From Imperial Hall to Mediaeval Castle - The Aula Palatina in Trier
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 was dismantled to obtain 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*  
¶ January 22, 2012 14 comments

  Random Photos
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.  
¶ January 12, 2012 4 comments

  Happy New Year
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. 
¶ December 31, 2011 7 comments

  Merry Christmas!
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 on the Hardangervidda
Part of the white fluff with skiing tracks is actually a lake; the huts are situated at its shore. While the fjords mostly 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 Geilo
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. 
¶ December 24, 2011 5 comments

  The Hanseatic League - Introduction
This is the first part of a series of posts about the Hanseatic League. It offers an introduction to the Hanseatic League, in German known as die Hanse (Hansa) and the first trade coperation that precedes the Hanseatic League, the Gotland Corperation.

It is the revised version of an older post (1).

Gabled town houses in Lübeck
The first and most important towns that would become the nucleus of the Hanseatic League are all coastal trade towns situated close to the Baltic Sea: Lübeck a few miles inland where the Wakenitz confluences into the Trave river, Wismar at a bay, 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 features that made these towns some of the most wealthy and powerful places during the Middle Ages.

The same goes for places like Bergen (in a fjord), Riga (at the Daugava river some miles inland) or Tallinn (in a bay). The one place that doesn't really follow the pattern is Visby on Gotland.

Bergen, the German Hansa quarter Tyske Bryggen
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 historiographic meaning of 'Hansa' today is used to describe the vast net of towns in northern Europe which were connected by mutual protection agreements and trade laws. The beginnings of the Hanseatic League 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, detail of the German Hansa quarter
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 there was a development to gain more independency, especially the right of self-administration, during the 11th century. A citizen government developed with guilds and elected councils under the leadership of the merchants who were the most important social group. The right to actively participate in town government was restricted 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 important among them.

Lübeck, merchant houses along one of the canals
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.

The importance of a flourishing merchant town for the empire is shown by the fact that Friedrich 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 death sentences needed confirmation by the emperor). The town 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.

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 fasting 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 for candles. The largest church in Stralsund, St.Nicholas, 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 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). Other goods were corn, furs from Russia, timber from Scandinavia and from Sweden also ore; wool from England, cloth and wine from Flanders. Luxury goods that had to be transported via the Mediterranean Sea and the Alpes came by the way of the inland markets of Nuremberg and Augsburg (which were not members of the Hanseatic League), those wares were often handled in Cologne (which was a member).

Wismar, the Old Harbour (the large oversea harbour is outside town today)
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, and when several Hanseatic towns joined their fleets, they were a power to reckown with.

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.

Visby, the head of the Gotland Corperation
The predecessor of the Hanseatic 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 treaty in which German merchants were granted the same rights on the Gotland markets as the Gotland merchants in Germany, esp. Lübeck. With the foundation of the universi mercatores Imperii Romani Gotlandiam frequentantes (Union of the Merchants from the Roman Empire Who Travel to Gotland) the Hanseatic League 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 (guildhall and stalhof in London) and Flanders, thus exploring the North Sea as well.

St.Mary Church in Stralsund, a fine example of Gothic brick architecture
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); 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.

Most of those new towns were planned by the citizens of Lübeck, and the founding members / merchants hailed from there. They usually choose places which already had a settlment and built their houses and a church near it; 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 (a duke or count, or sometimes the king).

Visby on Gotland, the town walls
Footnotes
1) The photos to illustrate those posts will be mostly from my travels to Bergen (2011); the Baltic Sea Cruise (2012) with photos of Bremen, Visby, Riga, Tallinn and Gdansk; and two trips to the German Balic Sea coast (2015) with pictures of Lübeck, Wismar, Stralsund, and Lüneburg. Of course, not all towns that became member of the Hanseatic League were coastal towns; Braunschweig and my own Göttingen were part of the Hansa as well.

Sources:
Philippe Dollinger: Die Hanse. 3rd edition, Stuttgart 1981
J. Bracker, V. Henn, R. Poster (Ed.): Die Hanse - Lebenswirklichkeit und Mythos. 4th edition, Lübeck 2006 
¶ December 18, 2011 3 comments

  From the 'Mediaeval Fun' Files
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 not only kills his brother with a dried cod, but also drags the thing with 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 Hanseatic 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.  
¶ December 10, 2011 7 comments

  Along the Coast of Norway - A Land of Light and Shadows
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.

Rainbow over Molde
Rainbows were a frequent sight on this voyage.

Mountain opposite Ålesund harbour
And sometimes the sun 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.

Patchwork
A lot of the photos look like they were taken with an old black-and-white filmroll, but it's really my colour digital camera.

The Richard With in Honningsvåg
I picked some with more snow as theme for this post.

A chain of mountains
And then found a lot of those in my files. *grin*

Blue Hour
This is the most lovely time of the day, though the weather needs to be not too cloudy for this particular light to appear.

Reindeer
The big herds of those are further inland, but you can spot the occasional cutie on a private grazing.

Snow covered mountains near Hammerfest
If we get more winters with so little snow, I'll move to Norway. ;-)

Mountains in the sunshine on the Vesterålen
Yes, there were some sunny days, or at least hours, too, and a 'wine dark sea', as the Greek say.

Another view of the Vesterålen landscape
This one was taken out of the bus window during a tour of the island.

A storm comes up
And here we go again; the clouds playing drama queen.

A glimpse of blue sky
And a few hours later, they look like the proverbial puppy that hasn't done anything. ;)

Another Blue Hour, muted version
There will hopefully more sea-and-land photos this year, from a different sea - the Baltic.

Sunset with fishing boat
A Viking ship would have been even more atmospheric, but those are rare nowadays. 
¶ December 04, 2011 4 comments

  A Bastard, a Bartered Inheritance, and a Robber Baron - The Brandenburg, Part 2
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 'the Brave' (born 1257; 1), 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 since 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 forfeit, 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 of Thuringia. 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 1291 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 content 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 and looked the other way). 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 Germany. 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.

Footnotes
1) Friedrich der Freidige in German. He is also nicknamed 'the Bitten' due to a legend that tells that his mother, when set aside in favour of Kunigunde, bit him in the cheek so he would ever remember her.

Sources:
Wilfried Warsitzka, Die Thüringer Landgrafen. 2nd revised edition, Erfurt 2009 
¶ November 26, 2011 8 comments