Barbarossa - Friedrich I.

In the summer of 1157, a meeting quite possibly took place in Giebichenstein which brought together the great empires. Under the leadership of Kaiser Friedrich I, known as Barbarossa, an army set off from here on an eastward campaign. When Barbarossa became the German king in 1152, he made his faithful acolyte Wichmann into the Archbishop of Magdeburg.

In addition to his influence on imperial politics, Wichmann is also of importance to Halle and Giebichenstein. During his stays here over decades, he time and again had documents drawn up and founded the abbey at St. Maurice. The church dignitary Wichmann was pretty worldly, as the story goes: he was rather corpulent, he cherished pleasure, took joy in the presence of jugglers and had at least one daughter.