Balge (river)

The bellows ( formerly called Balje ) was a short, right tributary of the Weser, which ran in the territory of the present old town of Bremen. It was used in the early Middle Ages as a first port of the city and is thus of great importance for the formation and evolution of Bremen. Gradually narrowed the bed of the bellows until it was channeled in 1608 and 1838 finally completely filled.

The bellows in the Early Middle Ages

The Weser valley near Bremen have to imagine at the time of the founding of the diocese in the 8th and 9th century still as a marshy stream splitting area with numerous rivers and islands. So during construction corner Martini / Wachtstraße 40 meters only three small streams from the period were detected at 800 and found a river boat from the 9th century in the years 1988/1989 on an area of ​​50 ×. By Sanda rinses following several floods, and the increasing settlement activity on the river banks, the character of the river landscape changed significantly but as early as the 9th century and the marshy river marshes and small tributaries gradually disappeared.

The bellows was like the Little River Weser, one of these formerly numerous natural tributaries of the river Weser - sometimes for the stated hypothesis, it was once the main bed of the river was, but there are no surviving documents. Bellows left the bed of the river Weser originally at the level of the Old Walls, flowed parallel in an approximately 650 -meter-long bridge to the Weser at the foot of the Bremen dune along, achieved at the level of today's marketplace with about 200 meters, the largest distance to the main stream and led to funnel-shaped magnifying, at the Second Battle gate ( about the house No 10/ 11 on the slaughter ) back into the Weser. The lying between bellows and Weser island - Balgeinsel - corresponded largely to the later Martini and Deeper district. At that time the bellows a width of 30 to 50 meters had.

Bremen's first port

It is no coincidence that in the 8th century the diocese settlement was established at the contact point of the two most important landscape features in the area of the Bremer Basin: the Weser and Bremer dune. The former offered access to trade routes, last a flood-protected settlement site with good defensive position. On the north side of the bellows, which ranged in the area of the south side of the present-day market place right up the Dünenzug approach, the first port, the first was in the form of an elongated, unpaved shore harbor was at that time under the cover of Domburg Bremen. The ship landing sites ranged thereby probably over a length of several hundred meters at the bottom of today's marketplace and along the length of road, one of the oldest streets of Bremen and for centuries the most important merchant street of the city, is believed to have originated during the occupation of the north Balgeufers.

The embankment of the bellows was attached in the following years in several steps. So you found during excavations immediately before the bank Neelmeyer (near the confluence of the Böttcherstrasse in the market place) in 1970 remains of the fortified with masonry harbor shore of the bellows, and dolphins from oak piles, which were connected in groups of three with iron rings. Similar findings were with earthworks in 1909 corner Buy / Long Street and has been made in 1862 in the field of Tings contactors and Wachtstraße. Besides, older structures were even been found: a bank reinforcement from stakes and wattle, which is probably early medieval origin ( up to the 10th century) and the stone structures and also from the high or late medieval period ( between the 11th and 15th century). The marketplace can thus be referred to as remnant of the original bank market, at the southern edge immediately ships docked.

The bellows in the High and Late Middle Ages

Originally sizable width of the bellows was concentrated over the centuries with the growth of Bremen gradually through the neighborhood of the shore. In addition, changes in the flow conditions in the power system of the Weser and sediment deposits in the river bed to a continuous narrowing contributed. In the late Middle Ages, the width of the bellows had already been reduced to about 20 meters ( just so you could at all the Schütting later be built on the former riverbed of the bellows ).

In the 13th century, when the bellows had largely lost its function as a port for larger vessels in favor of Slaughter on the western shore, an artificial puncture of the wooden gate (today Deeper about the house No. 12 ) was applied, coming, probably along the defunct Vlotgote ( flood alley ) leader in the Balgebrücke (now about the house Balgebrückstraße No. 22) met the bellows and this henceforth divided into two sections. The aim of the measure was an improved water exchange between the Weser and bellows, as the latter threatened to silt up completely by debris and silt deposits. While the upper arm of the bellows, which flowed through the Schnoor, was henceforth referred to as Klosterbalge as he ran through the area of St. John Monastery, called the lower arm Large bellows. Soon after the puncture of the original flow of the bellows was sealed at the Old Wall - presumably to strengthen the fortification of the city, for a passage in the city wall would have been a weak point in an attack. The Klosterbalge was a dead branch of which was also fed by rain and rinsing water of the adjacent houses. The Great bellows, however, was still in use at the time of vessels. So Eken ( flat, timbered oak barges with a width of approximately 1.50 meters and a length of 3.50 up to 10 meters ) for more than three days and three nights in the regulated the measure adopted by the Council in 1399 Balgeverordnung Bremer, were allowed to lie bellows so as not to impede boat traffic.

1602, the bellows was closed to ship traffic, 1608 was channeled to a width of 4.60 meters by an enclosure in river walls and from then only used as a sewer. In 1819 the Bremen Senate finally decided that the bellows would fill their entire length and replace it with a 1.20 meter wide underground sewer. Due to old privileges and competing interests of the bellows - residents of this project, however, was actually carried out only in 1838 - so that the bellows finally disappeared from the cityscape of Bremen.

Bridges

About the bellows led since the Middle Ages already several bridges:

• The Great Bridge stint (as Pontis Piscium was mentioned in a document from 1261. ) Led you, starting on the bellows of the southeast corner of Bremer marketplace.
• The Little Stint bridge was in course of Haken-/Bredenstraße.
• The Balgebrücke was in the course of today's Balgebrückstraße.
• The High Bridge crossed the vlootgote on the Lower.
• A stone bridge was in course of Wachtstraße.
• A bridge led at St. Victor's Staven at the Deeper on the Klosterbalge.
• The Schütting bridge led over the Böttcherstrasse on the bellows.
• Probably the slaughters at the mouth of the bellows must have been crossed by a bridge in the second battle Forte.

It was very likely to drawbridges to allow boats and barges also at high water level, the drive-through.

All bridges existed until the end of the 18th century and then gradually been dismantled after the throwing of the bellows.

Which reminds?

At the suggestion of Senatsrat Dr. -Ing. Harald Lucht, director of and Cadastral Management (now GeoInformation Bremen), was from 1990/1991 in several places in the old town by paving and sunken bronze plaques of the former course of the bellows (in its form as a narrow channel from the 18th century ) "visible" done so at the slaughters, the stint bridge, the Wachtstraße and Balgebrückstraße where the bifurcation is indicated in Large bellows and Klosterbalge.

In addition, today remember the following road names to the bellows and its former course:

• Stint bridge: Runs from the corner of Long Street / Market Square side of the Schütting over to Bredenstraße
• Balgebrückstraße: Lists of Domsheide to Wilhelm- Kaisen-Brücke

Established in 2007, built on behalf of the bank, Carl F. Plump & Co. bronze sculpture by sculptor Bernd Fietje bellows Altenstein reminds Behind the Schütting to the bellows.

New Finds

Excavations at Brede Place, corner Breden / Martinistraße that were carried out here in early 2008 on the occasion of a new hotel building, discovered the remains of the embankments of the bellows from the period around the year 1000. It was a structure made of wooden poles, cross planks and wattle. The excavations brought beyond some individual finds to days that are gone once lost in the muddy banks of the bellows: a silver denarius Cologne, a dagger, a silver brooch and a few bone skates.

In 2009, the bank stabilization of Klosterbalge could be examined during reconstruction work in Schifferhaus, which had, like the Large bellows last served as an underground sewer.