Roundabout
The roundabout is a round or rounded artillery structure of particular strength, the height of which corresponds to that of the adjacent wall . If the defense structure is significantly higher than the adjacent wall, it is called a battery tower .
The more massive construction of the roundabout compared to the tower made it possible to place heavy artillery . Both earth and masonry were used as building materials; in the latter case, vaulted rooms ( casemates ) could also be set up inside.
Rondels appeared in the 15th century when cannons gradually became an effective siege weapon. Roundels are the oldest permanent artillery structures. Its heyday was in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The town fortifications of Tábor before 1433 and the Sion Castle , which was rebuilt around 1426/27 - in any case before the siege in 1437 - offer early examples of artillery rondels. Other early Central European representatives can still be found today at Sigmundskron Castle near Bozen (from 1473), in Friedewald in Hesse (from 1476), in neighboring Herzberg (from 1477), on the Hohkönigsburg from 1479 (Fig. 1), on the Breuberg (around 1480 ), at the Moritzburg (Halle) in Halle a. d. Saale (from 1484), at Querfurt Castle , in Burghausen a. d. Salzach (around 1488), at Heidelberg Castle (around 1490/1500), or on the south-west rondel of Marburg Castle (still 1522–23) and in the shape of the Fulda rondel in front of Kassel Castle (1523). Eisenhardt Castle in Fläming has several rondels. Very early roundels can be found at the Rudelsburg (mid-15th century) in the Saale Valley, as well as at the Heldrungen moated castle in the Kyffhäuser Mountains. The fortress gate of the last-mentioned moated castle was also fortified with roundels during the Renaissance. Lost Rondelle were on Burg Grimmenstein , Mansfeld Castle , Burg Wendelstein (Memleben) and Plau .
Like the horseshoe-shaped bastion , the roundabout also has a so-called dead angle , which makes it vulnerable. In addition, there was only a few heavy guns on the upper level of the roundel. Also in the casemates of the roundabout one could only post a few cannons, because there they generated a strong, slowly withdrawing powder vapor. The roundabout basically represented a further development of late medieval defensive structures and was not able to cope with the fortress construction requirements of early modern artillery in the long term. The construction of particularly large and massive rondelles such as the Munot in Schaffhausen , which was built between 1563 and 1585 , did not represent a sufficient defense structure answer.
Due to these disadvantages, the roundabout was replaced in many places in the course of the 16th century by the acute-angled bastion with a pentagonal floor plan based on the Italian model . Despite the advantages of the angular bastion, various European fortresses were protected by roundels until well into the 17th century, which was partly due to the high costs of the fortress construction. In addition, knowledge of the bastion-type fortifications spread very slowly in some parts of Europe. Even decades after the invention of the corner bastion, roundabouts were erected, but now more often in combination with earthworks or stone-earth combinations (artillery walls) as a connecting main line of defense, which gave the facilities greater resistance to artillery fire.
Such more recent examples include the two roundabouts (and connecting artillery walls) on the west side of Heidelberg Castle (from approx. 1526), the expansion of the Celle city fortifications (around 1530) (not preserved), the six roundels in the small town of Palatinate on the Moselle (from 1532), the four artillery towers of Solothurn (from 1534), the three younger roundels of the Sparrenburg over Bielefeld (from 1535) and the roundels on the Württemberg state fortress Hohentwiel (from 1538). The imperial city of Nuremberg also built several more between 1527 and 1550 smaller roundabouts and between 1556 and 1559 the prominent four round towers at the main gates as cannon platforms, as well as the imperial city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber from 1572. The Kaisertrutz , a roundabout from 1490, was preserved from the fortress-like city of Görlitz . Some fortresses consisted entirely of merging rondels, for example Deal Castle on the English south coast, construction of which began in 1539. At the end of the 18th and 19th centuries, the rondel was increasingly used again due to the changed military technology .
At the Plassenburg Fortress in Kulmbach there are two “staggered” roundabouts, each of which has a high roundabout within a much larger, outer roundabout. These structures are among the largest preserved roundabouts in Germany. The inner and outer roundabouts each housed two tiers of guns, so that a staggered roundabout with four batteries could develop an enormous firepower. The fortress with its rondelles was used for military purposes until the Napoleonic Wars in 1806. The two roundabouts in the west of the fortress were rebuilt after the fortress was razed in 1554 after the Second Margrave War , although at that time the bastionary construction had already prevailed and the fortress received several bastions between 1557 and 1607.
Rondel fortresses
On the English coast in the 15th century several castle-like fortifications were built mainly from a central tower and several surrounding rondels, such as: Deal Castle (1539-40), Walmer Castle (1539-40) and the only small remains Sandown Castle (Kent) (around 1540). Deal Castle and Walmer Castle are well preserved / restored. Camber Castle (1542–43), now in ruins, is an identical construction . Because of their rare design, they were classified as particularly valuable cultural monuments. The master builder of the mentioned systems was the German military engineer Stephan von Haschenperg .
The so-called Donjon of the Polish fortress Silberberg is the nucleus of the later baroque fortress Silberberg, also an old (presumably late Gothic) round fortress.
In Germany several preserved castles and fortifications deserve the designation as "Rondellfestung", because they are / were primarily fortified with rondelles:
- Querfurt Castle , Saxony-Anhalt
- Sparrenburg , North Rhine-Westphalia
- Eisenhardt Castle , Brandenburg
- Plassenburg , Bavaria
- Bertholdsburg Castle , partially softened, Thuringia
- the art-historically significant, completely demolished Grimmenstein Castle , Thuringia
The no longer existing (because it was completely razed) fortress with the renaissance Grimmenstein Castle , built from 1526, was one of the oldest fortresses in Germany. At Castle Bertholdsburg are remains of Rondelle have received.
literature
- Daniel Burger : The state fortresses of the Hohenzollern in Franconia and Brandenburg. In: The Plassenburg. Series of publications for local history research and cultural maintenance in East Franconia. Kulmbach 2000.
- Stephan Hoppe : Artillery wall and bastion. German fortress construction of the Renaissance period in the field of tension between apparatus and media function. In: Jülich history sheets. Volume 74/75, 2006/2007, ISSN 0946-8749 , pp. 35-63.
- Michael Losse : Rondell. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme , Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (Hrsg.): Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses. Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1 , pp. 215-217, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.535 .
- Hartwig Neumann: Fortress construction art and technology. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0395-9 .
- Olaf Wagener, Thomas Kühtreiber : Tactics and Space. Vorwerke as elements of castle construction in the 15th and 16th centuries. In: The castle at the time of the Renaissance. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-422-07023-3 , pp. 111–126.