Alexander Tower (Mainz)

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The Mainz Alexander Tower

The Alexander Tower in Mainz is a late medieval city ​​tower from the 15th century . The Alexander Tower stands on the foundation of a round tower of the Roman city wall from the 4th century. Together with the wooden tower and the iron tower , it is one of the three city towers of the Mainz city wall that still exist today. Today the Alexander Tower is located on the private grounds of the Kupferberg Sektkellerei on Kästrich in Mainz and is not open to the public.

The Mainz city fortifications

As the provincial capital of Mogontiacum, Mainz had its own city fortifications with walls, towers and city gates since late Roman times . Shortly before the fall of the Limes in 259/260, the first wall was built around the city. Not long after 350 the city wall of the late antique Mogontiacum was significantly shortened in the course of the abandonment of the legionary camp and expanded and reinforced using older building materials ( Spolia ). The Roman predecessor of the Alexander Tower was also built in this construction phase. The Alexander Tower stood at the northwest corner of the enclosed urban area, from here the city wall turned back towards the Rhine. After the Romans withdrew, repair work was carried out on the Roman city wall , especially in the Merovingian and Carolingian times. The city wall, referred to as “Roman-Carolingian” in Mainz city archeology, was created.

The continuity of the early medieval city fortifications was drastically interrupted in 1160. After Mainz citizens after prolonged argument with her Archbishop Arnold of Selenhofen (and the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa ) killed them, imposed Emperor Frederick I in 1163 as a punishment the imperial ban over the city. Its city wall including the city towers was razed (according to some historians, however, this was limited to the destruction of the gate towers).

Since the city of Mainz was an important political and strategic ally in the battle of the Hohenstaufen against the Guelphs for supremacy in Germany, permission to rebuild a city fortification was granted as early as 1190/1200.

Middle Ages and Modern Times

Like the Roman city wall, the previous Roman tower was repeatedly renewed and repaired. In the form preserved today, the Alexander Tower was built in the 15th century. In the Middle Ages it was called the "Round Windmill Tower", in the 18th and 19th centuries it was also called the "Powder Tower" because it was used to store powder from the Mainz garrison . The name in use today, the Alexander Tower, arose after 1860 when the Alexander barracks was built in the direct vicinity of the Alexanderschanze. At the end of the 19th century, the Alexander Tower was used as a water tower and is described as roofless at the end of the 1920s.

Today the Alexander Tower is in the park of the Kupferberg Sektkellerei on the Mainzer Kästrich and is not freely accessible.

Architectural style and construction phases

The Alexander Tower is a circular walled tower with a pointed roof . The round construction was probably taken over from the construction of such city towers that occurred in Roman times, which was then carried over to the construction phases that followed the Roman tower. Due to its construction and the largely unadorned, the Alexander Tower stands out from the square wooden and iron tower that was built much later. Due to its use as a medieval watchtower, halfway up it has a door broken into the masonry and small, loopholes-like openings.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ by Heinrich Wohte: Mainz - A Heimatbuch . Mainz 1928

literature

Web links