Aufhofen (Bruneck)
Aufhofen ( Italian : Villa Santa Caterina ) is the smallest fraction of the municipality of Bruneck at the transition from the Tauferer Tal to the Pustertal in South Tyrol ( Italy ). The village is very sunny below the Aufhofner Kofel on the northern slope of the Bruneck valley basin.
history
Early days
The climatically favorable and particularly protected location suggests that people lived in small settlements on the slope in prehistoric times. An important archaeological find for the settlement history of the area around Aufhofen was made in 2001. Vet Hans Mair found a flint blade while working in the garden below the church. The material of the extensively retouched sickle blade is beige-colored, probably southern alpine flint . The breaking edges of this particularly hard rock are razor sharp. This rock was therefore a frequently used material for the manufacture of tools in the Paleolithic Age. The sickle blade is a concrete reference to a Bronze Age management of the alluvial cone on which Aufhofen rests, and supports the assumption that the town center is located above a settlement from the Bronze Age.
middle Ages
The village of Aufhofen is mentioned for the first time in a document that goes back to the Duke Heinrich of Carinthia and can be dated between 985 and 989. With this deed of donation, the Duke gave Bishop Albuin von Brixen, among other things, a so-called Hube , a farmyard, in Aufhofen. This Hube became the administrative seat of the episcopal bailiff for the extensive episcopal possessions in the Pustertal. Many documents, especially from the 11th and 12th centuries, testify to the lively administrative activity of the episcopal officials. The episcopal administration built several fish breeding ponds between Aufhofen and Dietenheim, which were subordinate to the episcopal kitchen manager. One of his tasks was to deliver fresh fish to the kitchen in Bressanone every Friday. In the fields towards St. Georgen there is still the alluvial fishing pond, where carp frolic.
A marble slab, on the surface of which the hand sign of Emperor Heinrich II. (1014-1024) - the so-called monogram - is carved, was found in an open field near the village in 1830. Today it is kept in the Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck .
In the summer, the bishops enjoyed spending time with their staff in the sunny village. The Hartmannsbrunnen, located at the back of the church, still bears witness to the stay of Blessed Bishop Hartmann (1140–1164). The medieval vernacular asserted, and it was also reported until around 1592, that healing water gushed out of the St. Hartmannsbrunnen. A mass dress, now kept in the Diocesan Museum Bressanone , also suggests visits by Bishop Hartmann. On October 29, 1182, Bishop Heinrich von Brixen and Bishop Otto von Bamberg and his brother Berthold , the Margrave of Istria, stayed in the village with a retinue of 70 aristocrats to settle a dispute over the Plaiken estate.
In 1091 Emperor Heinrich IV enfeoffed Bishop Altwin , who was faithful to him, with the county in the Pustertal (then: Pustrissa), which stretched from the Mühlbacher Klause to the Gsieser Bach. The Bishop of Brixen, who already owned several valleys in the "Land in the Mountains", also became sovereign in his own diocese. Evidence of this donation is probably a stone with the monogram of Emperor Heinrich IV. This was found in 1834 near Lercherbachl between the villages of Aufhofen and Dietenheim and is now on the village square (the original in the Ferdinandeum Museum in Innsbruck). The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire repeatedly made donations to the bishops of Brixen and Trento. They achieved that the arduous Alpine crossing, strategically important for their trips to Rome, was protected by loyal followers.
When Prince-Bishop Bruno Graf von Kirchberg (1248 to 1288) built Bruneck Castle , the episcopal bailiff moved to the newly founded and secure city around 1270. Aufhofen lost its importance as a local administrative center for the episcopal estates. The following aristocratic residences still bear witness to the former importance of the village: Schloss Aufhofen (settlement), former seat of the episcopal bailiff, at the same time the episcopal kitchens, Ansitz Steinburg (Söllhaus) and Ansitz Moorenfeld (today's rectory). The noble families von Aufhofen, von Rost, von Söll, etc. lived in the village
church
The church in Aufhofen is very old; a renewal around 1360 is documented. The basic structure that exists today goes back to reconstruction work in 1425. After this work, the church was consecrated by Cardinal Nikolaus Cusanus in honor of Saint Catherine of Alexandria . Saint Catherine is the patroness of scholarship, who died a martyr's death by beheading around the year 310. The Roman Emperor Maxentius had asked the devout Katharina to make sacrifices to idols; Katharina refused and insisted on proving her right and her better arguments in a discussion. The emperor invited the 50 best philosophers, but all of them had to lay down their arms against Katharina's clever reasoning and were baptized themselves. This angered the emperor so much that he burned all of his philosophers, but had Catherine stoned and beheaded.
Web links
Coordinates: 46 ° 49 ' N , 11 ° 57' E