Hans Zschell

  Noted events in his life were:

• Notes of Interest. ⁴⁹³ The name Shelley is derived from Shelley in Essex, Suffolk and Yorkshire England, which means, “wood on a slope”. Is is also derived from the German word Schell which is a spring, a ley and a field.

The town Hermannsdorf was built on the fireplace of a very old human settlement between 6000-1800 B.C. Archeologist have found vestiges of a Roman center called Cedonia. Sibiu County was documentary certified in the 12th century under the name of Hermannsdorf, then Cybinium and from the beginning of its existence was an important citadel. In 1292 it established the first hospital in the area. There were found documents dated 1376 that mentioned Sibiu as a very important economic town in Transylvania; there were 19 guilds, including 25 handicrafts such as: tailor, painter, leather, merchant, carpenter, wheelman, furrier, shoemaker, cooper and baker. In 1526, the first Superior School called “Studium Generale Cibinese” was founded.

The Medieval history of Germany is difficult to study because Germany lacked a clear geographic focus. The Germans like many other European peoples had all the prerequisites for a nation state. The key question in Medieval German history is why a united nation state did not form. The Germanic tribes dominated much of northern Europe in 500 BC. The German Tribes were part of a larger group of people known as the Celts.

The origins of the Germans are obscure. Both the ethnic and geographic origins of the people speaking Teutonic languages are not known to history with any precission. The Germans certainly entered Europe well before the Roman era, but the ancient Germans left no written language and because they were semi-nomadic, the archeological remains are sparse. The Germanic people were probably formed from a mixture of races in the coastal region of northern Europe, perhaps especially around the Baltic Sea. They appear to have settled in the north-central plains of Europe sometime around the end of the 6th century B.C. All that is known with any prescision is that the Germanic tribes first appear in southern Scandinavia and along the North Sea and Baltic coasts south into modern Poland. These Germanic tribes then moved southward and east. The German tribes pushing south encountered the Romans when they were expanding north of the alps, setting in motion one of the titanic confrontations in history and one which was not completely resolved until World War II. The German Tribes moved into the central and southern area of modern Germany in 100 BC. This brought them into contact with the Roman Empire moving north and east. At the time the Germans came in contact with the Romans they were still tribal, divided into three major groups. The western Germanic tribes are the ones who first contacted the Romans and their territory in the west and south became a province of the Roman Empire. The western Germans had settled an area from the North Sea east to the Elbe, Rhine, and Main rivers. The Rhine became a boundary between the Germanic tribes and Roman territory when Julius Caesar defeated the Suevian tribe about 70 BC and took possession of Gaul for Rome. Rome under Augustus continued its expansionary policy moving east and had begun to esrablish a substantial presence east of the Rhine. In 9 A.D., Arminius a Germanic leader destroyed a force of almost three entire Legions under the provincial governor Varus in the Teutoburg Forest. This staggering defeat of epic proportions stopped the Roman drive east. It also helped make the Rhine River to become a landmark to the Germans. The Romans used Germans in their army. Armenius had grown up in Rome and had served in the Roman army. He was very familiar with Roman tactics and capabilities. As a result of the battle, the Romans were driven west of the Rhine. The Romans built a 300-mile defensive line roughly along the Rhine during the 1st century AD.
The history of the Germanic tribes, beginning in the 2nd century AD through the 6th century, is one of extended migration (Völkerwanderung) out of their native lands west. There were many reasons for this migration. The fruits of civilization developed in the Roman Empire were attractive to them. The Emperor Hadrian built the Roman Limes or fortifications, but was often surrounded by increasingly German populations as the Germans leaked across the porous border. War-like people from the East, such as the Huns, were also pressuring them. This push west was to play a major role in the fall of the Roman Empire in the5th century. As part of their migration West, the Germans greatly expanded the area of Western Europe under their control. The Ostrogoths, Visagoths, and other Germanic tribes moved into Italy Spain, and even North Africa founding kingdoms there. Most of these kingdoms lasted only short periods, because Roman or other local populations rapidly absorbed them. Out of all these kingdoms that were established only two endured the passage of time-the Franks in Gaul and Anglo Saxons in Britain. The Frankish tribes in the 6th century established control over Roman Gaul and created the first civilized German state.

The dynastic history of Medieval Europe in many ways begins with Clovis and the Merovingian dynasty, but even more with Charlemagne and his successors. Charlemagne founded the first empire after Rome. His grandson Louis II became the first King of Germany. The Saxon King Otto I founded the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire is a misnomer. It was not Holy, although the Pope crowned the emperor, nor was it Roman. It was essentially a Germanic empire encompassing much of Western Europe and later was named by historians the First German Reich. The Salian Dynasty under Henry II became involved in the Investiture Controversy in the 10th century and was rocked by the struggle between Emperor Henry II and Pope Gregory VII. The Emperor established the principle of civil power, however regional leaders used the controversy to significantly weaken the authority of the emperor within Germany. This was a major reason that a centralized German state didn't emerge during the medieval era. Several different dynasties ruled Germany during the Medieval Era. The first was the Merovingian dynasty founded by Clovis. Followed by the Hapsburgs who led Germany out of the Medieval Era and dominated Germany until after the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century. By the 11th century, the East Frankish kingdom under the Salian dynasty was becoming a German kingdom. Henry II's desire to build a centralized state in his territory with independent-minded nobles led him into a conflict with Pope Gregory VII in what has become known as the Investiture Controversy.

Many countries have borders almost preordained by geography. However, Germany doesn't have clearly defined boundaries and thus its geographic focus has varied widely over time. The Germans struggled with the Slavs in the east. In the west, the boundary was a matter of dynastic expediency upon the breakup of Charlemagne's Empire in the 9th century. The Rhine is the most celebrated border of Germany. The victory of Armenius in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD made the Rhine the western border of Germany. Throughout much of medieval history the Rhine ran through the central area of German territory and thus played a role in building cohesion among Germans. Not until the wars of Louis XIV in th 17th century did the Rhine become a symbol of the frontier between Germny and France. As such, the river took on great national meaning in both countries.

The Germans pushed west during the Roman imperial era. After the fall of Rome and the migrations west of the 6th century and 7th centuries, the Germans became increasingly concerned with the East. The attraction was the growing German population and the desire for new land. The move east was begun by Otto I defeating the Magyars on the Lechfeld or Augsburg in 955. Continuing eastward the Germans populated Austria up to the Leitha River. The Germans in the north moved into Holstein. Further east the Germans moved to the Oder River and exercised some influence there. A Slav revolt there pushed them back in 982. Gradually antagonism between the Germans and Slavs grew. The Germans saw the Slavs as a subject oeople. The very name Slav means serf in German. The German attitudes were displayed in the savage Wendish Crusade in ll47. German migration east from 1150 to 1400 was peaceful. Many Slavs actually welcomed the Germans for the technology they brought with them such as the steel plow, mining techniques, and animal husbandry. The Germans coming from the West had more open political and economic attitudes in comparison to the Polish aristocracy. Many Slavs actually preferred the Germans to the Polish aristocracy. A major factor involved was the greater evonomic opportunities in the east, allowing for greater social movement. Gradually, the Slavs began to resist the Germans. As the population increased and ecomnomic opportunities decreased, the Germans became more repressive. This was the beginning of the German Prusian aristocratic military class that would play such an important role in the unification of Germany and the subsequent history of two world wars.

The Teutonic Knights, which were the primary German force in the East, were defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg in l4l0. This resulted in Poland obtaining Pomeralia. Some Germans merchants migrated to Courland, Livonia, and Estonia. The decline of the Polish Kingdom in the 17th and 18th century allowed the Germans to unite Prussia with the rest of Germany. The Germans, however in much of the East, were a small governing elite ruling over a much more numerous Slavic population.

Germans also moved into Bohemia. The Bohemian kings at first welcomed the German technology to help increase economic production. A German merchant community was active in Prague during the 13th century. Gradually tension began to grow between the Germans and Czechs. Rudolf Hapsburg, the firt Hapsburh emperor, defeated a Czech army trying to seize German lands. Bohemia became a Czech state in 1436. The Hapsburgs inherited Bohemia and Moravia in 1526.

Germans played major roles in the crusades during the 11th to 13th centuries in attempts to free the Holyland from Islamic rule. Conrad II of Germany played a principal role in the Second Crusade in 1147 to 1187. Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I, died en route to the Third Crusade in 1189 to 1192. German children were included in the contingent of children involved in the Children's Crusade in 1212. Emperor Frendetick II conducted the Sixth Crusade in 1228 to 1229. The Teutonic Knights, which were formed during the Crusades, played an important role during Medieval German history in the East.

In 1215, the reeve of the monastery Graf von Hoyer at Quedlinburg asked Eike von Repgow to collect the German law based on the feudal and land law of the East Saxons in East Westphalia. Von Repgow put his collection of laws in the context of God's law rather than man's. His work by the 14th century had become so important that it was used in Northern Germany and Eastern Europe. It is regarded as the first and most codification in writing of German law. In 1275, German Franciscans at Augsburg wrote an adaptation of the Sachsenspiegel but with alterations to South German law.

The Holy Roman Empire of Germany included the Burgundian inheritance, parts of Italy and the Netherlands, which were not German in any ethnic or linguistic sense. Nor were national loyalties and sensibilities nearly as important in Medieval Europe. However, Germany was the nucleus of the Empire. The emperors were Germans and could have built a powerful empire in central Europe that could have dominated Europe. This did not occur, although the Hapsburgs came close to it. Instead the possession of foreign lands served to involve the Empire in foreign quarrels, which drained its resources and exacerbated domestic differences. These problems would come to fruition in the Reformation.

Hans married Unknown Unknown in 1467 in Tannenberg, Chemnitz, Sachsen, Germany.