Ehemalige Hilgenrieder Bucht vom Blandorfer Geestrand

Hilgenried Bay (german: Hilgenrieder Bucht) is a bay on the German

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

coast near Hilgenriedersiel, a village in the municipality of

Hagermarsch Hagermarsch is a municipality in the district of Aurich, in Lower Saxony, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, a ...

in the Lower Saxon county of

Aurich Aurich (; East Frisian Low Saxon: ''Auerk'', West Frisian: ''Auwerk'', stq, Aurk) is a town in the East Frisian region of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Aurich and is the second largest City in East Frisia, both i ...

. It was probably formed during the

Dunkirk transgression The Dunkirk transgressions were tidal bulges or other sea level-related marine transgressions (risings), often heightened by river floods, affecting the North Sea and adjoining low land. Most of this land is vulnerable to such events being below ...

as a result of the washing out of the mouth of one or more small streams, but has now largely silted up. In the 9th century, the village of Nesse emerged as a trading settlement and important port.Ortschronisten der Ostfriesischen Landschaft
''Nesse, Samtgemeinde Dornum, Landkreis Aurich''
(pdf; 35 kB), retrieved 11 August 2010. The region around Hilgenried bay was probably the scene of the so-called

Battle of Norditi The Battle of Norditi (german: Schlacht bei Norditi), Battle of Nordendi () or Battle of Hilgenried Bay () was a battle between a Frisian army under Archbishop Rimbert of Bremen-Hamburg and an army of Danish Vikings in 884, which resulted in the ...

, in which in 884 a

Frisia Frisia is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West G ...

n army under the command of Archbishop

Rimbert Saint Rimbert (or Rembert) (''c.'' 830 - 11 June 888 in Bremen) was archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, in the northern part of the Kingdom of East Frankia from 865 until his death in 888. He most famously wrote the hagiography about the life Ansgar, t ...

of Bremen-Hamburg defeated the Danish

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

, precipitating the complete withdrawal of Vikings from

East Frisia East Frisia or East Friesland (german: Ostfriesland; ; stq, Aastfräislound) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia ...

. The bay only needed to be relatively lightly dyked during the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...

because the local streams only had a very small

catchment A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

and did not hinder the reclamation of land greatly. Nesse was cut off from the sea no later than the 13th century and around 1300 the enclosing line of dykes was completed.Karl-Ernst Behre
''Die Veränderungen der niedersächsischen Küstenlinien in den letzten 3.000 Jahren und ihre Ursachen''
Retrieved 11 March 2016.

Literature

* Hans Homeier: ''Der Gestaltwandel der ostfriesischen Küste im Laufe der Jahrhunderte.'' Selbstverlag, Pewsum, 1969

References

{{Bays of the East Frisian Peninsula Geography of East Frisia History of East Frisia Bays of Lower Saxony Bays of the North Sea