Hi All! I've been in the Mosel Valley for the past several days. The Mosel is known for it's white wines, and much of the economy is based on tourism and selling wine to tourists. So, I've tasted a lot of wine and bought a couple of bottles for my friends in northern Germany, too. This area also has a lot of old castles which were used in the middle ages to control the Mosel river, which was vital to commerce.

One castle I visted was Burg Eltz. It originally dates back to the 1100's, and is one of the few castles in Germany to have survived intact to the present day. One interesting piece of church history to note about Burg Eltz is that the only successful seige was carried out in the 1300's, when a seige tower was erected just in front of the front gate. (The ruins of the seige tower are also in the photos.) The seige lasted for about 4 years, and was carried out by the Archbishop of Trier, who was trying to gain control of that area of the Mosel valley. (In those days, either the church or the duke had control of land, and whoever did got to collect taxes.) So, bishops sometimes spent more time trying to control land than they did preaching! This continued until (and even past) the time of the Reformation, and this is the thing that Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession was concerned about. That article was not opposed to bishops existing or having power in the church (as some Lutherans sometimes think), but rather was opposed to bishops having secular power and doing stuff like the Archbishop of Trier did in the 14th century.

So, check out the photos from the Mosel in the photo links! I'm heading to Osnabrueck tomorrow to visit friends there, and I'll have another posting in a few days.