I will paste below my question. I was wondering what it says about the
Winner family. What I have kept as history of Oldenburg lists our family as
one of the original farms.
Here is the portion I meant to paste, sorry.
Saxonian and Frankish settlement
A history of Neuenkirchen in the early Middle Ages is hampered by a lack of
primary sources, but some things can still be reconstructed. Before
Neuenkirchen existed there were scattered and disjointed settlements of
farming communities. The place names and field types are an indication that
these were Saxon settlements.
Thus, Grapperhausen, Narberhausen, Westerhausen, Severinghausen,
Hardinghausen, Hinnenkamp, Westendorf, and Beste-Nellinghof were Saxon
settlements. It can be assumed that even Neuenkirchen, had its original
center in the Huesmann farm, the farms of Lampe and Winner-Westerhaus were
also of Saxon origin.
The typical form of a settlement in Saxon times was a group of three to ten
farms, usually on high ground and near a river. The terraced residential
areas on the west of the village still shows an almost ideal village from
Saxon times: higher on the edge of the west end, with favorable pasture
land behind the houses, with creek water immediately behind the farms.
The area was part of the Neuenkirchen district, located between a creek,
large marshes to the east and a reed marsh to the south. This naturally
delimited area lay in the early Middle Ages in the Saxon domination zone
and belonged to the tribe of the Westphalia. The Saxons, comprising the
tribes of the Westphalia, Engern, Ostfalen and Nordalbingier settlements
organized themselves, had no monarchy, but rather were a tribe association
with equal rights. Only in wartime, a duke was selected for the duration
of a war campaign.
Dramatic changes began in the year 772 and were particularly hard from 775
to 780 with The Saxon Wars of Charlemagne. On one side were the Westphalian
nobles and the “People’s Duke” named Widukind. They faced the enemy
headquartered around Dersigau. Widukind’s center of power was around the
town of Bad lburg, in the Osnabrük area. The Franks war campaign strategy
tried to defeat Widukinds in the Osnabrücker north country.
The francs tried to encounter the strategically important withdrawal zones
Widukinds in the Osnabrücker north country with its war trains above all.
The earliest surviving written record of the reports Dersigau 785: "Carolus
Rex venit dersia et combussit ea loca "(King Charles [Charlemagne] went to
Dersigau and devastated those areas). The war ended in 804. Under the terms
of peace Neuenkirchen was ‘Christianized’. [Note: from Germanic paganism
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_paganism> to Germanic Christianity
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_Christianity>\.\] The Saxon settlement
structure remained but Frankish settlements were also created. The problems
caused by the relocation of the Saxons were resolved. . An important means
of control was the system of a dense network of large farms, known as
“Meierhöfen” where Franks were settled. These farms, in Neuenkirchen
included the farms Meyer, Nellinghof and Meyer-Seligenhof, which were the
local outpost of the Franconian domination carriers
The most important means of integration of Saxony into the Frankish empire
was, however, the Christianization of the population. Ancient pagan places
of worship, as they presumably were on the farms in Wieghues, Nellinghof,
and Brandewiede (Worpswede = Holy Forest) in Bieste have existed were
destroyed, then were churches created. The mother church was in the
southern Dersigaus (Damme) and is a direct daughter church of the newly
created diocese of Osnabrück. Damme was probably founded between 900 and
1100 and daughter churches in Steinfeld and Neuenkirchen, which therefore
has its name. In 1187 Steinfeld was detached from Damme. The first mention
of Neuenkirchen as a parish is in 1221. Guidance and supervision on the
parishes were in the hands of the bishops of Osnabrück, belonging to the
diocese of Dersigau. From that point on, the church and political
development of Neuenkirchen to the 20th Century closely linked.
Thank you so much for posting this information. It is so interesting.
Kathy Reed