Old Gronau Castle

Old Gronau Castle
Remains of the northern stone building ("royal house")
Creation time :	probably (8./) 9. century
Castle type :	Höhenburg in spur location
Conservation status:	ruin
Construction:	Stone building
Place:	Krofdorf-Gleiberg
Geographical location	50 ° 41 '33.4 "  N , 8 ° 39' 34.2"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 41 '33.4 "  N , 8 ° 39' 34.2"  E
Height:	206  m above sea level NHN

The old Gronauer Schloss , also called Gronauer Altes Schloss , is a castle ruin in the northern Krofdorfer Forest in the Krofdorf-Gleiberg district of the Wettenberg district in the district of Gießen in Central Hesse , located in the valley of the Salzböde near the village of Salzböden , a district of Lollar .

Information board with an explanation and location of the Gronau “castle” and batting field

location

The remnants of a spur castle , which is over a thousand years old, lie around 20 meters above the salt flats on a Grauwacken spur, the so-called "Schloßberg". At the northern foot of the slope below the castle - about where a bridge connects with the smelting mill on the other side of the valley - a ford crossed the river.

The Gronau old castle is located on an old road that crosses the valley of the salt flats at the height of today's smelting mill (in the picture)

At this point, an old road crosses the valley of the river that flows a few kilometers southeast into the Lahn . The road running immediately northwest of the castle is a branch of the " Weinstraße ". This section connects the Upper Hessian area in north-south direction, passing Marburg to the west, with the Wetterau and crosses the Lahn below Gießen at the "Wolfsfurt" of Selters (today desert ). At a height of one to two kilometers southwest of the Salzbödefurt, it crosses another old road that comes from Wetzlar in a west-east direction and takes up the Herborn "Rennweg" near the Dünsberg , which crosses the Lahn between the mouth of the Salzböde and Luma and branches off at Staufenberg to Amöneburg continues as " Lange Hessen ".

history

Not least because of its location near an important junction in the road network in the Middle Ages, the fortification was associated with the early development of the state in the Hessian region under Franconian rule. It has thus been viewed as a Carolingian street festival, which is believed to have been part of a system of fortified stations that served to secure important trade and military routes. With this assumption, the beginnings of the fortification are set around 720 and fall in the early Carolingian period under the Merovingian caretaker Karl Martell . The facility may have been expanded in connection with the early Saxon campaigns of Charlemagne from 772 onwards. Around the same time, the clearing of a forest area in the south of the fortification enclosed by a circular wall, which was used for agriculture, is assumed. Such a function as a stage station or protective castle for the long-distance routes that led past lost its importance with the construction of Gleiberg Castle ; therefore the fortification had been abandoned and fell into disrepair.

Above-ground foundation walls of a building with apse and tower

This interpretation goes back to archaeological investigations of the ground monument, which were carried out with interruptions between 1936 and 1950 by the Archaeological Institute of the German Empire (Berlin), later the Hessian State Office for Historical Regional Studies (Marburg). In addition to plan recordings and excavations on the site, the outlines of the excavated foundation walls of a building were reproduced above ground in 1949. This so-called royal house was for a long time the only known stone-built building in the complex. It had a semicircular extension ( apse ) to the east and a rectangular tower ( keep ) to the south .

It was only during more recent archaeological measures in 2015 and 2016 that stone and mortar foundations of a previously unknown hall-like building with plaster residues were found. The elaborate construction and the prominent location in the south-western, higher area within the fortification suggest a prominent importance. According to a C14 analysis of animal bone finds, these excavation findings are provisionally dated to the first half of the 10th century. On this basis, the Konradines come into question as builders , who had dominion in Lahngau and Hessengau and with Konrad I temporarily (911-918) provided the king of the East Franconian Empire .

investment

The former castle complex can still be clearly recognized in the area by the ramparts with remains of the defensive wall and the ditch in front of it, as well as stone rubble as traces of the interior development. The circular wall encompasses an elongated area of ​​around 1.6 hectares sloping to the northeast, set off on the mountain side by a ditch ( neck ditch ). Little has been preserved of the interior buildings above ground. The floor plans of a building in the north with a rectangular tower and semicircular apse are subsequent reconstructions of the remains below. In the higher, southern part, the remains of the wall of another building were uncovered, the walls of which were made of mortar-plastered quarry stone and plastered white on the inside.

The battingsfeld , which belongs in a broader sense , still exists today as an agricultural clearing island south of the facility.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} M. Gottwald; V. Hess, C. Röder: "Gronauer Old Castle" in the Krofdorfer Forest. New archaeological findings 80 years after the first investigations. In: Communications of the Upper Hessian History Association. Number 101 (2016), pp. 438–442. PDF
2. ↑ See description and pictures of excavations of the “Gronauer Altes Schloss” fortification in Kultur.Landschaft.Digital. Retrieved June 18, 2020.

literature

• Willi Görich: Hessian yearbook for national history. Volume 1 . Marburg, pp. 25-41.
• Jürgen Leib, Harald Uhlig: Gießener Geographical Excursion Guide. Volume II . Pp. 185-204.
• Jürgen Leib: Krofdorf-Gleiberg between tradition and progress. Home book for the 1200th anniversary of the community of Krofdorf-Gleiberg . Giessen 1974.
• Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 239.

Web links

Commons : Gronauer Schloß  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files