Medieval archaeology is a research field of the subcluster Urban ROOTS with a project on urban desertification. Borgentreich, in the District of Höxter (North Rhine-Westphalia), was the focus of archaeological investigations of the Chair of Historical Archaeology. Together with LWL Archaeology (Bielefeld/Münster), Fritz Jürgens, Nils Wolpert and students, we searched for an answer to the question concerning a possible early urban period of the site. Borgentreich was founded in 1277/79 on the initiative of Bishop Simon I of Lippe. Historical research postulated an older planned city around 1275 with a fortification. After some great fires, a part of this older town was probably abandoned in the early 14th century. The archaeological and geophysical investigations in August and December 2019, however, led to a rejection of this thesis. No traces of an older fortified settlement were found north of the present old town. Furthermore, we were able to verify first town fortifications for the time around 1280 at various locations. This provides satisfactory evidence that the town was founded and fortified only towards the end of the 13th century.
This working phase can be regarded as completed. 

A first publication of this research can be downloaded here

Borgentreich, Kr. Höxter. Digital Elevation Model (DEM 1). Quellen Geobasisdaten https://www.opengeodata.nrw.de/produkte/geobasis/hm/dgm1_xyz/dgm1_xyz_paketiert/ unter Datenlizenz Deutschland - Zero - Version 2.0

Borgentreich, Kr. Höxter. Medieval Topography and areas of archaeological excavations (blue). Copyright: U. Müller

Borgentreich, Kr. Höxter. Geomagnetic Prospection. Copyrigth: LWL Archäologie Münster.

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Project by Ulrich Müller umueller@ufg.uni-kiel.de