Welsh feature, after all, which can also be found in fe. Castell-y-Bere - Llywelyn just built his a bit bigger. Another storey may have been added to the towers during Edward's time, though.

Windows in the inner gatehouse
The gatehouse of Criccieth contained a portcullis and a barred gate and was defended by arrow slits, battlements, and murder holes from where you could pour all sorts of interesting substances on enemies in the passageway. The castle well, which was supplied by a spring fed cistern, was located in the passageway as well.

Most of the interior structure has been lost, but we know there had been guard rooms on the lower level and accomodation quarters on the upper floors. One room contained a crucifix; the room was thus either used as chapel or at least held a private altar niche. Since it's the most secure place in the castle; I wonder if the captive Gruffydd had his quarters in the tower - excape would have been pretty much impossible.

Inner curtain wall
King Henry III accepted Dafydd's claim to the throne of Gwynedd but not to his father's conquests outside Gwynedd. So David did was any good Welsh prince would have done in such a situation, he started a nice little war. Unfortunately, he lost that war and had to submit to Henry in summer 1241. One of the conditions of the ensuing Treaty of Gweneigron was that Dafydd would deliver his half-brother Gruffydd to Henry (Henry may have seen Gruffydd as potential rival to set up against Dafydd). But Gruffydd had his share of being kept prisoner in draughty towers; he tried to escape from the Tower in London good old pirate movie style on a knotted sheet, and fell to his death (1244). Maybe he should have tried to escape from Criccieth Castle instead. Dafydd died only two years later.

Inner Ward
Back to some more architecture. The inner ward is more or less diamond shaped and takes up the plateau on the highest point of the promontory. There were no significant defenses towards the seaside, but a curtain wall on the landside. That and the remains of stone buildings attached to the wall show the same masonry as the gate towers. The entire ward still gives an impression of a sturdy castle with no architectural laces and frills, but it is still somewhat smaller than most of the Norman ones I've seen in Wales.

Llywelyn's grandson added more buildings to the castle in the 1260ies, most notably an outer curtain wall.

Remains of the outer curtain wall on the seaside
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (Llywelyn the Last) was one of the sons of that unfortunate prisoner Gruffydd ap Llywellyn, and the one who came out winner when three brothers fought about the heritage of their uncle, after Dafydd had died without male offspring. Llywelyn managed to unite some other Welsh princes, in particular those of Deheubarth and Powys, against Henry III and formed an alliance with Simon de Montfort, leader of the barons that rebelled against the King. In the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267, peace between England and Wales was reached and Llywelyn recognised as Prince of Wales. But as usual, the peace was shortlived. After the death of Henry III (1272), relations between England and Wales deteriorated once again.

View from Montfort Tower
The wall Llywelyn the Last built encompassed the entire promontory. He also added an outer gate, protected by a tower, and a rectangular tower at the southwest corner which is also known as Montfort Tower. Of the curtain wall only ruins remain, but the tower stands almost to its original height. It had likely served as keep and held living quarters of better quality.

Sources:
R.R. Davies, The Age of Conquest, Oxford 1987, repr. 2000
The essay about Criccieth Castle by Lise Hull, 1996, on the Castles of Wales website

Blog Anniversary

2011-05-21T00:28:00.003+02:00

Tomorrow, The Lost Fort will celebrate its 6th Bloggiversary. The blog really has become part of my life.

When I started photographing in 1970, the only way to share photos was to put them in an album in hope aunt G. might be interested in browsing it some day. My late mother gave me the idea to add little texts to the photos so I would have some sort of travel diary. Those little snips were my first attempts at writing. Later, the texts got longer and I used a typewriter. Photos were on expensive film rolls so I could never take as many as I wanted. But I still cherish the memories kept alive in those albums.

Little sailing boat on the Roskilde fjord
No one could ever have imagined that 35 years later, you could share your travel diaries and photos with the world, not only aunt G, and that there would be digital cameras instead of film rolls.

It makes photographing even more fun to know my readers will enjoy the pictures and the background information, and for me, it's a continuation of that first travel diary I started back in 1970. Here's to the next 40 years of photographing and traveling.

The Ebersburg - Part 3: Remains of a Romanesque Castle

2011-05-13T23:21:00.008+02:00

The last post about the Ebersburg will deal with the architecture. Thankfully, there is a group of people dedicated to researching the castle and preventing further decline: They've put up a very informative website from which I took the details about the assumed layout of the castle before the better part of the stones, especially of the outer works, disappeared in mud and shrubs. Those brave guys and girls dug a lot of them out of their hiding places during the last years.

Inner curtain wall (with the keep in the background)
The castle encompasses a walled-in forework, and an outer and inner bailey, the latter consisting of two parts. The German words Unterburg and Oberburg would better translate as 'lower' and 'upper' bailey, since the Ebersburg is one of those German hilltop castles that are built on several levels (while the Wartburg fe. is situated on a sufficiently large promontory for the outer and inner bailey to be on the same level, others like the Plesse are built over two or three levels).

Each part of the castle is separated from the others by walls and trenches, with the keep as innermost and last defense.

Closeup of the keep
The lower bailey measures 20 x 50 metres, the upper on 23 x 60 metres. The keeps stands at the most vulnerable point, thus adding a significant obstacle to the defenses. The keep is still almost 19 metres high today and must once have been even higher. It is 12.60 metres in diameter and its walls are 4.50 metres thick (which won't leave that much room inside). Not an easy nut to crack with 13th century siege equipment, not to mention that it won't have been easy to get a trebuchet up the mountain and then find a good spot to set it up. Slopes don't work for that.

The keep is covered with a wire net today to prevent loose stones from tumbling down. There are plans to renovate it and make it accessible for the public again.

Gate tower
The keep as well as a number of other parts of the castle consist of a quarry stone / gypsum mortar kernel (you can see some of it on the first photo) faced with porphyry stones from a local quarry, which gives the remaining walls their pretty red colour. Another material, mostly used for decorative elements, is muschekalk (shellbearing limestone). Some fragments still show a herringbone pattern, a decoration dating back to the Romans. It's a pity so little remains of the palas because that would have been the most representative building and we could get an idea just how much craftmanship was put into a castle that, after all, was visited by the landgrave on occasion. What we can say is that there's been a symmetry in the lay of the various, elegantly curved curtain walls.

Inner gate seen from outer bailey
The inner gate is interesting. It looks a bit like the clavicula gates one can find in 1st and 2nd century AD Roman forts. The inner curtain wall is drawn into the bailey, thus forming a hallway that ends with a gate tower (3.1 x 3.1 metres). A gate like that could be easily defended because the garrison on the battlements could reach every angle in front of it with their missiles.

Today there's a gap in the roof of the hallway that makes for an interesting motiv (the roofs had been covered with slate - which is found in the Harz - and some with tiles, btw.).

The hallway of the inner gate
While parts of the castle can be reimagined with help of the remains, and we got an idea of the layout of the defenses, many details remain unknown so that it's not possible to draw an image of the entire castle as it may have looked. One of the riddles is the water supply since so far neither a well or a cistern have been found.

The members of the Medium Aevum Vitale Society Nordhausen have their work set out for the years to come, and I hope they will get enough money to be able to fulfill their dream to restore the keep and maybe other parts of the castle. The Ebersburg is worth being dragged out of oblivion.

Huskies

2011-05-05T19:39:00.008+02:00

One more picture post before we go back to the regularly scheduled posts about castles, cathedrals and Romans. It's just that I have so many photos that I could put up pic spam every week. :)

These are from the dog sled tour I took near Kirkenes. Because I'm sure you'll like some cuddly Huskies.

Where are those tourists? We want to play.
This blog should come with sound. All those huskies (and some other dogs among them) made a lot of noise, barking and yipping like mad. But they were very friendly dogs.

Nay, we want to have a little nap.
A few took it a bit more relaxed in between the rides. One tour is about an hour and they had two turns in the morning; this doesn't seem much for dogs that run for hours on expeditions.

Lazy sods, those are.
The snow conditions weren't very good since it had thawed a bit the days before so the snow was sodden. This was the reason I decided against trying to guide the sled myself; it takes an experienced musher in conditions like this.

But there's still a lot of snow that far north.

Can we go off now? Can we?
Those bushy tails were always waggling. I don't think Huskies have a stop button for that, and while they do have a stop button for running, they hate it when it's used. *grin*

Hey pal, whaddaya think the tourists are here for, us or the landscape?
I can ensure you I came for both, my tail wiggling friends.

The landscape is rather flat near the Russian border, with gentler hills, and some rivers and lakes. The lakes were still frozen and part of the trail went right across one. The last ice age left a bunch of boulders behind, and there are spruces and pines as well as small birches, but the latter were still bare.

Yipee, that's fun!
It was not so easy to keep on the track in the wet snow, but only one other sled capsized. Sitting comfortably in a sleigh and having someone else do all the steering and balancing is a nice way to travel.

Yes, it was fun, wasn't it, pal?
It was one of the coolest things I did during my tour. And it wasn't too cold, either; I had actually counted on colder weather. Looks like the dogs enjoyed it as well.

And now, all together: Aawwwww.

One of the pups
Who can resist Husky puppies? Though - very sensibly, imho - there was a fence, so tourists couldn't pet the pups; it might have irritated them else. You could pet the adults, though.

Rainbows

2011-04-28T17:35:00.007+02:00

This could be right from the cover of a travel magazine. The Norwegian flag in the stern of the Richard With, framed by one of those beautiful rainbows I saw during my voyage.

Rainbow in the Brønnøysund
The second one is seen from the bow of the ship approaching a harbour. It's already fading, and the rain had let up when we had some time to disembark and walk through the town of Molde in the evening.

Rainbow over Molde
That gave me the chance to catch a nice shot of our ship at anchor, taking in some cargo. I should present her in some detail in another post.

The Richard With
On another note, the birch pollen are finally easing up here which means I can cut down on the antihistamine and maybe manage to stay awake for a change, lol. I'm really glad I escaped about two weeks of that mess this year; the pollen are particularly aggressive.

Happy Easter

2011-04-22T21:43:00.002+02:00

I wish everyone a happy, blessed Easter with many tasty, or readable, eggs. *grin*

Since I don't have any new spring photos yet, though spring is really here, birch pollen and all, let's go for one of those gorgeous sunsets in the Arctic Sea.

Sunset near the North Cape
The Norwegian landscape knows how to look dramatic, that's for sure.

Culture and Nature in Norway

2011-04-18T22:12:00.012+02:00

And here we go for the third photo post: the way back from the north. We're still north of the Arctic Circle in the Vesterålen achipelago where I found this charming little church.

Stone church in Trondenes (Vesterålen)
This is the oldest stone church north of the Arctic Circle. There's a bit of a discussion about the exact date the church was built, about 1250, or 1440. It definitely replaced an older timber church from the 11th century. There are also remains of fortifications from that date that once protected the timber church from attacks from the sea side.

Entrance to the mist-veiled Trollfjord (Lofoten archipelago)
In summer the ship enters the Trollfjord, one of the most narrow passages on the way, but the amount of snow on the mountains makes for a significant danger of avalanches this time of the year, and since the ship has to get close to those steep slopes, that's not unproblematic. But I could get a glimpse because I went on a sea eagle safari in a smaller boat. Yes, I did see eagles but the skuas were more willing to fly model in front of my camera.

Sunset in the Brønnøysund
With this one were's south of the Arctic Circle and here spring slowly makes it way north. There was less snow and even a few specks of genuine green among all the brown and yellow, but it took until I arrived back in Germany to fully meet spring. It really had worked hard on that green thing during the time I was away.

Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim
The cathedral of Nidaros, as Trondheim was called in the Middle Ages, took a long time in building, from 1070 to 1327. Thus it's a mix of Romanesque and - preeminently - Gothic elements. The cathedral suffered severe damage by fire several times, so the building had to be restored in part; a task that was finished in 2001. The most striking feature is the westwork with its rich decoration of large stone sculptures.

Historical farmhouses, Trondelag Folkemuseum
The Trondelag Open Air Museum is situated around the ruins of the oldest stone castle in Norway, Sverre's castle near Trondheim. It houses a collection of different buildings that were - and in some cases still are - typical for the area. The age of the buildings varies from an old church of 1170 to 19th century town houses. Most of the buildings are farm houses, stables and sheds though, and they make for a lovely scenery among the trees and rocks.

Spring is coming to Norway
I took this photo from out of the train window on the way from Trondheim to Oslo. The ice on the rivers and lakes in the inland is the last trace of winter to give way, but the snow had been melting those last days even in a skiing district like Lillehammer. The Norwegians need to travel further north for their customary Easter fun.

Gokstad ship, Viking Ship Museum Oslo
I promised Viking ships and I got some for you. I've actually visited two Viking ship museums, the ones in Roskilde and in Oslo. The museum in Oslo houses the ships found in Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune, and additional grave finds from Borre. All three ships had been buried in mounds, together with other beautifully crafted items; most remarkable among them are the cart and the sleighs from the Oseberg find. The museum's eldest part was opened as early as 1926 while the museum in its present 4-winged layout dates to 1957.

The opera house in Oslo
The opera house in Oslo opened in 2008. It won several architecture awards for its unusual ice shoal design, and you can walk onto the roof. Most of the material used is white Italian marble, while the stage tower is clad in white aluminium in a pattern that resembles old weavings. The large windows allow for a lot of light to stream in. In contrast to the white and glass of the exterior, the interior surfaces are covered in oak.

I managed to get a ticket for 'Rigoletto'; a fitting celebration of my last night in Norway.

The Farthest North

2011-04-17T23:51:00.008+02:00

Here's the second of the three 'glimpse into my photo collection' posts (the first is below this one), with pictures from north of the Arctic Circle. It was really still winter there, but since it's past the equinox, the days are already long and there's an extended period of twilight, the blue hour. But due to the west coast weather, there often was a lot of fog and haze.

Snow covered mountains near Tromsø
There was a neverending array of those in all shapes and sizes. Long stretches of the route go between islands and the mainland, and that way you often get mountains on both sides. It made the Hurtigruten possible in the first place, since the Arctic Sea can be very rough and dangerous in winter, albeit the navigation in the sometimes small passages is tricky as well (at least it was in times before GPS).

Gisund Bridge
Gisund Bridge is a 1147 metres long cantilever bridge that crosses the Sound of Gisund and connects the island of Senja with the mainland. There are several bridges, both cantilever and suspension, that are part of the road system these days, but the Gisund bridge is one of the largest. Its main span is 143 metres at a height of 41 metres above sea level.

Ishavskatedralen in Tromsø
The Arctic Cathedral is one of the landmarks of Tromsø, the largest town north of the Arctic Circle. It was built in 1965 by Jan Inge Hovig. The eleven aluminium-coated concrete panels resemble the shape of ice shoals, and the large windows at the east and west sides allow for lots of light to come in during summer time (though the east window had to be replaced by a coloured mosaic because there was just too much light).

'Blue hour' on a surprisingly calm Barent Sea
I had expected the Barent Sea to be stormy and was a bit surprised I caught it at a very calm time, but thus it gave me that beautiful blue twilight instead of storm grey. At that point of the journey we were further east than Istanbul - it doesn't look like it on most maps, but a globe may show you how much that upper hook of Norway tilts eastward. Norway keeps one time, though the time zone of that area is technically Moscow time which made for the odd experience of daylight at 2.30 am in April.

Dog sleighing near Kirkenes
This was a really fun excursion. I had booked it in advance which was a good thing because there are limited slots. You got to sit in a sled that was guided by a musher and drawn by eight tail-wiggling Huskies with goofy grins who just wanted to run and didn't like to stop, which we had to do several times because our team was faster than the one ahead of us. I can't blame the dogs; I liked it fast, too.

Ice sculptures in the snow hotel near Kirkenes
There are several snow hotels in northern Scandinavia, the most famours is the one of Kiruna in Sweden, but the Kirkenes hotel is very pretty, too. It has 20 rooms that are all decorated differently, and an ice bar. The beds are shaped of snow and ice, but the coverings looked comfortable enough. Though you proabably have to stick your nose under the pillow if you don't want to look like Rudolph the Reindeer.

Vardøhus fortress
Vardøhus is the world's northernmost fortress. The first fortification can be traced back to the early 14th century and was built by Håkon V Magnusson during the conflict with Novgorod. The present buildings meanwhile date to 1738 - 1825. The fortress is still used by the army, though there has never been any fight during its long history. It's actually a quite charming place due to the style of the houses with their rustic grass roofs.

Impressions from a bus tour through the Vesterålen
A bus tour through Hinnøya, the largest island of the Vesterålen archipelago, provided a good chance to get a different perspective of a little bit of the country. The bus did stop a few times, but I managed to get a few decent photos out of the running vehicle (I'm getting better at that, it seems) like the above.

A Voyage into Winter

2011-04-17T20:04:00.006+02:00

I'm back with some 3000 photos, mostly of scenic landscape, but there's a good deal of culture as well. As usual, I'll give you a first glimpse of my 'shining photo plunder', spread over three posts because I don't want to have too many photos in one.

Roskilde Cathedral
The cathedral of Roskilde in Denmark dates to the 12th and 13th centuries and is the first Gothic church to have been built of brick. It served as model for the brick churches of Lübeck, Stralsund, Wismar and other towns (most of which I visited in 2004; unfortunately without a digital camera). The cathedral is also the burial place of the Danish kings. The westwork shown in the photo is an impressive structure.

Hamlet's Elsinore, Kronborg Fortress near Helsingör
Kronborg castle was developed as Renaissance palace in 1585, with additional fortifications dating to the late 17th century. Because of its location in the town of Helsingör, the Elsinore of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the fortress is connected with this semi-historical character, and the play. It is also said to be the place where the legendary hero Holger the Dane (Ogier li Danois in the French chansons de geste) sleeps until great need arises and he will awaken again.

Winter in the Oslofjord
I took the overnight ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo, and it was a voyage into winter indeed. There were even some ice shoals in the fjord. I love traveling by ferry and train, it gives you a better feel for the distance than flying, and entering the Oslofjord by ship after the sun has risen is a beautiful way to arrive in Norway.

Winter evening in the mountains near Geilo
The railway connecting Oslo and Bergen, the Bergenbanan, competes with the West Highland Line for the most scenic route in Europe, and I'm not going to decide on a winner here. I brought my portable CD player and listened to some of my favourite music while watching the landscape pass by and taking some photos (the above is one that worked out fine); it was a wonderful experience.

Hansa Quarter (the Bryggen) in Bergen
The quarter - kontor - of the members of the German Hansa in Bergen was established in 1360 and still in use until the early 18th century, but the Hansa had long since lost its economical and political importance. After a fire in 1955 the quarter seemed to be lost, but in the end it was decided to rebuild it. The photo shows the waterfront of a veritable labyrinth of buildings, walkways and stairs.

Håkon's Hall, Bergen
Håkon's Hall was built as royal banqueting and representation hall by king Håkon Håkonarson between 1247 and 1261. It is part of Bergenhus fortress and a fine example of a Gothic hall, likely influenced by Anglonorman architecture. Håkon was very interested in the Anglonorman culture and had fe. several French epics translated into Old Norse.

The Richard With, my home for eleven days
The Richard With is named after the founder of the Hurtigruten Line. It was built in 1993, is 121 metres long and 19 wide, and has a maximum speed of 18 knots. It's one of the medium sized ships of the fleet with 466 beds. I caught her docking in Sortland after I returned from an excursion.

Light in a land of water and mountains
This one was taken near Alesund and is only one of many I photos I took of the various changes of light and atmosphere during the voyage. The gulf stream keeps the waters from freezing, but there's still snow on the mountains at this time of the year, and the climate is typical for a westcoast.

I'll be Away for Three Weeks

2011-03-28T23:45:00.004+02:00

Traveling to Norway to hunt some Vikings and lots of beautiful landscape. I wanted to do this tour for years, and in the winter season it's half the price on the Hurtigruten ships that travel along the Norwegian coast from Bergen all the way up to Kirkenes at the Russian border, crossing the Arctic Circle and circling the North Cape, and back again. The Hurtigruten started out as post service with some bunks for passengers in 1893, and has over time morphed into a mix of cruise, ferry service and freight transport. It's still an unusual cruise with no captain's dinner and entertainment on board (the landscape is entertainment enough), and with a lot more stops that a normal cruise, even at night. There's time to visit some of the towns along the way, and guided tours to fun places like a reindeer farm; plenty of things to do and to watch during the 12 days of the voyage.

So I'll be off via Copenhagen where I'm going to stay for two nights, then by ferry to Oslo, taking the train to Bergen (the route is one of the most scenic railway routes in Europe) where I'll stay another two days. Next onto the ship and doing most of the cruise, though I'll leave one day early at Trondheim on the way back to get more time for that town; finally by train to Oslo with another day to stay, and back home.

And to give you a photo to go with the theme, here's a stave church.

Stave church in Hahnenklee
That one's not in Norway, though, but modeled after one of the most famous Norwegian stave churches, the one of Borglund. It stands in Hahnenklee in the Harz. The town needed a larger church at the end of the 19th century, and the plan for a neo-Gothic stone building turned out to be too expensive. So the architect took his inspiration from the stave churches about which a lot of material had just become avaliable. There was an interest in everything Nordic because Emperor Wilhelm spent most of his summer holidays in Norway. And that's why there is a stave church in the Harz since 1908.

Stave church, interior
Of course it doesn't slavishly follow the models; there are elements of continental churches as well, fe. the tower. It's really pretty, and I'll put up some more pictures when I'm back. Sometime mid-April.

For now it's back to several feet of snow that long ago have melted here, even in the Harz, and temperatures that will not please the birch pollen (which didn't please me those last days). But I'm crazy and actually like winter.

I'll have internet acces on board, but I don't think I'm going to spend much time in front of a computer. I may check in occasionally, though.

Oil Lamps, Curse Tablets, and a Naughty Dwarf

2011-03-26T20:15:00.028+01:00

I had promised a post about the finds in the Isis Temple in Mainz which are displayed in the room protecting the excavated foundations, so here we go.

Oil lamps must have played more or less the same role in the temples as votive candles in Christian churches. Some 300 have been found in the Isis temple, all with traces of soot that proves they were used. Most of them were found lying on top of places of burnt offerings where they obviously had been deposed after the ritual was finished. But oil lamps also served to illuminate the temple.

Oil lamps
Whatever Prima Aemilia, lover of Narcissus, will attempt and will do, wrong shall it go for her. She shall never let anything blossom; she shall be out of her mind and all she does shall be a lie. Whatever happens to her shall be wrong. This shall be the fate of Prima [lover] of Narcissus by this tablet [that will] never bloom.

This is the translation of one of the 34 curse tablets found in the temple. Some girl who was after Narcissus herself wanted to get rid of a rival, it seems. Other such tablets curse people involved in embezzlements and other unsavoury practics. It wasn't exactly legal in the Roman Empire, and thus curse tablets are usually found in temples and gathering places of the mystery cults where such rituals could be conducted in secrecy. It is assumed that these curse rituals provided the priests and priestesses with some extra income.

Curse tablet
The tablets, made of thin bronze in varying sizes from 3x5 to 10x20 cm, were usually folded (you can see the folding edges on the photo). One was found wrapped around a chicken bone; the only occurance of this magic variant outside Egypt. Only some of the texts are written in Vulgar Latin, the majority is in educated Latin with rhetorical embellishments; the script is the Latin majuscule. Isis figures most prominently on those tablets, but some of them address Magna Mater and/or her consort Attis. Another way to work magic included the use of clay figures (see below).

(Magic figure; click to embiggen. May not be work safe)

Two of those magic figures have been found, both crudely formed of clay and with stab holes on their body. They had been deposed in a well within the temple area. It is assumed that the voodoo-like holes had some magic purpose, but it was a love spell rather than a death one. Maybe they symbolized Armor's (or Cupido, in Rome) arrows. Judging by a rather prominent feature on the lower body part one may guess what the caster of the magic really wanted. *grin* One of the figures came with a little bronze tablet to identify the recipient, one 'Tutmo son of Clitmo' (the names are Romanised Celtic).

(Right: Bronze figure of a dwarf; click to embiggen. May not be work safe)

To the right is one of the most precious finds: a bronze figure of a male dwarf from the 1st century BC, which made it an antiquity already at the time it was placed in the temple. Makes you wonder why someone would sacrifice such a valuable item. The wreath on the dwarf's head is of copper and the nails of silver. The dwarf was probalby holding something on his left hand (maybe a plate with grapes, is my guess), and he was certainly enjoying the party very much. Reminded me of Tyrion Lannister. *grin*
(For those of you who haven't read the books, Tyrion is one of the main characters in George RR Martin's Fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire.)

There are more clay and some bronze figures, often animals (in stead of the real ones), and oddly enough, other gods / goddesses like Venus or Merkur. Henotheism at its best.

I could only catch some of those with my camera because of that mystic light, or lack thereof. Some are worked with quite some details while others are more crude renderings, but they're all a better quality than the handmade magic figure above. Obviously, those clay figures were mass produced by professionals while the magic one needed the personal act of creation for the spell to work.

(Left: Embracing lovers)

Embracing lovers are certainly a nicer way to set up a love spell than poking holes into some clay figure.

The figures of soldiers (see below) in old fashioned armour were dedicated to the goddess by the pausarii, members of the male temple staff who were organised in an association with a military structure. The etymology of the word is interesting, because a pausarius was the man who beat the time for the oarsmen on a galley. The nautic term may have originated in the Isis processions on the Nile. I could not find any information about female temple staff though I'm sure there must have priestesses for both Isis and Mater Magna - I'm in fact intrigued by the existance of an obviously significant male element. Maybe the priestesses and other women (servants etc.) were not organised the same way as the men.

Figure of a soldier
A great number of small offerings has been found, coins, hair pins made of bone, miniature axes made of bronze, dies, and the above mentioned clay figures. Coins make sense, of course, but I would like to know more about the special significance of sacrificing hair pins (there's a whole bunch of those).

Assorted small finds
There are also fragments from the decoration of the temple, like shards of decorated tiles and painted bits from the walls, which are still researched and may teach us more about the look of the buildings. A book about all the finds is in planning but we'll have to wait a bit yet.

More small finds, among them Serapis heads from the decorative friezes
Other finds include the remains from burnt offerings which mostly have been found in trash pits. Among those are bones, especially of chickens, but other birds as well, burnt remains of bread and cakes, pits and seeds of fruits, remains of dates, figs and nuts, pine cones and chicken eggs.

Glass wares
Another group of finds are tableware and dishes. Some of those were sacrificed, but other pieces had been used, probably for ritual meals in the temple. The glass flasks may have contained incenses or expensive oils and perfumes.

The Wartburg, Main Seat of the Landgraves of Thuringia - A Virtual Tour

2011-03-18T23:06:00.009+01:00

I was doing some research on the landgraves of Thuringia to go with the Ebersburg photos, and that gave me the idea to revisit their main seat, the Wartburg, which is in driving distance. And I want to show you that we not only have kaput castles in Germany but some intact ones as well. :)

Wartburg, eastern front.
The buidling to the left is the 12th century palas, followed by the 19th century keep;
the half timbered part is from the 15th century on older foundations
We'd been there shortly after the Wall fell, and the place was stuffed to the brim with tourists who got the same idea. The castle had been preserved during GDR times because it played such an important role in German history. Well, there were fewer tourists this time since it's not yet holiday season, but they already were international; groups from the US, Mexico, and France. A few Germans, too, but we were outnumbered.

The Wartburg, today part of the World Heritage, combines buildings from the 12th, the 14th and 15th, and the 19th centuries. The rooms can only be visited by guided tour and thus I could not avoid to have some people on those pics, but it was much better photographing than last time, overall. So here's a little illustrated tour to give you some first impressions.

The outer gate
There's a parking lot some way up but we (my father and I) still got to do some climbing. German hilltop castles are good for your health, lol. You get the first view (photo above) from the former bulwark, the outermost fortifications that had been dismantled in the early 19th century.

The Wartburg sits on a 200 metres high promontory overlooking a former trade road near the town of Eisenach. The oblong site covers an area of 45x80 metres and can only be accessed from the north; the other slopes are too steep. It's the sort of place that called for a castle in the Middle Ages.

The castle was founded by Ludwig the Leaper some time between 1067 and 1080 (when it is first mentioned in Bruno of Merseburg's De bello Saxonico in context of the war of the Saxon nobles against Heinrich IV). No traces of this first castle have been found; it most likely was a timber construction protected by earth walls which was not that unusual for the time.

The Romanesque palas, seen from the yard
The next important step in the development of the Wartburg took place in 1158 when Landgrave Ludwig II, son in law of the Emperor Barbarossa, built a palas, a representative house with living quarters and a hall, in Italian style. The palas remains until today (though the first version had only two storeys) and is one of the most important examples of Romanesque palaces in Germany.

Other features dating back to the time of Ludwig II are the curtain walls and the outer gate. His keep had been replaced with a new one in the 19th century - it had been a ruin at that time. The south tower dates to the 14th century, and the new keep does a pretty good job imitating its style.

More changes were made after a fire in 1317 (the castle already was in the hands of the Wettin family at that time). Besides the construction of the south tower, a third floor was added to the palas, and the chapel moved inside the palas to replace the destroyed one on the castle grounds.

Outer bailey with the bailiff's house (left) and Elisabeth hallway (right)
The half-timbered buildings in the outer bailey or forework (in German usually called Vorburg), the knight's house and the bailiff's house (Vogtei), were added in the late 15th century. The battlements were roofed in an became hallways that connect the buildings of the outer bailey with the - then still existant - old keep and the guest house.

The Wartburg declined in importance and became but a minor residence of the landgraves of Thuringia, but the castle is still considered as 'well preserved' by a chronicler from Eisenach in 1769. A few years later the famous author and minister at the ducal court of Weimar, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, visited the Wartburg and got the idea to establish the castle as museum for Mediaeval exhibits.

View from the herb garden to the inner yard with the palas and keep to the right,
guest house to the left, and the 19th century gate hall in the background
But it would take until 1853 for the Wartburg to get a makeover in the style of Historicism under supervision of Carl Alexander Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (no, I didn't make that name up). Carl Alexander chose the place as his main residence again. Fortunately, the buildings still intact were preserved and only those in bad shape were replaced with new buildings in old style. New buildings are the guest house, the inner gate, and the so-called Dirnitz, a representative house with fire places (a second, somewhat smaller palas, in a way).

Following Goethe's suggestion, Carl Alexander collected Medieaval furniture and artefacts and displayed them in the Romanesque palas. The palas also got a makeover of the interior in the style of Historicism. Most important are the frescoes by Moritz von Schwindt.

Sängerkrieg fresco in the singers' hall
Several important events took place on the Wartburg. The first is the Wartburg Song Contest (Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg) in 1206. Landgrave Hermann I was a great patron of troubadours, the Minnesänger, and saw the most famous of his time, men like Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, or Heinrich von Ofterdingen, at his court. Legend has it that a contest was held, but instead of giving the winner a contract for some CDs, the loser would lose his head (that would probably increase the quality of the European Song Contest somewhat).

The scene of the fresco shows poor Heinrich von Ofterdingen, who was stupid enough to sing the praise of Duke Leopold of Austria instead of Landgrave Hermann, pleading for grace and be spared the executioner's axe. There's a happy end, of course. The story inspired Richard Wagner to his opera Tannhäuser (1845).

Elisabeth's chamber; mosaic ceiling
Another event that left strong traces in the 19th century decorations is the fact that Saint Elisabeth lived on the Wartburg 1211-1228. Elisabeth von Hungary was the wife of Landgrave Ludwig IV. She lived in the ascetic traditon of Francis of Assissi even though her charity and poverty went far beyond what was expected of a noble lady. After her husband's early death she moved to Marburg where she died herself of exhaustion (or anorexia, is my guess) at the age of 24.

There is a chamber, today called Elisabethkemenate, in the palas that was decorated with mosaics in a mix of neo Byzantine and Art Nouveau style in 1906. Emperor Wilhelm II liked not only the Romans but the Middle Ages as well and paid for the shiny fun. The artist who did the work was August Oetken. Some of the mosaics - 4 million tiny glass pieces - show scenes from Elisabeth's life as well.

Martin Luther's room
Much less sparkly but historically correct is Martin Luther's chamber in the bailiff's house. Luther (born 1483) had gotten himself deep into trouble with his anti-indulgence theses and other 'heretic' texts when he was called before the diet of Worms in 1521. Of course, he refused to renounce anything he had said and thus was declared outlaw by Emperor Charles V after he already he been excommunicated a few years before. But Luther had one stout supporter, Friedrich III Elector of Saxony. Friedrich had Luther spirited away to the Wartburg where he lived in disguise for ten months and used some of the time to translate the Gospels - in their Greek version - into German.

Legend has it that Luther was visited by the devil one night and could only get rid of him by throwing an ink pot at the intruder. Maybe it was the vision of an overworked and frightened man, maybe it was just a good story embellishing Luther's remark that he had 'fought the devil with ink'. Whatever, in the following time there was an ink stain at the wall and Protestant pilgrims used to chop off little bits of the roughcast as souvenir. The stain was renewed a few times but by now that has stopped (thought a somewhat damanged part of the wall is left behind).

The great hall
Another fine example of Historicism is the Rittersaal, the great hall in the uppermost floor of the palace. The building itself is from the 12th century, but the trapezoid wooden ceiling as well as the decorative paintings are 19th century. The hall, as well as the chapel, are used for concerts today which is the reason for all the chairs. Wagner's opera Tannhäuser is played here in summer, but tickets are sold out for several years in advance.

Ludwig II of Bavaria used this hall and the singers' hall as models for some of the rooms in Neuschwanstein Castle.

The guest house with the south tower in the background
OK, time for a piece of cake and a cup of tea in the guest house, I think. We'll visit the museum in the Dirnitz the next time. :)

The guest house is from the 19th century as well, built on the foundations of the old stables. Its half timbered style corresponds well with the buildings in the outer bailey.

Sources:
Günther Schuchardt, Welterbe Wartburg. Regensburg, 2010

The Ebersburg - Part 2: The Marshals of Ebersburg, and Contested Inheritances

2011-03-13T22:57:00.010+01:00

The Ebersburg is situated in the south-eastern Harz foothills near Nordhausen; the northernmost fortification within the realm of the landgraves of Thuringia. The castle held a garrison but was also sufficiently large and representative to host the landgrave himself on occasion. Members of the high nobility, like the king himself, did a lot of traveling to personally see to matters (like exercising high justice) in their lands.

(Another view of the keep)

There is a charte issued by the Archbishop of Mainz in 1189, stating that the archbishop bought the Ebersburg from his relative, the Count Palatine Hermann of Saxony (who was also landgrave of Thuringia), for 200 mark and gave it back to him, his wife, and daughter, as fief. Two things are interesting about this, for one that the wife and daughter are included in the feudal relationship (which would cause trouble later), and second that Hermann would sell the castle in the first place. We'll see that it was an important place, so why would he sell it and receive it back as fief? Did Hermann need the money or were there political reasons for the transaction?

A proof for the importance of the Ebersburg is the fact that the chatellain (Burgmann) of the castle held the title of marshal; one name appears in several chartes: Heinricus Marscalkus de Eversberch. I've managed to hunt this Heinrich down for you. He was the son of Kunemund of Eckartsberga, one of the landgrave's ministeriales (a specific German rank of vassal) who was the chatellain of the Eckartsburg, another castle in possession of the landgrave. Heinrich appears as marshal, albeit without a place name attached, in a number of chartes since 1178. Heinrich first signs as 'de Eversberc' in a charte issued in Nordhausen in 1207.

Marshal was one of the four most important positions at court - the others were the seneshal, the treasurer and the cup-bearer. The landgraves imitated the king here and had established those offices at their court as well. Since the position af chatellain would only be filled with a marshal in case the castle was a residence for a landgrave or duke, we can conclude that the Ebersburg was more important than the remains make it look like today.

Inner gate seen from outer bailey
Hermann did indeed visit the castle in person in June 1216. With him were a number of Saxon and Thuringian nobles, including the counts of Hohnstein and Stolberg, the count of Clettenberg (the family had founded Walkenried Abbey), the Saxon counts of Scharzfels and Lauterberg, the lords of Arnswald-Wilrode, Creuzburg, Husen-Bischofferode, and others from the local Who's Who. The Ebersburg was a centre of the landgraves' politics in northern Thuringia and the Saxon border during the first decennies of the 13th century

Heinrich of Ebersburg must have been dead before 1226 because his sons, Heinrich II and Kunemund, were released from a debt to the Walkenried Abbey that year.

When Landgrave Ludwig IV started out on crusade in 1227, he was accompagnied by "many knights and many other honourable people from the land of Thuringia," among them "Heynrich von Ebirsberg marschalk" (Düringische Chronik, by Johannes Rothe, 1360-1434). The same Heinrich - who contrary to his lord survived the crusade - appears at the court of Heinrich Raspe on the Wartburg, and a Marshal Heinrich of Ebersburg can be traced to the time of the Wettin line that took over as landgraves of Thuringia. There's a Hermann of Ebersburg as well, maybe a brother of Heinrich.

(View through the inner gate)

After Heinrich Raspe died without offspring in 1247, the fight for the heritage started. There were no heirs of the male line, but now the husbands and sons of the daughters came out of the woodworks. Landgrave Hermann I had been married twice. The daughter of the first marriage, Jutta, wed Dietrich Margrave of Meissen from the Wettin family. Irmgard, one of the daughters from the second marriage (that also gave him the son Ludwig IV) married Heinrich Count of Anhalt. And there was Sophie, Ludwig's daughter, who had married Hendrik II Duke of Brabant.

Emperor Friedrich II had given the landgraviate to Heinrich 'the Illustrious' Margrave of Meissen, the son of Dietrich and Jutta, one of his stoutest supporters. But the Duke of Brabant claimed the heritage as well, on behalf of his wife and son. Moreover, since the archbishop of Mainz had given the Ebersburg as fief to Hermann and his daughter Irmgard in 1189, the three sons she had with Heinrich of Anhalt now claimed the Ebersburg and the palatine county of Saxony. I told you there would be trouble, and with three sons to share in the Anhaltinian heritage, one of them was bound to push the issue.

The result was the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247-1264) between the Margrave of Meissen, Sophie of Brabant, and the archbishop of Mainz. The latter got involved because the Hessian lands that had come to the Ludowingian family through the marriage of Ludwig I with a Hessian heiress in 1110, were held as fief from the archbishop who now considered them fallen back to him. In the end, Heinrich Margrave of Meissen got the landgraviate of Thuringia and the Thuringian / Saxon possessions while Sophie's son, another Heinrich, got the newly created landgraviate of Hessia (the lands were still as fief from the archbishop of Mainz until 1292 when they became imperial allods).

(I hope you can still follow that mess; if not feel free to ask for clarification in the comments.)

Angle between inner and outer curtain wall on the gate side
But that was not the only trouble. In 1247, the young Siegfried of Anhalt, one of Irmgard's three sons, invaded northern Thuringia and laid siege to the Ebersburg. He built five small castles, the Too Closes (Allzunahs) in the immediate surroundings of the Ebersburg (only minor traces remain of those). Looks like the Ebersburg was a tough nut to crack - well, even the remains of the walls and the keep look impressive. But Siegfried managed to conquer the castle in 1249; and the possession remained with the family. Later, Siegfried renounced his right to the palatinate of Saxony in favour of the House Wettin in exchange for monetary recompensation. Seems that the Ebersburg was not included in that deal, though, and I could not find out if the castle was still held as fief from the archbishop of Mainz.

An interesting little tidbit: Siegfried married Katharina of Sweden, a daughter of Birger Jarl, Regent of Sweden (who founded Stockholm in 1250); and that's just one of several ties between the German and Scandinavian noblility.

The castle was adminstered by a reeve; one 'Ludewicus advocatus de Eversborch' appears on several chartes from 1255-1267. Other reeves are not known by name.

Keep seen from the Vorburg (forework)
We can glimpse some more traces of the Ebersburg during the following years. In 1326, the castle was the reason for a feud between the counts of Anhalt and the counts of Stolbeg, though I have no idea what caused it. The castle was given to the Stolberg family as result of a mediation - did the landgrave of Thurngia intervene? There's a later contract dating from 1392, between the landgrave of Thuringia, the margrave of Meissen (the lands and postitions had been divided between several sons of the House Wettin) and the Stolberg family in which it is stated that the Stolbergs would take the Ebersburg as fief from the margraves of Meissen. Looks like the archbishop of Mainz was out of the game at that point. The castle was also included in the heritage contract between the families of Stolberg and Hohnstein in 1433.

The counts of Stolberg had reeves on the Ebersburg as well, but some later mentions of 'Henricus, Hildebrandus et Thilo dicti de Ebersberg' doesn't mean that those men still lived in the castle, only that they took their name from it. The castle was clearly abandoned in 1582 at latest.

Sources:
Peter Kuhlbrodt, Die Ebersburg bei Herrmannsacker - Landkreis Nordhausen. Issued by: Gesellschaft für Denkmalspflege und Heimatgeschichte im Kulturbund der DDR, 1984

The Ebersburg - Part 1: The Landgraves of Thuringia

2011-03-05T23:52:00.024+01:00

The Ebersburg was built by Hermann I Landgrave of Thuringia between 1181 - 1190. The family of the Ludowings (yeah, you'll have to learn a new name: Ludwig; there'll be a bunch of them in this essay) had risen from minor nobles to power and political eminence within a few generations, and the Ebersburg is only one of several castles they built on their expanding territory. The castle was once much larger than the remains make it seem today; there is a lot buried in the ground, or has completely fallen into decay. But the keep is still impressive.

This post will give a short overview over the Ludowing landgraves of Thuringia and the role they played in history. We'll meet again with some people we've met before like Heinrich IV, Friedrich Barbarossa and some of his sons, plus Heinrich the Lion and Otto IV.

Castle Ebersburg, the keep
The founder of the family is Ludwig the Bearded (died about 1080) who bought land near Gotha in Thuringia where he set up some villages after he had the forests cleared. He soon obtained the right to build a castle (almost no remains of the Schauenburg are left, though) and married a rich heiress, that way getting lands in the southern Harz foothills. His successors continued that politics and married into the surrounding nobiliy, gaining more land by dowries.

His son Ludwig the Leaper married Adelheid, the widow of the assassinated Count Palatine of Saxony and inherited the count's lands. His stepson Friedrich accused Ludwig of having had a hand in the assassination, and later legends presented this as a fact. Ludwig's nickname, der Springer, is a 15th century addition alluding to a legend that he jumped out of a castle tower where relatives of the murdered count held him captive, into the river Saale and thus escaped.

Historically, Ludwig was on the side of the Emperor Heinrich IV during the first years of his struggles with the Saxon nobles, and it was he who guided Heinrich to safety in Hessia on hidden paths after his escape from the Harzburg. Since Ludwig is named 'count' in chronicles soon thereafter, the title may have been a reward. But in 1085 we find him on the side of Heinrich's opponents, and Ludwig is again among the participants in the secret meeting in Lippoldsberg Abbey in 1099.

Inner curtain wall
At first, Ludwig got along well with Heinrich V (who, after all, had ousted daddy from his job), but Heinrich V managed to alienate the Saxon nobles just as well as his father, and Ludwig got involved in another rebellion. Heinrich put that one down, forced Ludwig to surrender the Wartburg in Thuringia that had become the main seat of the family, and ordered him to appear at the imperial diet in Mainz in 1114 (where Heinrich celebrated his wedding with Mathilde, daughter of Henry I of England) for a formal deditio. Heinrich had Ludwig put in chains and held him captive for more than two years. There are indications that Heinrich may have acted against prior agreements because the act seems to have been a reason - one of several aggravations, I assume - for another revolt, led by Lothar of Süpplingenburg Duke of Saxony who had been received back into the emperor's grace in Mainz after his deditio.

Ludwig's sons managed to capture some of Heinrich's leaders and Ludwig got exchanged for them; another peace was made which held for a change, and Ludwig also reconciliated with his stepson Friedrich. He received the Wartburg back as well.

Inner gate seen from the inner bailey
Ludwig's son, another Ludwig, was elevated to the position of landgrave at the diet of Goslar in 1131. Lothar of Süpplingenburg had become emperor by that time and there may have been an element of reward for former support and alliances.

The position of landgrave was an imperial fiefdom (comitatus patriae); the landgrave represented royal / imperial authority on behalf of the king throughout the realm. He held the right of high justice, had to preserve peace (which often included mediating between feuding nobles), he administered the royal regalia like the mints, tolls, the forest rights and the mines, he protected towns and monasteries with imperial immediacy status. A landgrave was closer in rank and power to dukes, and above the counts.

It was a powerful position, but it didn't give a family more land and that was the main source of income. But the Ludowings continued to make profitable marriages and receive fiefs. By the end of the 12th century their possessions stretched from the Saale/Unstrut rivers (in todays Saxony) to the Lahn (near Mainz), from the Leine (Göttingen, in fact) and the Thuringian Forest to the southern Harz. They founded several castles that were expanded into residences, that is, castles where the landgrave would actually live for some time during the year. The Ebersburg was one of those.

Yet their lands lay between the two dukedoms of Saxony and Bavaria the Welfen family held at that time. This may have been one of the major reasons why Ludwig sided with the Staufen Konrad against the Welfen Heinrich the Proud in the strife for power after Emperor Lothar's death. The landgraves of Thuringia would support the Staufen dynasty for the time coming.

View from the Ebersburg towards the Kyffhäuser
Ludwig II (son of the first landgrave) married Jutta, the half sister of Friedrich Barbarossa, in 1150. This connection would prove important: their sons are called imperatioris nepotes in a number of documents.

When the relationship between Barbarossa and Heinrich the Lion detoriated, those nephews supported the emperor. The eldest, another Ludwig, was installed as Count Palatine of Saxony and received lands at the Werra and Leine (including Göttingen) either 1179 or 1181. The first date would put the event before the battle of Weissensee and could be seen as an attempt by Barbarossa to further bind the Ludowings to his cause. The later date would set it after the battle where Ludwig was captured by Heinrich the Lion and then ransomed, which would make the act a reward.

Heinrich the Lion Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, finally surrendered at the diet of Erfurt in 1181 and was exiled (he spent the years of his exile at the court of Henry II of England, his father-in-law). Friedrich Barbarossa redistributed the lands of the duke among the other nobles. The lands and title of the Count Palatine of Saxony didn't not belong to Heinrich; the family who held it had died out in the male line and the fief had fallen back to the emperor. Though it is possible that the transaction took place at the diet of Erfurt. Ludwig further gained the position as reeve of Nordhausen, and the Landgrave of Thuringia is the only one not a duke who is mentioned among the principes of the realm which proves the importance of his family. Some time between 1181 and 1190 he also built the Ebersburg on land he bought from the Hohnstein family to whom he was related.

Ludwig gave the honour and lands of the Count Palatine of Saxony to his younger brother Hermann and accompagnied Barbarossa on the ill-fated third crusade. Though he did not join the army marching overland; he led his troops via Italy and the Mediterranean Sea instead. Ludwig participated in the siege of Accon where he obviously caught a lingering fever. He died on his way back home, near Cyprus in October 1190.

Gate tower
After Ludwig III (they got numbers instead of nicknames when they became landgraves) died without male offspring, King Heinrich VI, the son of the deceased Friedrich Barbarossa, claimed that the fiefs had fallen back to him, but it had been a common practics of the Staufen feudal lords to allow younger sons to inherit after their brothers, and Hermann was more than a bit miffed about the royal claim. Since Heinrich needed the support of his vassals to sort out the mess in Sicily (he claimed the kingship there on behalf of his wife) where he was as unpopular as in Germany, he finally agreed to invest Hermann with the fiefs as rightful heir and that way drag him out of an alliance opposing him.

Since the dukedoms of Saxony and Bavaria were no longer united in one hand and the thong around his lands broken up, and because of the disappointment in Heinrich's behaviour, Hermann no longer felt bound to the Staufen case the way his ancestors did. Instead, he played both sides in the ensuing conflict after Heinrich's death: Philipp of Swabia (another son of Barbarossa) and Otto IV, the son of Heinrich the Lion.

Hermann wanted to further strengthen the system of castles and towns on his lands and especially at its borders. To achive that, he tried to get imperial lands as fief, in particular the towns of Nordhausen (where his family already were acting as royal reeves) in the southern Harz, and Mühlhausen and Saalfeld in Thuringia. Otto IV granted him Nordhausen which Hermann conquered in 1198.

For some reason Hermann changed sides and joined Philipp of Swabia, asked Otto for all three towns if he was to return his allegaiance to the Welfen side, and in 1203 received the three towns as fief (Otto must have been desperate for support to play along). But Philipp got the upper hand on the battlefield and Hermann was forced to surrender to him just a year later and lost the towns again. When Philipp was assassinated in 1208, Hermann returned to Otto's party only to switch back to the Staufen, probably becasue Otto didn't grant him the towns a second time (maybe he had enough at that point). In 1211, Hermann decided to support Barbarossa's grandson Friedrich II's efforts to become king of Germany against Otto. Wryneck (Wendehals) doesn't begin to describe that behaviour, Hermann must have had a screw thread for neck.

The keep, seen through the trees
Hermann of Thuringia also was one of the most cultured men of his time (he had grown up at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine's ex, King Louis VII of France) and a keen supporter of arts, literature and troubadours (Minnesänger). His main seat Wartburg Castle became a centre of Mediaeval culture at his time.

Hermann died in 1217. His son Ludwig IV supported Friedrich II whom he joined in the 6th crusade. But the crusade would not bring him any luck; like his great uncle he died of a lingering sickness before he reached Jerusalem in 1227.

Ludwig IV of Thuringia is sometimes refered to as Ludwig the Saint, mostly due to his wife Elisabeth of Hungary who was canonised as St.Elisabeth in 1235, only a few years after her death. Ludwig had been 17 and Elisabeth 14 when they married in 1221; their marriage seems to have been a happy one. Ludwig could be quite ruthless as politician, but he obviously adored his wife (as far as we can trust the sources but we probably can trust them more than the later legends that often presented Ludwig as opposed to his wife's piety and charity, which he wasn't).

Ludwig IV and Elisabeth both died rather young, leaving behind an infant son, Hermann, and a daughter, Sophie (who later would marry the Count of Brabant). Thus Ludwig's brother Heinrich Raspe IV acted as regent for little Hermann II.

Hidden remains of the outer gate
Hermann died without offspring at the age of 19 in 1241, and Heinrich Raspe IV inherited the landgraviate. There have been rumours that Heinrich poisoned his nephew. Emperor riedrich II appointed Heinrich guardian of his own minor son Konrad and regent for the Staufen family in Germany in 1242. But after Friedrich was excommunicated, Heinrich changed sides and got himself elected king in opposition to Konrad. Because of the strong papal and clerical support he was called Parsons' King (Pfaffenkönig). But only a year later, in 1247, Heinrich Raspe died childless, and with him the male line of the Ludowings. The landgraviate of Thuringia went to the Wettin family.

I'll take a closer look at the history of the Ebersburg itself in the next post.

Sources:
Bernd Schneidmüller and Stefan Weinfurter (ed): Die deutschen Herrscher des Mittelalters, München 2003
Manfred Lemmer, Die Burgen und Städte der Landgrafen von Thüringen als Stützpfeiler ihrer Macht. In: Castrum Wiszense, Schriftenreihe der Vereins zur Rettung und Erhaltung der Runneburg in Weißensee Nr. 2/1993