Battle of Flarchheim

The Battle of Flarchheim was the second military encounter in the dispute between King Henry IV on the one hand and the anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden other hand on Monday, 27 January 1080 near the village Flarchheim south of Mühlhausen, Thuringia.

Prehistory

In February 1076, Pope Gregory VII had pronounced excommunication on Henry IV, followed on the assembly of princes to Trebur in October the decision that the king was deposed, if he does not solve this spell within a year. The Walk to Canossa in January 1077 brought the repeal of the ban, but did not stop her from Henry's opponents, on 15 March Rudolf of Rheinfelden to choose anti-king and let him on March 26, anoint too. In June, Heinrich took his opponent with the imperial ban and began to pull against him to battle. After the previous battle of Mellrichstadt on 7 August 1078 opponents met each other again in Flarchheim.

The course of the battle

King Henry IV had taken the strategic offensive against Rudolf and marched his forces from Southern forth direction axes. Rudolf went to meet him and stood on January 27, 1080 in Thuringia to fight. The armies of both parties consisted only of knights, on Henry's side is according to the report of the monk Berthold of Reichenau a Bohemian army of the Duke Vratislav have stood with a strength of 3,255 men.

Rudolf stationed his forces on a hill behind a stream. His intention was to attack Henry's army once it had crossed the creek and then, in disarray, the hill would rise. Henry IV realized this intention and bypassed the positions of Rudolph. After three clock in the afternoon the real battle is said to have begun. A violent snow storm and extreme cold have hard the fighters added so that the battle dissolved into massive single combats of knights until nightfall separated the combatants. An actual tactical decision was not. Rudolf claimed victory for himself, because he was staying until midnight on the battlefield and Henry withdrew the next morning. While the Bohemian army to have been almost wiped out, to Rudolf's side only 38 deaths, including two Noble, have complained.

However, the fighting on the side of Henry Duke Vratislav captured the golden lance king Rudolf's what the battle for success Rudolf morally debased. Henry IV ordered that the golden lance should be the dukes of Bohemia carried ahead on ceremonial occasions in the future.

The other events

In October 1080, the two rivals delivered then the third and decisive battle of Hohenmolsen at the White Elster.