Amelinghausen - History

History

The village of Amelinghausen was first mentioned in the records on 22 May 1293. The beginnings of settlement began, however, in the New Stone Age. The first people in this region were migrant hunters and gatherers around 15,000 B. C. They followed reindeer herds coming from the west, for which this area, the present-day Lüneburg Heath, offered a new habitat thanks to its more moderate climate (having hitherto being the Ice Age).

Thousands of years later, about 3,700 B. C., the first humans settled here. The first settlers of the region established themselves on the banks of the River Luhe. As a result of communication with the folk to the south they had already acquired a knowledge of farming. Surviving grave sites are witnesses to the permanent settlement of the present-day Lüneburg Heath from the New Bronze AGe (1100–800 B. C.), through the Early Iron Age (600–800 B. C.) and the Pre-Roman Iron Age (600 B. C.- birth of Christ), into the Migration Period (2nd–6th century A. D.).

One of the best-known grave sites, that like almost all of them dates to the New Stone Age, lies in a small area of restored heathland and is known today as the Oldendorfer Totenstatt. Here several of the different types of grave are located together(tumuli, Urnfield gravesites and dolmens) and may still be viewed today.

The name of the village is derived from Bishop Amelung of Verden. Amelung was supposed to have venerated Hippolytus of Rome and named the church after him. According to research into the origins of placenames, the ending -hausen indicates it is one of the more recent settlements (after 800 A. D.)in the Bardengau, because placename endings like -burg, -hagen, -ingen, -rode or even -husen (-hausen) first appeared during the Frankish period.

The estates of the bishop, including the so-called Junkernhof farm, did not return after his death in 962 to the Bishopric of Verden, but were incorporated by his brother, Hermann Billung, (died 973), which later led to the imposition of an excommunication order on him.

Amelinghausen was an advocacy or Vogtei that included 16 villages, and which was subordinated to the Großvogtei (great vogtei) of Winsen an der Luhe. Hitherto it had had a court (Gerichtsstätte) with its own jurisdiction that included a forest land court (Holzmarkengericht).

From 1603 to 1616 a relative of the prince, the Dowager-Duchess Hedwig in Harburg had various witches "burned on the high hill in Moisburg following rigorous investigations and ordeal by water " These were some of the last witches' trials in what is now Lower Saxony. Two of the women who ended up at the stake in Winsen in 1611 were sisters Anneke and Barbara Stehr from Amelinghausen. How it came about and what then happened to them was reported by the chantor (Kantor), Heinrich Schulz, from Egestorf in the Lüneburger Kreiskalender.

On Sunday, 7 June 1818, a fire occurred at Amelinghausen as mentioned in the second volume of the "Patriotic Archive" (Vaterländischen Archiv), a yearly chronicle. This same document also mentioned that, on 21 October 1818 in Clausthal, a powder store blew up, killing 27 people.

The unfortunate fire, which was not a result of war, was a major disaster for Amelinghausen, as the entire old part of the village was burned to ashes in just two hours. The acting pastor in Amelinghausen at that time, Jacob Heinrich Grewe, left a detailed report of the tragic event.

The ancient village church, built in 1501 with a round stone tower, was destroyed in this blaze.