Old Town (Prichsenstadt)
The medieval old town of the Lower Franconian Prichsenstadt is a historical settlement core of the city. Today it is synonymous with the Prichsenstadt old town ensemble , which was placed under protection as a building and ground monument in the 14th century walling .
Geographical location
Prichsenstadt is located in the Steigerwald foreland of Neuses , which mediates with its small hills between the Main and Steigerwald . The old town itself can be found in a flat valley . The landscape is very rural and the location of the city of Prichsenstadt without a connection to an important old road suggests the individual support of the settlement by the authorities. Even today, the old town has hardly been built. Only in the west and south-west are the new development areas around Hindenburgstrasse and the Prichsenstädter Friedhof. The state road 2260 passes at the Old Town of Prichsenstadt.
The Prichsenstadt old town has a structural dichotomy, which is also made clear by the walling. The older part of the city can be found in the east ("inner city"). The stately buildings such as the church and Freihof are also located here. The actual settlement in the west, sometimes referred to as "suburb", was only later walled, which is illustrated by the city tower in today's center of Prichsenstadt. The old town ensemble includes the city within its fortifications and also the pond belt in the north and south, which supplied the city moat with water.
history
Briesendorf
The history of the old town of Prichsenstadt is closely connected with the House of Luxembourg , which tried to expand its dominion in the late Middle Ages . "Briesendorf" was first mentioned as a village in 1258. The settlement probably comprised a few houses in what is now the western part of the city and a church further to the east. A fortified residence was probably to be found next to it, which was given to various ministerials by the Counts of Castell .
The village was upgraded by King Charles IV of the Luxembourg family, who acquired the settlement in 1366. Karl wanted to connect the two centers of his rule in what is now Luxembourg and Bohemia and therefore set up a kind of land bridge that also led through Main Franconia. Briesendorf was within reach of the escort road between Nuremberg and Frankfurt and Karl was able to monitor the important long-distance traffic route with the small castle in the village. However, the proximity to the imperial city of Schweinfurt was also decisive for the funding .
Promotion and urban elevation
In 1367 Prichsenstadt was granted city rights . In the following years and decades, fortifications were built around the town hall and the churchyard. The castle was transformed into an official seat and Prichsenstadt acquired a central character thanks to the administrative district. The older part of the settlement with the residential development initially remained outside the walls and developed into a suburb. Only when a hospital was founded was this part of the fortifications included.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the burgraves of Nuremberg came into the possession of Prichsenstadt. However, the city was in the middle of the territory of the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg , who could not accept an enclave of the later Margraves of Ansbach here. Therefore, Prichsenstadt was besieged and conquered in 1462 and the fortifications largely razed. At the same time, the Würzburg troops looted the neighboring Kleinschönbach , which could never recover from this attack.
The fortifications were subsequently rebuilt according to the old floor plan. The residents of Kleinschönbach strengthened the population of Prichsenstadt and settled in the western city. The former suburb was reserved for agricultural businesses, which was reflected in the design of the buildings as well as in the less pronounced forms of city fortifications. So there were no towers here . The people of Kleinschönbach wanted to continue cultivating their fields from their new place of residence.
The city no longer changed its basic shape comprehensively. The main street, which was also used as a street market, was paved as early as the 16th century. During the Thirty Years' War , the city, which had become Lutheran in the meantime, suffered particularly from the constant passage of imperial soldiers. The reconstruction after 1648 also made slow progress and took a total of over a hundred years.
Decline and tourism
In the Thirty Years' War new types of artillery appeared, for which the medieval fortifications no longer presented an obstacle. That is why the safety systems lost their importance in the course of the 17th century and were neglected. However, the location of the Protestant city in the middle of the Catholic area still made it necessary to secure it, so that the city fortifications have largely been preserved today.
The gradual loss of importance of Prichsenstadt also contributed to this, reaching a climax at the beginning of the 19th century with the mediatization and relocation of all central local institutions, especially to neighboring Wiesentheid . During this time, the city did not grow beyond the wall. Only opposite the cemetery , which had been moved out of the city in the 16th century, were individual buildings built.
Similar to the other towns in the area, the moat lost its importance in the course of the 19th century. It was drained, measured and finally distributed to the residents of Prichsenstadt. The so-called moat gardens were created here, some of which are still preserved today. In contrast to the more rapidly growing municipalities in the surrounding area, large parts of the Graben lakes, especially in the north of the city, have been preserved, including the Breite See.
The Jewish community established a synagogue in the eastern part of the old town in 1835 . The Jews had lived in Prichsenstadt since the 14th century, but it was not until the 19th century that they succeeded in acquiring civil rights. In 1933 the community still consisted of 53 members, most of whom were murdered during the National Socialist dictatorship. At times, a so-called Jewish house was set up in the Freihof.
In the 20th century, the municipality promoted tourism in the old town , but decided not to sell out Prichsenstadt for tourists. The old town remained largely free-standing and was not enclosed by the new building areas now emerging in the west. That is why the historical structures of the " dwarf city " Prichsenstadt are still easy to read. In the 20th century, the originally unnamed streets were given their current names. In the 21st century, the laying of stumbling blocks began to commemorate the murdered fellow citizens of the Jewish faith.
Streets and squares
The old town of Prichsenstadt is formed by several streets running in an east-west direction. The backbone of the complex is the former Markt-Strasse, which only got its current name in the 20th century (previously the city area comprised 134 house numbers). It runs in the western part of the city as Luitpoldstrasse. In the eastern part, separated by the towering city tower, it forms a narrow square that was named after the city's founder, Charles IV. Further to the east, the street was named Schulinstraße, which refers to the Danish Foreign Minister Johann Sigismund Schulin from Prichsenstadt . It was still called Hauptstrasse in the 1990s. The following streets form the old town of Prichsenstadt today:
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(West)
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(East)
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"Downtown"
The most important street and street market at the same time were Karlsplatz, which had not been named for a long time, and its extension, Schulinstraße. The street begins on the east side of the high city tower that separates the former suburb from the inner city. The town hall, which was built backwards and was rebuilt on this site after the Thirty Years War, can still be found on Karlsplatz . The public scales were to be found next to the town hall .
The more important administrative buildings are grouped around the town hall. This created directly on Karlsplatz the house of the town clerk, was behind the armory as a municipal armory to find. Along the Schulinstrasse, there were important commercial enterprises that set the city apart from its rural surroundings. Also inns and inns were built here . The Zum Stern inn in the former house No. 14 can be considered an important facility of this type.
The north of the inner city formed the original cell of the new city. Larger plots of land developed here that could accommodate agricultural operations. The district got its present appearance in the 18th century. The castle lost its official residence and was eventually torn down completely. In the period that followed, the citizens also built the former moat and the area of the abandoned fortifications. In the south of the city, however, the public bath house was to be found.
"Suburb"
The suburb was inhabited by the former Kleinschönbach farmers and dominated by today's Luitpoldstrasse, which ends on the west side of the city tower. After the Reformation , several exiles from the Hochstiftisches Amt Gerolzhofen came here. The plots were smaller and the houses less representative than on the east side. As the population grew, the parcels were divided again, and in particular the commercial buildings along the main street did not have attached courtyards and barns.
The northern area of the suburb was dominated by the St. Sixt Spitalhof. The hospital goes back to a bourgeois foundation in the 15th century and was intended to provide shelter and accommodation for strangers in the city. The hospital was later converted into a beneficiary foundation for old Prichsenstadt citizens. The hospital was originally equipped with a chapel , which, however, was demolished during the Reformation.
Important architectural monuments
In the old town of Prichsenstadt, houses from all centuries have been preserved since the Middle Ages . Prichsenstadt was often used as an example in the specialist literature when it came to training typical Franconian house types. In addition, however, the stately buildings and the facilities of the civic community also dominate the city. These representative buildings can mainly be found in the inner city. Many buildings have been classified as architectural monuments .
The Evangelical Lutheran town church of St. Sixtus can be regarded as an important architectural monument in the town . Although it was mentioned for the first time in the 14th century, its current appearance goes back to the transformation into a hall church after the Reformation. For a long time, the tower of the church, which adjoins the former walling in the city center, also served as a lookout point. Inside, the unit of altar and organ was used to add many elements of the margrave style . → see also: Evangelical Church (Prichsenstadt)
The last remnant of the stately castle in Prichsenstadt is the so-called Freihof in the northeast of the settlement. Probably the oldest house in the city was the building yard of the castle, in which building materials for the castle renovation were collected. The Freihof presents itself as a representative two-story saddle roof building with a stepped gable. The portal and the adjacent courtyard entrance in the Schloßgasse were embossed and decorated with a coat of arms of the Margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach. → see also: Freihof (Prichsenstadt)
The town hall of the municipality is much less spectacular. It was built in the 1680s and differs from most other buildings in the inner city only in its three storeys high. It was built as a gable-independent gable roof set back from Karlsplatz. The upper floors were equipped with decorative trusses . In the 20th century, the town hall received a modern extension that fits harmoniously into the grown city.
Further, bourgeois buildings line up in particular on the main streets of the inner city and its suburbs. A particularly impressive Renaissance building with gables and a representative portal can be found at Luitpoldstrasse 12 . This house was decorated with an arcade on the courtyard side . The mighty half-timbered buildings , which can be found, for example, in Luitpoldstrasse 16, Schulinstrasse 7 and 19, and at Karlsplatz 12, are more common. → see also: Luitpoldstraße 12 (Prichsenstadt) , Luitpoldstraße 16 (Prichsenstadt) , Schulinstraße 7 (Prichsenstadt) and Schulinstraße 19 (Prichsenstadt)
The Prichsenstadt old town ensemble is surrounded by the largely preserved city fortifications. The only representative element in the former suburb is the so-called upper or western suburb gate. The ogival passage is flanked by two round towers with pointed helmets . The city tower, on the other hand, forms the center of the inner fortification. In the 18th century, the builder Johann David Steingruber added one storey to it.
literature
- Reinhard Gutbier: The community center in eastern Lower Franconia (= The German community center XXXVI) . Tübingen 1995.
- Hans-Eckhard Lindemann: Historic town centers in Main Franconia. History - structure - development . Munich 1989.
- City administration Prichsenstadt (Ed.): Prichsenstadt. Festschrift on the occasion of the city's 600th anniversary 1367-1967 . Gerolzhofen 1967.
- Gerhard Wöppel: Prichsenstadt. Development and culture of a small town in Franconia . Wuerzburg 1968.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Lindemann, Hans-Eckhard: Historic town centers in Mainfranken . P. 58.
- ^ Lindemann, Hans-Eckhard: Historic town centers in Mainfranken . P. 58 f.
- ↑ City administration Prichsenstadt (ed.): Prichsenstadt . P. 33.
- ↑ City administration Prichsenstadt (ed.): Prichsenstadt . P. 41.
- ^ Gutbier, Reinhard: The community center in eastern Lower Franconia . Pp. 147-160.
Coordinates: 49 ° 49 ′ 3.3 ″ N , 10 ° 21 ′ 10.2 ″ E