Hageneck Castle

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Hageneck Castle
The hidden castle ruins of Hageneck, view from the east (1974)

The hidden castle ruins of Hageneck, view from the east (1974)

Creation time : 13th century
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Place: Wettolsheim
Geographical location 48 ° 3 '8.4 "  N , 7 ° 16' 30.2"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 3 '8.4 "  N , 7 ° 16' 30.2"  E
Hageneck Castle (Haut-Rhin)
Hageneck Castle

The ruins of Hageneck Castle ( French Château de / du Hagueneck or Le Hagueneck for short ) stand on a granite rock west of the Alsatian village of Wettolsheim in the Haut-Rhin department . The hilltop castle was frequently in the past with the nearby, present only in small remnants castle Haneck about Soultzbach-les-Bains confused, so documentary messages have been mixed over the two castles often.

Built in the 13th century and badly damaged during a feud at the beginning of the 14th century , but subsequently rebuilt, the small castle passed through several hands in the 15th century before it was abandoned as a residence at the latest in the mid-16th century. In the 17th century it was already in ruins. The complex has belonged to the municipality of Wettolsheim since 1912 and has been under monument protection as a classified Monument historique since January 29, 1923 . It is freely accessible to visitors on certain days.

history

The castle is thought to have been built in the very early 13th century, as evidenced by the lack of any Gothic forms and archaeological findings pointing to the first quarter of the 13th century . A family named after the castle was first mentioned in 1263 with Burkhard von Hageneck, a vassal of the Bishop of Strasbourg . The complex was an episcopal fiefdom together with the Rufach rulership and presumably served as their northern border point. According to the information in the Colmar Annals ( Annales Colmarienses minores et maiores ) of the Colmar Dominican chronicler , the von Hageneck family was also the builder of the castle. She was probably identical to the Lords of Wettolsheim, which is not only supported by the proximity to Wettolsheim Castle , but also by the common coat of arms with a roughened shield. In 1300 the castrum de Haguinecke was sold to the von Laubgassen family (also Lobgassen), who had lost their ancestral seat, Laubeck Castle , in 1294 . In a feud against the von Hattstatt family and the lords of Hus allied with them , the castle was badly damaged in 1304, but then rebuilt and even expanded. The news of the damage was linked to Haneck Castle by some researchers, but it is much more likely that it was Hageneck.

Hageneck Castle on a lithograph by Jacques Rothmüller , 1860

In the 15th century, the small complex was in the hands of various owners, including the Lords of Rappoltstein , who made it a fiefdom from the Habsburgs . Wilhelm I von Rappoltstein awarded a third of Hageneck in 1478 as an afterfief to Johann von Wettolsheim. Other owners were the Zorn and Landenberg families as well as Ulrich Stör and the lords of Rust, a noble family from Colmar . The latter sold sturgeon Castellan , the palace was damaged and remained until 1626 owned the castle. However, it was abandoned around the middle of the 15th century or at the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century. During excavations , no traces were found that would suggest that the complex was still inhabited after 1550. In 1640 it was described as a ruin. From 1674 the Colmar commander of the Order of St. John owned Hageneck. Sold as a national property during the French Revolution , the complex was used as a residence by a forest clerk in the 19th century before it was acquired by the municipality of Wettolsheim in 1912 for 42,000  marks . The municipality carried out conservation measures in 1932 after the first restoration had already taken place in 1884 . Further work took place in 1972 before a comprehensive restoration campaign followed in 1981 on the initiative of the Association pour la restauration des châteaux du canton de Wintzenheim (ARC) .

description

Floor plan of the castle ruins

The ruin is hidden at about 440 meters above sea level on a small mountain above a deeply cut, wooded brook valley. In the southwest it is overlooked by a higher mountain slope. Hohlandsberg Castle is around one kilometer as the crow flies to the north , and the Drei Exen are around 1.5 kilometers to the south. In fact, this was not a particularly advantageous location, and it reflects well the relatively low position of its builders. The castle is the start and end point of the Herzogspfad ( French sentier Herzog ), a 2.8 kilometer long forest hiking trail created by the Herzog family.

The Roman plant consists of a rectangular core Burg and from the few remnants of an east thereof lying Vorburg that of an outer ring wall surrounded. In the south-west and south-east, Hageneck is secured by deep and wide neck ditches , the other two sides are protected by steep rocky slopes. The granite on the castle hill was used as the material for the masonry . Found spoils showed that the no longer extant Fenstergewände of yellow Rufacher sandstone were made. Note the pillow-shaped hump square at the corners of the inner circular wall and the castle keep and the gate jamb, but otherwise hammer right micro-cube factory was used.

On the southeast side, the remains of a semicircular flanking tower have been preserved, which probably served to secure the castle path. This path led to the southern corner of the complex, where the access was probably located. In order to get into the outer bailey and through it into the inner bailey, the visitor had to pass through a kennel since the first half of the 15th century . Access to the main castle was via a round arch gate on the south corner of the inner curtain wall. This is on the southwest side - the side on which an enemy attack was most likely to be expected - about three meters higher than on the other sides. Its thickness there is 2.9 meters, while the defensive wall on the northwest side and on the southeast side is 2 to 2.2 meters thick. On the well-protected northeast side, it measures only 1.8 meters.

On the southwest side is the square keep of the complex with a side length of seven meters, which protrudes slightly from the line of the wall . The tower, which was around 22 meters high, has partially collapsed and is still around 18 meters high today. In contrast to the French donjons , this tower was not habitable because it is  completely solid inside - with the exception of a narrow spiral staircase - and therefore resembles the Bergfrieden of Guebwiller and Hohenstein . The stairs lead to the defense platform with a low parapet . When the weather is good, there is a view from there that extends over Colmar and the Kaiserstuhl to the Black Forest . Access to the stairs is provided by an arched high entrance at a height of around 16 meters. In the past, there was a wooden bay window across the entire width of the tower in front of the entrance , from which the north-western curtain wall could also be reached. Opposite the keep on the protected northeast side was the two-storey palace of the castle, which took up about half of the entire inner castle area. The remaining inner courtyard was thus a maximum of 3 × 8 meters. On the ground floor, the residential building had narrow openings on the outer sides facing the outer bailey, which were either loopholes or narrow slits of light. The upper floor was lit by round-arched double windows, of which only the arched niches with wide side seats are left today. On the northwest wall, the granite capital has been preserved from a wall pillar . It is the remainder of a fireplace that was previously installed there.

literature

  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) (= The castles of Alsace. Architecture and history. Volume 2). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-422-06635-9 , pp. 238–241.
  • Walter Hotz: Handbook of the art monuments in Alsace and Lorraine. 3. Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-422-00345-2 , p. 79.
  • Wettolsheim. Château de Hagueneck. In: Roland Recht (Ed.): Le Guide des châteaux de France. Haut-Rhin . Hermé, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-86665-025-5 , pp. 162-165.
  • Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales d′Alsace. Dictionnaire d′histoire et d′architecture . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , p. 125.
  • Charles-Laurent Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace. Alsatia, Strasbourg 1991, ISBN 2-7032-0193-1 , pp. 127-129.

Web links

Commons : Burg Hageneck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual references / comments

  1. ^ Fritz Bouchholtz: Castles and palaces in Alsace. Based on old templates (= castles, palaces, mansions. Volume 24). Weidlich, Frankfurt a. M. 1962, p. 129.
  2. ↑ a b Entry of the castle ruins in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  3. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250). 2007, p. 240. Other publications date the system to around 1230 without giving any further reasons.
  4. ^ Wilhelm Wiegand: Document book of the city of Strasbourg. Volume 1. Trübner, Strasbourg 1879, No. 532 ( digitized in the Internet Archive ).
  5. ↑ a b Hageneck Castle near Wettolsheim ( memento from May 20, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), accessed on May 18, 2015.
  6. ↑ Annales Colmarienses minores et maiores, Annales Basileenses, Chronicon Colmariense . In: Georg Heinrich Pertz et al. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio). Volume 17: Annales aevi Suevici. Hannover 1861, p. 225 ( digital copy at MGH ).
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250). 2007, p. 238.
  8. ↑ Annales Colmarienses minores et maiores, Annales Basileenses, Chronicon Colmariense . In: Georg Heinrich Pertz et al. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio). Volume 17: Annales aevi Suevici. Hannover 1861, p. 230 ( digital copy at MGH ).
  9. ↑ a b The castle ruins on the website of the tourist office for Eguisheim and the surrounding area , accessed on July 5, 2019.
  10. ↑ a b c d C.-L. Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace. 1991, p. 129.
  11. ↑ a b Information on Hageneck Castle on chateaux-forts-de-france.fr ( Memento from July 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 18, 2015.
  12. ^ Jean-Marie Nick: Le Hagueneck , accessed May 18, 2015.
  13. ↑ Information according to the information about the castle ruins on montjoye.net , accessed on May 18, 2015. Based on an old publication from 1908, publications often still give the altitude of 420 meters.
  14. ↑ a b Information on the castle ruins on montjoye.net , accessed on May 18, 2015.
  15. ↑ a b c d T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250). 2007, p. 240.
  16. ^ A b Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages. Floor plan lexicon. Flechsig, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-88189-360-1 , p. 240.
  17. ↑ Wettolsheim. Château de Hagueneck. 1986, p. 164.