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 uring the first centuries of the Christian era the German people made the transition from a pastoral to a simple agricultural economy. Their religious beliefs, supportive of their economic interests, focused upon the forces of nature dominating their lives. [See Origins of the Osterraeder] For these reasons, the Osterraeder phenomena, occurring on Ostara's festival in the pagan calendar, is believed to date back at least 2,000 years.
Folk hero, Hermann Arminius, a Cheruski German, thwarted the ambitions of Emperor Augustus to extend the Roman Empire beyond the Rhine to the Elbe. In a decisive encounter in 9 CE at the Teutoburger Wald near Luegde, he defeated the Roman Army. In consequence, the German people in the region of Saxony were to be isolated from the diffusion of Christianity that was occuring throughout the Roman Empire from the 3rd C on. Osterraederlauf likely continued as a pagan festival for several centuries to come as a result.
By the 4th C. German people elsewhere were on the move, establishing a series of independent kingdoms on Roman soil. The Germanic tribe known as the Franks was to emerge as the dominant power in Western Europe, under the leadership of Clovis (481-511). His kingdom was to extend from the lower Rhine River, throughout Gaul and Burgundy.
His conversion to orthodox Christianity, and the resulting conversions of his subjects, ensured that Christianity became a decisive force in German society. The town of Luegde and its environs lay beyond the frontiers of the Frankish kingdom however. It is unlikely that Christianity made any inroads into the area until the missionary activities of Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk, who began to convert pagans beyond the eastern frontiers of the Frankish kingdom in 719 CE.
Charlemagne (742-814)
In the eight century the Carolingians emerged as the new ruling family of the Frankish world. Under the leadership of Charlemagne, otherwise known as Karl der Grosse, Saxony was finally incorporated into the Frankish Empire.
It took many military campaigns extending over a thirty-year period to conquer and convert the pagan Saxons.
Charlemagne attacking pagans in Saxony
"From his perspective as a Christian King with a God-given responsibility to sustain the church in its mission of saving souls, religious life was a prime factor in sustaining concord and justice. He encouraged the spread of Christianity...even using force to compel reluctant pagans, such as the Saxons, to receive baptism."
Quoted from A Short History of Western Civilization by Harrison et al.
Tradition has it that Charlemagne stayed at Luegde in the Christmas of 784, and was told of the local custom of the Osterraeder. Knowing that a prohibition of this custom would result in much opposition he allowed the newly converted Christians to continue with their old customs. Following precedents set by the church in the past, he modified the pagan habit to fit Christianity. The Osterraeder was to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the construction of the wheel was to be changed to a cross-spoked design.
Inscriptions carved into the wheels since these times have reflected this change of purpose. One such inscription read "Today I am rolling for the first time into the Mariental, in the name of Jesus Christ who is redeeming the world."
And so the Osterraeder ceremony acquired the gloss of Christianity.
It is interesting to note that the early pagan symbolism of the "Wheel of the Year" and a variant known as the Rota Fortuna (Wheel of Fortune) survived as important elements of medieval symbolism.
Many of the rose windows or wheel windows in the cathedrals of the time were styled on these pagan symbols.
The Rose Window of the North Transept at Chartres Cathedral c.1221
Sculptures adorning the early churches also often contained pagan imagery. Early medieval writers were to note that cathedrals and royal abbeys gave space to the pagan wheel, Dame Fortune, possibly because the mason's guilds were deliberately incorporating the symbols of heresy into the churches.
Pairing of Christian and pagan imagery
The prophet and the mystical wheel
c 1132
  
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