Altenbaumburg
| Altenbaumburg | ||
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 Altenbaumburg, view from the Treuenfels |
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| Creation time : | before 1253 | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, spur location | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Standing position : | Count | |
| Construction: | u. a. Humpback cuboid | |
| Place: | Altenbamberg | |
| Geographical location | 49 ° 47 '9.6 " N , 7 ° 50' 4.8" E | |
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The Altenbaumburg is the ruin of a spur castle on a ridge above the town of Altenbamberg in the Rhineland-Palatinate Alsenz valley . It is the ancestral castle of the Raugrafen and one of the largest castle ruins in the Palatinate . Originally in a strategically favorable position in the Alsenz valley, the complex lost its importance after its owners, the Raugrafen, died out in the 14th century.
history
There is no information about the exact time of its construction. The first document of the Altenbaumburg from 1129, commonly referred to as a forgery, is a forgery. Even a Count Emich von Baumburg, who has been known since 1154, cannot be used as evidence for the Altenbaumburg with absolute certainty, as his nickname could be derived from a castle or a settlement. Since even the division of the Raugrafen family into two different lines in 1214 does not provide any information in this regard, there is only recourse to a document from 1253, in which a "New Castle" is mentioned for the first time in the village of Sarlesheim, which has now disappeared. This complex was the Neuenbaumburg , now called Neubamberg, which makes it clear that there must have been an Altenbaumburg at the latest then.
In 1317 several owners can already be documented, which clearly indicates the financial difficulties of the count family. The privilege of the valley settlement with Oppenheim city rights and market rights by King Ludwig the Bavarian in 1320 did little to change their decline . Because of inheritance disputes within the family and financial problems, the Raugrafen felt compelled to grant the Count Palatine near Rhine and the Count of Sponheim the right to open from the middle of the 14th century . In 1366 individual buildings, in particular the entire middle castle, were pledged to the Count Palatine, who by 1457 managed to unite three quarters of the castle in their hands. The rest of the quarter came into the possession of the Pfalz-Simmern family at the same time . At the beginning of the 16th century, the Count Palatinate gave the castle as an inheritance from the Palatinate and Palatinate-Simmerian families to various noble families, who at times appointed their own officials .
Obviously, by the end of the 15th century, parts of Altenbaumburg were uninhabited and in decline. In 1482, Schweikard VIII von Sickingen was allowed to transport stones from there as building material for his new construction of the Ebernburg with the permission of the Palatine . Spanish and Swedish occupation troops lay in the remaining castle buildings during the Thirty Years' War in 1621 and 1631. In 1666 the castle was conquered by the Palatinate Elector Karl I. Ludwig in his campaign against Lorraine . A complete reconstruction or even the maintenance of the existing buildings no longer seems to have taken place, because in 1681 a written source named the castle only as a ruin . The buildings, which were certainly quite respectable at the time, were finally devastated by French troops in 1689. A thorough renovation took place from 1980 to 1986 .
architecture
The ruins of Altenbaumburg, measuring 200 by 40 meters, consist of three separate structures, the structural remains of which mostly date from the 14th and 15th centuries. The silhouette of the entire complex, which used to be characterized by only a few striking details, is now defined by a rebuilt residential building at the end of the mountain spur .
In the trapezoidal upper castle to the east, the shield wall with a former height of around 15 meters and a thickness of just over a meter has been preserved best . This wall, which probably dates from the first half of the 14th century, is bounded in the northeast by a slightly higher, three-quarter-round corner tower and in the southeast by an 18-meter-tall rectangular tower with remains of a toilet and a chimney shaft inside. A mound of rubble, under which the stump of the rectangular keep with humpback blocks from the early 13th century was exposed, now dominates the former castle courtyard. According to an engraving from before 1629, the tower may have been around 40 meters high, making it one of the most powerful of its kind. What is left is a four-meter-high section of the wall on the nine-meter-long north-west side in a humpback square design.
With a width of around 40 meters, the upper castle with its shield wall and the upstream neck ditch , which is now spanned by an iron bridge from the late 19th century, shielded the entire remaining part of the castle area from the mountain side. The middle and lower castle are steadily narrowing down to a width of 25 meters at the mountain top.
With an area of 20 by 30 meters, the central castle is the smallest of the three parts of the castle. It closes against the upper castle, flanked by a round tower, with a shield wall with a ditch in front of it, which today only rises to chest height above the courtyard level. The curtain wall crowns have been heavily restored . Apart from the gable wall of a two-story house, only a few spoils have survived, including profiled fireplace walls and window niches.
The Gothic lower castle reaches its greatest extent with a length of about 50 meters. On the foundation walls of a large building that was included in the curtain wall, a palas-like building was erected from 1981 to 1983 , which today houses the castle restaurant. In the course of this work, the former toilet shaft was redesigned into a standing bay and an octagonal stair tower , which was also not previously available, was placed in front of the freely supplemented courtyard wall . In the castle courtyard there is, in addition to the alleged castle chapel, which has not been specifically documented for this location, with a supplemented round arch and late Gothic vaults, there is also a cellar access and a well. Some column bases are used for decoration purposes in the dining room of the restaurant.
literature
- Alexander Thon (Ed.): "Like swallows' nests glued to the rock ...". Castles in the Northern Palatinate . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-1674-4 , pp. 16-21.
- Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich: Altenbaumburg castle ruins . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-1712-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ burgen-rlp.de accessed on September 17, 2016.