page_title: Hermannsburg
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Hermannsburg / History / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Der Lutterhof mit Treppenspeicher und Eichen
context_page_description: Hermannsburg is a village and a former municipality in the Celle district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2015 it is part of the municipality Südheide. It has been a state-recognised resort town since 1971. It is situated on the river Örtze, about 15 kilometres east of Bergen and 30 kilometres north of Celle. It belongs to the district of Celle.
context_section_description: Hermannsburg is first mentioned in 1059 as "Heremannesburc" by Emperor Henry IV in a document. It is certain, however, that there had been a settlement on the site earlier than that. During building work on the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in 1957, a bronze crucifix was found that dates to the 10th century.
  In addition there is evidence that the Minden monk, Landolf, undertook missionary work in the 9th century in the Örtze valley. On the spot where, today St. Peter and St. Paul's now stands, a baptistry had been built in the period between 800 and 900 A. D. by the Christian mission sent out from Minden on a sandy loess island near the thingstead of the Muthwidde Gau. Its foundations were also discovered in 1957. 
  In the neighbourhood there were at that time already eight old farmsteads; four of them lay west of the Örtze and four to the east of the river. The "Lutterhof"  and "Misselhorn", both east of the Örtze are still there today. The old "Rißmann's Hof", renamed the "Behrenssche Hof" in 1756 after its new owner, Johann Hinrich Behrens (1730–1808), also lay east of the Örtze. It was donated by its last owner, Heinrich Wilhelm Behrens, on 30 January 1854 to the Hermannsburg Mission. Behrens was trained as a missionary and in 1857 sent out with his family to South Africa. The farm, now called "Missionshof", was sold on 15 June 1967 by the Mission Centre of Hermannsburg (Missionsanstalt Hermannsburg) to the civil parish of Hermannsburg. It was demolished in order to build the secondary modern school here. In addition to the aforementioned eight old farmsteads (Einzelhöfe), there were also various so-called Sattelhöfe, tenant farms, at Oldendorf, Beckedorf, Schlüpke and Weesen, which had to provide manpower for the castle.
  The name of the settlement was derived from its likely founder, the Saxon margrave, Hermann Billung, a vassal of Otto I, and the aforementioned castle or Burg. The foundation of the village about the year 940, is based on the fact that between the church and the castle an estimated 10 cottages (Kötnereien) and several smallholders (Kleinbauern) and tradesmen had settled. That led to the formation of a civil and a church parish which eventually became the village of Hermannsburg.
  The princely line of the Billung family ruled over the region until they died out in 1106. Thereafter the country was ruled by the House of Welf, whose lordship lasted until 1866, with short interruptions during French occupation in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and the period of the Kingdom of Westphalia (1807–1813). From 1866 Hermannsburg was part of the  Prussian Province of Hanover. In the course of Prussian district reforms the village was assigned to the district of Celle.
caption: The Lutterhof farm, with its treppenspeicher barns and old oaks
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-H9", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2008:02:21 13:46:38", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-H9", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2008:02:21 13:46:38", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9376", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "14276", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:02:21 13:46:38", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:02:21 13:46:38", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "119/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9170", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}