Old Battenberg Castle

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Battenberg Castle
The city of Battenberg;  on the right inside the city wall, Battenberg Castle;  on the left on the mountain cone the cellar castle [1]

The city of Battenberg; on the right inside the city wall, Battenberg Castle; the cellar castle on the left on the mountain cone

Alternative name (s): Battenburg, old castle
Creation time : Early middle ages
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: ruin
Standing position : Count
Place: Battenberg
Geographical location 51 ° 1 '7.3 "  N , 8 ° 38' 44.2"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 1 '7.3 "  N , 8 ° 38' 44.2"  E
Height: 355  m above sea level NHN
Old Castle Battenberg (Hesse)
Old Battenberg Castle

The Battenberg Castle , also known as Battenburg and from 1732 as an old castle called, was an early medieval Spur castle on the northern edge of the old town of Battenberg in northern Hesse Waldeck-Frankenberg .

Geographical location

The castle was located 355 m above sea level on a north-eastern spur of the Kellerberg , the Battenberger Burgberg, above the valley of the Eder flowing north-east about 500 m away . In the immediate south of the castle, which has almost completely disappeared, there has been the so-called Neuburg since 1732 , sometimes also referred to as Battenberg Castle , in which the city ​​administration has been based since 1971 .

Current condition

The former area of ​​the old castle is built over with today's evangelical parish and parish house ( Hauptstrasse 65 ) and its ancillary facilities. Today only a cellar vault of the former outer bailey is preserved, and part of the quarry stone ring wall of the old castle still delimits the courtyard of the Neuburg on its north side.

history

The castle was probably built in the 11th century, possibly including parts of a predecessor complex from the Carolingian era, which was probably the seat of the counts or administrators appointed by the king. The construction of a tower and a circular wall around the oval castle complex with the basement, three-story manor house and several farm buildings are only documented for 1386. Towards the Kellerberg there was a deep and wide neck ditch , which was probably filled in as early as the 18th century to make space for a school building, and towards the city a shield wall around 10 meters high and more than two meters thick gave protection. whose only gate was surmounted by a high gate tower. The builders were presumably the Gisonen , who penetrated here from Hollende Castle about 12 km further south in the weather . The castle was first mentioned in 1214 when the Counts of Wittgenstein took possession of the neighboring small county of Battenberg. It is unclear whether it was Werner I. von Wittgenstein (* around 1150; † before 1215) or his son Werner II von Battenberg . The new lords began building the cellar castle on the 464 m high Burgberg (Kellerberg) above Battenberg, and Widekind I (Widukind) , who was mentioned for the first time in 1227 when they were entrusted to the Ludowingen Landgrave Heinrich Raspe IV reigned, moved his residence from the old castle on the high valley edge to the much larger cellar castle.

As early as 1238, Widekinds I sold sons Werner III. , Siegfried I. and Widekind II. Half of the county of Wittgenstein and Battenberg - and thus also half of Battenberg Castle - to the Archbishop of Mainz Siegfried III. and the old castle then became the official seat of a Mainz administrator.

In the same year, the brothers shared the remaining paternal inheritance, whereby Siegfried I received the (remaining half) of the County of Wittgenstein and Widukind II. The remaining half of the County of Battenberg, while Werner III. entered the Teutonic Order . From 1286 at the latest, Widukind II involved his son Hermann II in the government of the County of Battenberg, and in the summer of 1291 he handed over the rule to his son due to age. This had already in 1282 in a feud hit on the Landgrave's side, Archbishop Gerhard II. Took the occasion to force him to sell one half of the already greatly reduced in 1238 County Battenberg in 1291. In 1296 Hermann II also sold the rest of his county to Mainz and the area was now administered as the Mainzisches Amt Battenberg , with the old castle as the official seat. From the middle of the 14th century, however, the office was almost always pledged to third parties, including the Counts of Nassau and von Waldeck , the Lords of Lißberg , von Dersch , Schutzbar called Milchling and von Biedenfeld .

Also when the office of Battenberg in 1464 by Archbishop Adolf II for 30,000 guilders to the Landgrave Heinrich III. was pledged by Upper Hesse , the old castle remained an office building; however, Heinrich III. first redeem the Battenberg and Kellerburg castles, which have since been pledged to the Counts of Waldeck, for 22,000 guilders.

With the Merlau Treaty in September 1583, Kurmainz finally renounced the entire Battenberg pledge that came to Hesse-Marburg , and in 1590 Ludwig IV of Hesse-Marburg bought the old castle from the family of the former rent masters Hans / Johannes Grebe and Ludwig Grebe , Mainz pledge holder. After Landgrave Ludwig IV's death in 1604, the old castle with the Battenberg office first came to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel , then in 1624 to the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt . Until the construction of a new office building (today: Hofstatt 5) in 1678, the old castle remained the seat of the local bailiff or rentmaster. After that, the castle and its outbuildings continued to be used by the landgrave's administration and as the castle pastor's apartment, but they increasingly fell into disrepair due to neglect.

Even the new office building was soon not comfortable enough for the landgraves during their hunting stays, so in 1732 a new hunting lodge , the so-called Neuburg , was built immediately southwest of the old castle above the slope to the Eder. In order to make room for the new building, the former castle mansion of the Lords of Dersch was probably demolished. The castle's three-story mansion was demolished around 1740 and replaced by a smaller half-timbered building. The remaining buildings of the old castle then served only as farm and auxiliary buildings of the Neuburg. In 1774 they were rented out and in 1779 these buildings, which had since become dilapidated, were sold to the Protestant parish of Battenberg and demolished. A new rectory was built on the foundations of the former castle in 1780, which then gave way to today's rectory and parish house complex between 1967 and 1973.

literature

  • Jens Friedhoff : Castles, palaces and aristocratic residences in the Hessian hinterland. (Contributions to the history of the hinterland, Volume 12) Hinterländer Geschichtsverein, Biedenkopf, 2018, ISBN 3-0005-9480-9 , pp. 84–88
  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval Castles in Hessen , 2nd edition, Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1995, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 140

Web links

Footnotes

  1. Excerpt from the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian, 1655
  2. ^ Matthias Seim: Historical guide through the Battenberger Oberstadt (Battenberg History Association)
  3. Keuscher: Die Burgen Battenberg and Kellerberg , in: Ludwig Baur (Hrsg.): Archive for Hessian History and Archeology, Seventh Volume (Third Issue) , Historical Association for the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Darmstadt, 1853, pp. 559-566 (here Pp. 559–561 )
  4. Widekind I and his brother Hermann I became landgraves of Marburg when the cellar castle was entrusted .
  5. ^ Johann Ernst Christian Schmidt : History of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, first volume, Heyer, Gießen 1818, p. 252
  6. Keuscher: Die Burgen Battenberg and Kellerberg , in: Ludwig Baur (Hrsg.): Archive for Hessian History and Archeology , Seventh Volume (Third Issue), Historical Association for the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Darmstadt, 1853, pp. 559-566 (here 561)
  7. ^ Castle seat of Dersch in Battenberg, community Battenberg (Eder). Castles, palaces, mansions (as of October 1, 2018). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on March 2, 2019 .