Alzenau Castle

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Alzenau Castle
Palas, defensive wall and office buildings

Palas, defensive wall and office buildings

Creation time : Between 1395 and 1399
Castle type : Höhenburg, outskirts
Conservation status: restored
Place: Alzenau
Geographical location 50 ° 5 '15 "  N , 9 ° 4' 27"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 5 '15 "  N , 9 ° 4' 27"  E
Alzenau Castle (Bavaria)
Alzenau Castle

The Castle Alzenau is located right in the center of Alzenau on a rock above the town square.

Building history

Older structure and stepped gable of the outer castle
Courthouse

Alzenau Castle was built in the late Gothic style from 1395 to 1399 by the Archbishops of Mainz and served the Electors of Mainz as the official and administrative seat. The construction time falls during the tenure of Archbishops Konrad II von Weinsberg and Johann II von Nassau . The settlement below the castle was granted town and market rights by King Ruprecht of the Palatinate in 1401 , but they could not realize them. From 1400 to 1500 the castle was repeatedly used as a pawn to pay for warfare and defense during feuding times.

Independently of the castle, there was already a much older settlement on the other side of the river called Wilmundsheim , which is mentioned in a royal deed in 950 and in the Seligenstadt interest register dating from around 1000 and appears as the capital of the Freigericht from the 12th century .

In 1500 the Freigericht came to the Electorate of Mainz and the Counts of Hanau as a joint fief . The area was administered by a bailiff residing at Alzenau Castle. During the Thirty Years' War , Swedish soldiers stormed the castle on New Year's Eve 1634. Later the decimated Wilmundsheim merged with the settlement below the castle and took over its name.

Alzenau remained with the Electorate of Mainz after the division of the Free Court in 1740, fell to Hesse-Darmstadt in 1803 ( Landgraviate until 1806 , then Grand Duchy of Hesse ) before it was ceded to Bavaria in 1816 via an exchange of territory . The castle became the seat of the Royal Bavarian District Court . In 1900 a new office building was built. The district court still resides - today as a branch of the district court Aschaffenburg - in these premises.

1974-1975 located in the ruinous state was Palas renovated. Since then, the main castle and inner courtyard have been used primarily for cultural events (Castle Festival, AlzenauClassic, Fränkische Musiktage as part of the music magic Franken of the Bavarian radio ).

description

The oval-shaped hilltop castle is divided into a large, walled forecourt and the inner castle with the inner courtyard and the palas. The forecourt encompassed the farmyard, in which the Castle Festival takes place today and to which the two-story courthouse with large rectangular windows and a stepped gable adjoins the two-storey courthouse entwined with Parthenocissus .

You can get to the Inner Castle via a steep ascent. There is a 14 meter high mantle wall on the northeast side . Reinforced walls continue to the north and south.

The massive masonry of the palace with stair tower has an on consoles stationary arched frieze . In the basement there used to be the rooms for the servants . There is a large representation hall above . A narrow spiral staircase leads to the upper knight's hall , the actual living room of the lord of the castle and his family, which has been preserved in the late Gothic style. An inside tour (fireplace, chapel bay as a miniature version of a castle chapel , kitchen and toilet bay ) is only possible as part of group tours and events. This knight's hall is mentioned in the specialist literature as a “prime example of German castle architecture”.

Founding saga

The founding of Alzenau Castle and the naming of the place of the same name is linked to the Randenburg through the legend : After taking this castle, the wife of the lord of the castle was granted free travel, and she was allowed to take whatever she could wear. The woman decided to take her husband on the shoulders. When the burden became too heavy for her, her husband asked her to leave him behind, but she replied "too close" and dragged him over a nearby hill. The Randenburger is said to have founded a new castle there, which he called "Allzunah" in memory of this rescue, from which the name Alzenau is said to have developed later.

literature

  • Anton Rahrbach, Jörg Schöffl, Otto Schramm: Palaces and castles in Lower Franconia - A complete representation of all palaces, manors, castles and ruins in the Lower Franconian independent cities and districts . Hofmann Verlag, Nuremberg 2002, ISBN 3-87191-309-X , pp. 20-21.

Web links

Commons : Burg Alzenau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinrich Gottfried Gengler: Regesta and documents on the constitutional and legal history of German cities in the Middle Ages , Erlangen 1863, p. 32 .
  2. ↑ http://www.main-netz.de/nachrichten/region/alzenau/alzenau/art3981,510695?veranst=1291158000
  3. ↑ For the origin of this etiological legend motif, see Castle Weibertreu .