The Eresburg is the largest, well-known
(Old) Saxon refuge castle
A refuge castleCreighton, Oliver (2015). ''Early European Castles''. Bloomsbury. or refuge fort (german: Fliehburg, also ''Fluchtburg'', ''Volksburg'', ''Bauernburg'' or ''Vryburg'') is a castle-like defensive location, usually surrounded by rampa ...
(''Volksburg'') and was located in the area of the present German village of
Obermarsberg in the borough of
Marsberg
Marsberg () is a town in the Hochsauerland district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
History
Although its origins are obscure, Marsberg was a prospering town by the 13th century (it was even minting coins). It was a free city until 1807, whe ...
in the county of
Hochsauerlandkreis. It was a
hill castle built on the plateau of a low
table hill
A table or tableland is a butte, flank of a mountain, or mountain, that has a flat top.
This kind of landform has numerous names, including:
* Butte
* Mesa
*
* Potrero
* Tepui
* Terrace
* Tuya
A tuya is a flat-topped, steep-sided vol ...
, known as the ''Eresberg'', at a height of 130–150 metres above the
Diemel, a tributary of the
Weser
The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...
, in the extreme south of the Saxon
Gau of
Engern
Angria or Angaria (german: Engern, ) is a historical region in the present-day German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his '' Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres'' denoted it ...
on the border with the
Duchy of Franconia.
History
There is evidence that indicates the hill was settled even in prehistoric times. Pieces of pottery from the
Michelsberg culture have also been found here. Excavations in the vicinity of the present-day
collegiate church have revealed traces of ditches, ramparts and posts.
Radio carbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was dev ...
points to their origin in the pre-Roman
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...
. In addition the wooden posts were made from trees that can be dated to between 420 and 370 B.C.
Earlier research viewed the Eresburg as a border castle of the
Cherusci tribe and a fortress of Prince
Segestes, who was supposed to have held his daughter,
Thusnelda, prisoner here. However, there are no records supporting that theory.
Thanks to its favourable position on the border, the castle was repeatedly attacked and hard fought for before being conquered in 772 A.D. during the
Saxon Wars
The Saxon Wars were the campaigns and insurrections of the thirty-three years from 772, when Charlemagne first entered Saxony with the intent to conquer, to 804, when the last rebellion of tribesmen was defeated. In all, 18 campaigns were fought ...
by the
Frankish king
The Franks, Germanic-speaking peoples that invaded the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, were first led by individuals called dukes and reguli. The earliest group of Franks that rose to prominence was the Salian Merovingians, who c ...
,
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
. Charlemagne had the
Irminsul, a pagan religious site here or in the vicinity, destroyed. In 779, he charged the
Fulda abbot
Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. Th ...
,
Sturmius, with
mission service in this area and directed him to this location. As early as 784/785 Charlemagne overwintered at Eresburg and had a church built, probably on the site of the former Saxon temple.
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
Leo III is supposed to have stayed at the Eresburg in 799 on his way to
Paderborn
Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...
. In 915 there was a bloody
feud at the Eresburg between the
Saxon Duke
Henry the Fowler and the
East Francian king,
Conrad. The Bishop of Paderborn,
Theoderic is also supposed to have participated personally in the battle. Also in 915 at Eresburg the invading Hungarians defeated a German army.
[Baják László: A fejedelmek kora. A korai magyar történet időrendi vázlata. II. rész. 900-1000 ''("The Era of the Princes. The chronological sketch of the early Hungarian history. II. part. 900-1000")''; ÓMT, Budapest, 2000 p. 14]
Eresburg as site of the Irminsul
Eresburg may have been the site of the
Irminsul, a sort of pillar or tree, and one of the chief pagan religious sites of the
Saxons
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
. The wording of the ''
Royal Frankish Annals'' in 772 suggests that the Irminsul might have been located either at the Eresburg itself or in the near vicinity. The ''
Annales Petaviani'' states: ''"He conquered the Eresburg and found the place which is called Ermensul, and set these places on fire."'' On the one hand, therefore, Charlemagne captured the Eresburg and, on the other, ''"pervenit ad locum, qui dicitur Ermensul"'', i. e. he found the site that was called Irminsul. The writer calls the site of the Eresburg, ''Erisburgo'', i.e. not ''Ermensula''. The third part of the sentence runs ''"et succendit ea loca"'', i. e. he set "these places" (plural) on fire, possibly implying that Charlemagne moved on from the Eresburg to the Irminsul.
According to other sources, Charlemagne stayed near the Bullerborn,
[The ''"u"'' has become ''"o"'', today ''Bollerborn'' spring] an intermittent spring near
Altenbeken, before he conquered and destroyed the Irminsul site in the days that followed.
The question over the location of the Irminsul is however, probably, misleading; because there may have been several of them.
References
Literature
* {{RGA, 7, 475, 482, Eresburg, Gerhard Mildenberger, Fred Schwind, Jürgen Udolph (introductory specialist article)
* Daniel Bérenger: ''Die eisenzeitliche Höhenbefestigung von Obermarsberg''. In: ''Archäologie in Ostwestfalen'' 6. Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, Bielefeld 2002, pp. 29–33,
online (pdf, 552 kB).
Castles in North Rhine-Westphalia
Buildings and structures in Hochsauerlandkreis