Barbarossatown
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barbarossatown is a nickname for five German cities because the Staufer Emperor Frederick I, Barbarossa, stayed in or near these cities for some time.
Contents |
[edit] Sinzig
Sinzig is a city on the Middle Rhine in Ahrweiler County. In its early history Celtic and settled by the Romans, the city was first mentioned in 762 as a Franconian king's court sentiacum. The city was at its height from the 12th through the 14th century a seat of an imperial country castle and often visited by the German kings and emperors. Barbarossa himself stayed at Sinzig four times which is why the city refers to itself as a Barbarossatown.
[edit] Kaiserslautern
The settlement history of Kaiserslautern, an industrial city and university seat at the northern edge of the Palatine Forest, begins in the 5th millennium BC. Around 1100 Salian rulers built themselves a castle on the grounds of the present-day city hall. Between 1152 and 1158 Staufer emperor Barbarossa had the castle expanded that would bear his name and serve as his imperial country castle "with no insignificant amount of pomp". He designated Lautern the center of his Staufen empire, which marked the beginning of a boom for the community. The Kaiser's (imperial) palace was mentioned for the first time as "castrum domini imperatoris". In 1176 Barbarossa donated a hospital to the community and called Norbertines into Lautern to take on the hospital's management. And so the Kaisers Lautern were proud to call their city "Barbarossatown".
[edit] Gelnhausen (Hesse)
The "Barbarossatown" of Gelnhausen is a city in Main-Kinzig County in the eastern part of Hesse. It was founded in 1170 by Emperor Barbarossa in this convenient location because the merchant highway Via Regia from Frankfurt to Leipzig intersected here with several other roads. Frederick I founded the city by combining three existing villages into the imperial free city of Gelnhausen. Imperial trading privileges such as duty-free zones lead to a rapid aggregation of traders and merchants. The fact that Gelnhausen was simultaneously awarded the Stapelrecht (lat. Jus emporii), requiring passing merchants to offer their goods in town for a certain amount of time, also helped in making it a successful trading town. And only ten years after it was born the city hosted an important Reichstag where Henry the Lion was tried in absentia and all his lands were redistributed. The imperial country castle in Gelnhausen is the best maintained Staufer country palace still in existence.
[edit] Altenburg (Thuringia)
Altenburg in the east of Thuringia may also rightfully call itself "Barbarossatown". It was first mentioned in 976 by Emperor Otto II and Barbarossa stayed in the imperial castle Altenburg (Castrum Plysn), first mentioned in 1132, a total of six times between 1165 and 1188. In 1172 he consecrated the Augustinian monastery of "Our dear Lady St. Mary" at the top of the mountain.
[edit] Bad Frankenhausen
Excavations evidence first settlements in Bad Frankenhausen at the southern edge of the Kyffhäuser area at approximately 8000 BC. The town itself was first mentioned in the 9th century in official documents of the abbey in Fulda where it was referred to as a Franconian settlement. Nearby is the "Barbarossa Cave" with its "emperor's throne" and of course the "Barbarossa Memorial" featuring a larger-than-life Emperor "Red beard" that was built on the ruins of the Reichsburg Kyffhausen between 1890 and 1896. Because of these items, Frankenhausen is counted among the Barbarossatowns even though there is no evidence the Emperor ever stayed here.
This article is based on a translation of the German Wikipedia arcticle Barbarossastadt.
