Alt-Wolfstein Castle
| Alt-Wolfstein Castle | ||
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 Alt-Wolfenstein from Castle New Wolfenstein seen from |
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| Alternative name (s): | Old castle | |
| Creation time : | around 1160/70 | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, hillside location | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Place: | Wolfstein | |
| Geographical location | 49 ° 35 '23.7 " N , 7 ° 36' 3.3" E | |
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The Alt-Wolfstein Castle , also known as the Old Castle , is the ruin of a hillside castle on the eastern slope of the Königsberg at the narrowest point of the Lauter Valley near Wolfstein in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate .
history
Probably built under Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa around 1160/70 to secure and manage the imperial estate around Kaiserslautern .
The castle is mentioned for the first time in 1275 as Woluistein . At that time the castle was occupied by Reich ministerials .
In the 14th century, the castle served as a pawn and came into the possession of the Counts of Sponheim and the Counts of Veldenz as an imperial pledge . Baldwin of Luxembourg tried several times unsuccessfully to take possession of the castle via an imperial pledge.
Repeated attacks by the castle garrison, which consisted of ministerial families from Sponheim, led to armed conflicts. In 1362 the Speyer bishop occupied the castle, in 1400 the archbishops of Mainz and Trier , the Duke of Lorraine and Count Palatine Ruprecht III besieged . the castle. As a result, Kurpfalz received a quarter of the castle.
In the 15th and 16th centuries the Electoral Palatinate and the Duchy of Zweibrücken fought over possession of the castle. The dispute ended in 1504 with its destruction by Elector Philipp von der Pfalz . After that, Alt-Wolfstein Castle was left to decay.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the castle ruins belonged to Bavaria and have been under the palace administration of Rhineland-Palatinate since 1963. This also ensured that the masonry was secured for the first time in the years 1979 to 1981 and 1985 to 1986. The remains of the castle ruins have a 20 m high keep .
investment
From the platform of the 20 m high, five-sided keep you have a very good view of the area. The brickwork of the small complex is a well-preserved example of Hochstaufer construction. Another feature of this design is the protruding tip of the attack side of the keep. To the north of the castle ruins, there are ruins of walls on a steep slope, which point to the former, lower-lying outer bailey. From 1961 to 1975 the remains of a castle house, a gate tower and a shaft well were uncovered.
Trivia
On the inner wall of the ruins of the keep you can see (on closer observation) at some height the handle and the beginning of a trowel . This tool is said to have been walled in by his work colleagues to commemorate a craftsman who fell during restoration work and who was killed in an accident. This trowel belonging to the casualty is said to be exactly at the height from which the man fell back then (the exact date - it must have been before 1970 - can no longer be precisely determined).
literature
- Jürgen Keddigkeit : Altenbolanden . In: Jürgen Keddigkeit, Alexander Thon, Karl Scherer, Rolf Übel (eds.): Palatinate Burgenlexikon . Volume 1. Institute for Palatinate History and Folklore, Kaiserslautern 2003, ISBN 3-927754-18-8 , ( Contributions to Palatinate History 12, 1), pp. 168–177.
- 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. 166-169.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elena Rey: Castle Guide Palatinate . ISBN 3-936216-15-0
- ^ Magnus Backes: State castles, palaces and antiquities in Rhineland-Palatinate . ISBN 3-7954-1566-7