Clarenna

Clarenna was a Roman military station and settlement on the Swabian Alb in what is now Baden-Württemberg, Germany, recorded on the Tabula Peutingeriana and identified by modern scholars, with high but not complete certainty, with the Roman fort at Römerstein-Donnstetten.¹ The name appears on the Peutinger map, a medieval copy of a Roman road itinerary, as a station between Grinario (Köngen) and Ad Lunam (Urspring).¹ The site continued as a civilian settlement into at least the third century CE.²

The fort

Two ditches enclosed the fort on three sides; on the north side the defenses stopped, because the steeply falling ground there formed a natural obstacle to approach.

The dating is not firmly established. One research synthesis places the founding of the Donnstetten and Urspring forts around 85/86 CE, shortly after Domitian's first Chatti war, as part of a coordinated plan that also included the middle Neckar garrisons; an alternative interpretation dates the whole occupation of the region jointly after the Saturninus revolt of 89/90 CE.³

Roads and the Alblimes

Clarenna stood at a road junction of strategic importance.

Along the Alb edge, the Donnstetten fort belonged to a chain that also included Deggingen, Essingen, and Lauchheim north of the cohort and ala camps of Urspring, Heidenheim, and Oberdorf am Ipf; the small 0.3 to 0.8 ha Numerus forts of this line were mostly built at the ends of important ascents onto the Alb and were only discovered in the last decades of the twentieth century.⁴

The vicus and later settlement

The civilian settlement (vicus) associated with the fort survived the military withdrawal and lived on until about 259/260 CE, when the Roman limes in this region collapsed before the Alemanni.⁵ Excavations at the site of the present church uncovered Roman wells, and east of the village a bath building with walls of calcareous tuff was found.⁶ The church site itself may correspond to the fort's location in one local account, which places the fort near the excavated Roman bath.⁷ The fertility of the volcanic soil and the presence of water sources kept the spot permanently settled from the Alemannic period onward, and the village is first named in 776 as "Tunnestate" in a donation charter to Lorsch Abbey.⁸

Research history

Some older scholarship also entertained Weilheim as a candidate for Clarenna's location.¹

References

1. Tabula Peutingeriana, entry Clarenna (Kommentar Rasch; DNP), Universität Würzburg
2. Last Week in Pleiades (27 May – 2 June 2025): Clarenna
3. Der Raum Aalen im Satellitenbild, Jahrbuch des Geschichts- und Altertumsvereins
4. UNESCO Welterbe Limes, Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg brochure
5. Heiko Steuer, The Hierarchy of Alamannic Settlements in the Former Limes Region of South-Western Germany to AD 500, Journal of European Archaeology
6. Sphäre Magazin: Der Alblimes auf der Münsinger Alb
7. Donnstetten, LEO-BW Ortslexikon
8. Evangelisches Pfarramt Donnstetten, Tektonik, Evangelisches Archiv Baden und Württemberg
9. Tabula Peutingeriana, tp-online.ku.de

Topic: Encyclopedia › Places and geography › Parks, protected areas, and geographic heritage sites › Archaeological sites and site complexes › Greek, Roman, and Etruscan archaeological sites › Roman villas and rural estates › Villas in Italy

Initially written Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Oct 25, 2026

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