The Battle of Flarcheim was fought between

German king This is a list of monarchs who ruled over East Francia, and the Kingdom of Germany (''Regnum Teutonicum''), from the division of the Frankish Empire in 843 and the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 until the collapse of the German Emp ...

Henry IV and the German anti-king

Rudolf of Swabia Rudolf of Rheinfelden ( – 15 October 1080) was Duke of Swabia from 1057 to 1079. Initially a follower of his brother-in-law, the Salian emperor Henry IV, his election as German anti-king in 1077 marked the outbreak of the Great Saxon Revolt an ...

on January 27, 1080 near

Flarchheim Flarchheim is a village and a former municipality in the Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis district of Thuringia, Germany. Since 1 January 2019, it is part of the municipality Unstrut-Hainich. Flarchheim was the site of the Battle of Flarchheim The Battl ...

Prelude

Rudolf appeared to be vulnerable after losing the support of some of the

Saxon 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 ...

princes. Henry decided to take advantage of this vulnerability and marched out against him in the winter of 1079–1080. Rudolf sought out Henry and met him at Flachheim between

Eisenach Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...

and

Mühlhausen Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen. Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and bec ...

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

Battle

Rudolf had arrayed his army on a hill behind a stream. Rather than attack Rudolf and possibly get caught with his forces straddling the stream, Henry opted to march around the obstacle. Henry struck Rudolf's army from the rear, but with ensuing snowstorm the attack became disorganized. On one hand there are reports of the Saxons being attacked and driven off after duke

Vratislaus II of Bohemia Vratislaus II (or Wratislaus II) ( cs, Vratislav II.) (c. 1032 – 14 January 1092), the son of Bretislaus I and Judith of Schweinfurt, was the first King of Bohemia as of 15 June 1085, his royal title granted as a lifetime honorific from Holy R ...

cut down the Saxon standard during the snowstorm. Consequently, Vratislaus was able to capture Rudolf's golden lance. On the other hand,

Ekkehard of Aura Ekkehard of Aura ( la, Ekkehardus Uraugiensis; died 1126) was the Abbot of Aura (a monastery founded by Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, on the Franconian Saale river, near Bad Kissingen, Bavaria) from 1108. A Benedictine monk and chronicler, he made upd ...

reports that

Otto of Nordheim Otto of Nordheim (c. 1020 – 11 January 1083) was Duke of Bavaria from 1061 until 1070. He was one of the leaders of the Saxon Rebellion in 1073-75 and the Great Saxon Revolt of 1077-88 against King Henry IV of Germany. Life Family Otto was born ...

attacked and plundered Henry's camp before forcing the surrender of the

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...

ns and the

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

ns. Berthold (possibly

Berthold of Ratisbon Berthold of Ratisbon was a Franciscan of the monastery of Ratisbon and the most powerful preacher of repentance in the thirteenth century. Biography He was born about 1210. He was probably a member of a well-to-do middle-class family of Ratisbon ...

) states that the armies became separated in the dark and that Rudolf was forced to withdraw to a neighboring village by the cold. The next day Rudolf returned to the field, but Henry had withdrawn to Franconia.

Notes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Battle Of Flarchheim

Flarcheim

1080 in Europe

Great Saxon Revolt