Altwildenstein Castle
| Altwildenstein Castle | ||
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 Photo 1: Rock head with the ruins of the former castle |
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| Creation time : | 12th Century | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, spur location | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Standing position : | Free nobles | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone, small cuboid and humpback cuboid masonry | |
| Place: | Leibertingen | |
| Geographical location | 48 ° 3 '22.2 " N , 8 ° 59' 57.4" E | |
| Height: | 780 m above sea level NN | |
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The Altwildenstein Castle , also called Vorderwilderstein , is the high mediaeval ruin of a spur castle of free aristocratic assignment north of the community of Leibertingen in the district of Sigmaringen in Baden-Württemberg , Germany . This castle belongs to a group of castles that, in addition to Altwildenstein Castle, consists of Unterwildenstein , Hexenturm , Hahnenkamm and the main castle Wildenstein .
Geographical location
The Altwildenstein castle complex is about 100 meters away in a northerly direction below Wildenstein Castle at about 780 m above sea level. NN sea level and consequently 30 meters lower than the fortress Wildenstein ( 810 m above sea level ). The castle site is located on a rock needle at the end of a rock spur that slopes down to the valley of the Danube ( 608 m above sea level ) .
history
Altwildenstein Castle could have been the former ancestral castle of the noble free von Wildenstein, but there is also the vague possibility that it was a Vorwerk of the Wildenstein Fortress.
Written messages that could provide information about the construction period are not known. The beginnings of the castle are dated to the 12th century according to the evaluation of ceramic finds, possibly even to the first half of this century.
Two brothers from the surrounding area are considered to be the founders of the storm-free castles on the steep cliffs, who were first mentioned between 1168 and 1174 as Lords of Wildenstein in documents from the Salem monastery .
Humpback ashlar masonry on the former residential tower of the complex suggests that the castle was renovated during the 13th century. In the same century, a new Wildenstein Castle was built not far from Alt- and Unterwildenstein. In 1263, Altwildenstein Castle, as well as the entire rest of the Wildenstein estates, passed to Anselm IV von Justingen through marriage with an heir daughter .
Shortly afterwards, Altwildenstein was given up as a place of residence, the lack of older readings suggests that the castle ended around 1300, possibly a little earlier.
description
The place of the rather small and formerly two-part castle is on a ten meter high rock head (picture 1) at the end of a spur that extends to the northwest (picture 2). A trough-shaped neck ditch located directly in front of this rock separated the castle area from the spur that rose to the Wildenstein Fortress.
Access was via a narrow ledge on the western edge of the rock head and led to a north-west terrace on the valley-side and vertically sloping end of the spur. This terrace was probably the location of a fore or lower castle that accommodated the farm buildings and a small forecourt. Only a few remains of the lining wall on the north-western slope of the lower castle (Fig. 4 and 5), as well as another carefully bricked-up remnant of a wall covered with small cuboids in the sloping area of the forecourt (Fig. 6) are preserved. However, these remains of the wall cannot be assigned to a specific building. At the northeastern end of the lower castle, a girder bearing carved out of the rock can also be detected on the rock of the core castle.
The main castle is located on an angular rock head that surrounded the lower castle in the manner of a natural shield wall on the south and east sides. The ascent was probably via a wide rock channel that rises from the presumed forecourt. Since the rock head with about 18 × 9 meters only offers a small buildable area, this part of the castle consisted only of a main residential building, probably a residential tower .
This angled or rectangular tower with an annex on the southwestern part was about 14 meters long and eight meters wide. Some remains of the wall, including some with humpback blocks, have been preserved from him. At the south-eastern corner of the building, a larger, approximately two-meter-high remains of the wall can be seen, which consists of quarry stone masonry with seven layers of corner cuboids, including a single, preserved corner cube (Fig. 3 and 7). This corner hump block shows only a hump to the south, towards the rising spur. It is possible that a new wall shell consisting of cuboids and humpback cuboids was placed in front of an older brickwork (Fig. 8).
Furthermore, on the east side of the main castle, a piece of lining wall about 4 meters high and eight meters long has been preserved, which consists of rough quarry stones in a barely indicated layering (Fig. 9). Another remnant of the wall can be seen on the valley side on the northwest corner of the residential tower; it consists of three layers with larger hump blocks with flat humps and about four centimeters wide edge flaps (Figs. 10 and 11).
A flat, elongated hollow in the area of the residential tower indicates a cellar, but possibly also a cistern , as indicated by mortar residues with brick dust in the rubble below. By adding brick dust, watertight masonry is made possible. Remains of roof tiles , however, cannot be detected in the entire area of the system.
photos
Photo 4: Remnants of the lining wall on the western rock tip of the lower castle
Photo 5: Remnants of the south-western lining wall of the lower castle
Image 6: Small ashlar wall in the rising area of the castle courtyard
Photo 7: South-east side of the castle rock
Photo 8: Stone cuboid in the southeast corner
Photo 9: Remnants of the lining wall from the foundation of the residential building on the eastern edge of the inner castle
Photo 10: Building corner of the residential tower on the north-west steeply sloping castle rock
Image 11: Larger humpback blocks in the north-western corner of the building
literature
- Christoph Bizer: Surface finds of castles in the Swabian Alb - A contribution to ceramic and castle research . Published by the regional council Stuttgart - State Office for Monument Preservation, Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-8062-2038-7 , pp. 367–371.
- Günter Schmitt : Altwildenstein and Unterwildenstein . In: Ders .: Burgenführer Schwäbische Alb. Volume 3: Danube Valley. Hiking and discovering between Sigmaringen and Tuttlingen . Pp. 201-206. Biberach publishing house printing. Biberach 1990. ISBN 3-924489-50-5 , pp. 201-206.
- Christoph Bizer, Rolf Götz: Forgotten castles of the Swabian Alb . DRW-Verlag, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-87181-244-7 , pp. 113-114.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Source history: Christoph Bizer: Surface finds from castles in the Swabian Alb - A contribution to ceramic and castle research , p. 371