Wiegand über Wigand (und den Deutschen Orden) | Wiegand von Marburg

Liechtenstein, under attack! Liechtenstein! Hello and welcome to a new Vigant video. That was announced a while ago. I'm sorry that I took so much time again. But there was a lot to do. There were quite a few events in the meantime. Thank God, there are plenty of medieval markets again. And competitions, for example archery and sword fighting. And of course other museum events and the like. And well, of course I was a little busy and involved again. For example, last weekend at a very special archery competition for me. I'll tell you about that later, of course. I shot a York round for the first time. I'll get to that at some point. Anyway. In the meantime, I also made a website for our training group. I'll link it at the bottom, of course, because I'm a little bit proud of it. But okay. Yes, as always. The video I wanted to show you at least two weeks ago is basically about why the Vigant is called Vigant. And what that has to do with me. Or where the idea for the name came from. And because that alone may not be enough material for a whole video. And maybe it's not that exciting for everyone. Of course, I also want to show a little bit about the German order. With whom this has to do with. And also a little bit about the city of Marburg, where I was born. And which, of course, is also part of the name Vigant of Marburg. So let's just start from the beginning. When I had the idea a little over four years ago to make a video channel on the subject of the Middle Ages, I just thought about whether I should do it under my real name or choose a pseudonym. And if already in the pseudonym, what could be appropriate? And then I just looked, who would be in question? And purely by chance I stumbled upon a Vigant, who writes with an I and without an E. And if you type that in Wikipedia, you'll find it, of course. Or possibly on another website. And this Vigant is not noble. But simply comes from Marburg, just like me. That is, I did not dare to represent any noble family. It's going to be difficult anyway. Who should it be from Marburg? If I'm not mistaken, it would have to be the Vigants of Schweinsberg, who could also be called Marburg. But I'm not quite sure, I would know that. Anyway, I'm not from a noble family. If I can also find 1, 2, 3 fonts in the family tree somewhere. But, well, I'm actually not noble myself. And I just didn't want to take any special hero, but really just someone who, as a chronicler, or as a herald, or otherwise reported on events. And who was this historical Vigant of Marburg now? I want to clarify that here. Well, I'd like to clarify that here. But the data is poor. In other words, you don't find much about the person Vigant of Marburg. Only so much that he wrote a chronicle, or the chronicle of the German order, for the time of the 14th century. So pretty much what it's about, we can clarify right away. In any case, he doesn't tell anything about himself in this chronicle. And he is also not described in more detail by the contemporaries. Except that he found himself as a herald of arms, in the service of the High Master Conrad von Wallenroth. And also on the occasion of which he wrote his work. More is simply not known. In short, we don't know much at all about the actual person Vigant. These are just very brief information. He was just mentioned and you know that he wrote this rhyme chronicle. To be precise, you don't even know if he comes from Marburg-an-der-Lahn, like me, from the Hessian, or possibly from the other Marburg, Maribor. But it is very likely that he comes from the Hessian Marburg, because the German knights also worked here. And here, of course, we have to mention my beloved Elisabethkirche, in whose shadow I was born, so to speak. So only 150 meters from the Elisabethkirche, the women's clinic was still there until a few years ago. And today it stands at the same place, and I find that somehow sympathetic, the great university library. So I was born in a library, so to speak, or it has found its place. Maybe it suits someone who likes to smuggle in books as much as I do. Yes, and then of course we also have to talk about the German order. What is the German order anyway? When were they created? How long did they last? Or maybe they still exist? And what important things did they possibly achieve? The German order, or quite completely, Order of the Brothers of the German House of St. Mary in Jerusalem, was a spiritual knightly order around the year 1190, founded in the so-called Holy Land at that time, i.e. Palestine or in the Levant, therefore around 1190. In 1190 a field hospital was founded by merchants from Bremen and Lübeck in Acon, and from this hospital the German order emerged. In any case, in 1199 Pope Innocent III gave the order of the Johanniterregel to clerics, and the original goal was to help the sick, the wounded and the needy, i.e. to undertake charitable tasks, but also military ones. One was particularly oriented to the temple knights, who had been founded a little earlier. In the 13th century, the German order was able to acquire some possessions in the Holy Land through some conquests, donations and also through buying, but the end of the crusader states was actually already initiated and in the case of Acon in 1291, the commitment for the German order in the Holy Land was also over. Also in the 13th century, however, a whole series of possessions had already been collected in Europe, but they were quite inconsistent, and a state area in that sense could not yet be marked. By the way, these possessions were called Balaien, and one of these Balaien was Marburg, so actually it already included today's northern and central Hesse. Much more important for the German order, however, were the possessions at the Baltic Sea, because this is where the last heathens of Europe lived, so the Prussians and the Lithuanians in particular were still not Christianized and therefore their most important task was to also lead a crusade here, that is, to spread the Christian faith here too, if necessary with fire and sword. From 1309 on, Marienburg in Danzig became the seat and center of a new state, a model state that the German order built up there in Prussia, and it was precisely in this time of the 14th century that most of the campaigns and activities in this new state took place, and this is where the rhyme chronicle of the Vigan of Marburg falls. The Polish and Lithuanian nobility, of course, has a thorn in their side, and so they gathered a struggle force in 1410 and, during the famous Battle of Tannenberg, pretty much destroyed the German order. Nevertheless, the German order remained an important force in Eastern Europe and, in fact, it still exists today, but no longer as a knightly order, but as a Roman-Catholic community that has turned to charity again and is also active in the field of education. As always, when it comes to conquests, you can see that today, of course, quite critically, because conquests always involve war and plundering and suffering for the population. We currently have an example of this again, and not so far away. In any case, you can see it critically, you should maybe even see it critically, but it is history now, and we should not close our eyes to it, but we should really look at it very closely. What are the motives behind it, what are the protagonists, what kind of consequence does it have, and maybe something good came out of it in the end, possibly. So, this suffering sometimes has a second side, which is not quite as terrible, but which then also offers hope again and which has to do with construction and break-up and a common past. As always, I am happy that you have watched again. I would like you to leave one or the other comment again, either down here under the video, or of course on Facebook or Instagram, or just send me an e-mail. And besides, it's not bad if you haven't already done so anyway, if you subscribe here. Because, of course, I am always happy about new subscribers, and yes, then you also notice when the new video comes again. And the new video will definitely come a little earlier, because it is actually already finished. So this time something completely different, something special, which I have never done before. I recorded a podcast, a podcast with friends who are also familiar with sword fighting. And I still have a little bit of it, so that it fits here to the videos to some extent. But maybe you are also interested in something new, something special. And you are there again. So, see you next time. Thanks for watching. Take care. Bye.