Bilstein Castle (Haut-Rhin)
| Bilstein Castle | ||
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 Bilstein castle ruins from the northeast. Lithograph by Jacques Rothmüller , 1863 |
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| Alternative name (s): | Château de Bilstein | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, spur location | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Construction: | Quarry stones, humpback blocks, granite | |
| Place: | Riquewihr | |
| Geographical location | 48 ° 11 ′ 45 " N , 7 ° 16 ′ 11" E | |
| Height: | 757 m | |
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The castle Bilstein (French Château de Bilstein ) is at Riquewihr in Alsace located ruin a Spur castle . It is located west of Ribeauvillé in the Vosges on the 757 meter high ridge of the Schlossberg . To distinguish it from the nearby castle of the same name, formerly Lorraine near Urbeis (Bilstein lorrain) , it is also called Bilstein- Aubure (German: Bilstein / Altweier) or Bilstein alsacien .
The castle complex has been under monument protection as Monument historique since December 6, 1898 .
description
The complex was secured on the attack side in the west and south by a deep pointed ditch and was divided into two areas: the upper castle (French: haut château ) with a keep , which was protected by a mantle wall in the west and south , and built on a steep granite rock the lower castle with commercial and residential buildings that were surrounded by a double curtain wall.
_(Riquewihr)_(1).jpg)
Remnants of the two constructions of the upper castle , which were built from humpback ashlars , are still preserved today. The stump of the square keep rises with a pointed arched high entrance on an 8.7 by 7.80 meter floor plan and has a Romanesque lion head relief on its southeast wall . Sandstone was used as the building material, as was the case with the approximately one meter thick curtain wall . Its foundation walls, which are 2.30 to 2.80 meters thick, are only 1.40 to 1.60 meters thick from a height of 6.5 meters.
In the area of the lower castle , the two circular walls are the best preserved parts. Quarry stones made of granite and sandstone were used as building material . The former Palas exists only a single wall remaining, while the farm buildings have completely disappeared. The moat of that time is now filled.
history
The exact date of foundation of the castle is not known. The keep and mantle wall were built by the beginning of the 13th century at the latest, but possibly date from the 12th century. The castle is mentioned in the Chronicle Gesta Senoniensis ecclesiae of the monk Richer von Senones from 1217. In that year, the elector of Toul , Mathieu de Lorraine , who had been deposed in 1206, fled to Bilstein Castle from the wrath of his nephew, Duke Theobald I of Lorraine . Mathieu had ambushed his episcopal successor Rainald von Senlis , and in the ensuing struggle Rainald was fatally wounded. Richer mentions in his notes that the castle was owned by the Lords of Horburg at that time .
Later, the complex was a fiefdom of the Dukes of Lorraine , who gave it back to the Horburger, who also owned the neighboring Reichenstein Castle, together with the associated Riquewihr rulership . In 1324 the then childless brothers Walther and Burchhard von Horburg sold the property to their maternal uncle, who would later become Count Ulrich III. of Württemberg .
The House of Württemberg had the facility administered by a castle bailiff , who also held the position of chief forest master. The castle was therefore also used as a forester's house. The keep also served as a prison until 1489. In the 14th century, the people of Württemberg had the castle rebuilt and expanded. The high entrance to the keep originates from this time, as do the remains of the double curtain wall in the south of the castle area. By 1417, the complex changed from the Lorraine dukes to the ownership of the Württemberg counts, because in that year an inventory list listed Bilstein Castle as a Württemberg allodial . Repair work took place in the 15th century: in 1474 extensive repairs were carried out on the roofs of the buildings and their trusses, and only a year later the castle's own oven was repaired.
The lord of the castle, Georg I von Württemberg-Mömpelgard , joined the Protestant Schmalkaldic League against Emperor Karl V in 1531 . However, after the troops of the federal government were finally defeated by the imperial in 1547 in the Schmalkaldic War , Charles V wanted to punish the House of Württemberg for its opposition. He planned to pull in the county of Mömpelgard (French: Montbéliard), a Württemberg property on the left bank of the Rhine, and to place it under sequestration . Imperial troops therefore moved to Bilstein Castle in the same year to demand that it be handed over. Since the bailiff at the time refused to do this, the soldiers besieged Bilstein, but had no success and had to leave without having achieved anything. Only a year earlier, Duke Christoph von Württemberg , who had ruled the county since 1542, had the castle more fortified, and further repairs to the buildings followed in 1558/59 and 1561/62.
During the Thirty Years War , imperial soldiers were more successful in sieging the complex in 1636. After they had sealed off the castle from the outside world from January 10th to 13th, they were then able to conquer it. The buildings were razed so that the then Burgvogt Georg Scheublin described them as uninhabitable in 1640 and moved to Riquewihr. After 1655 the ruin was finally left to its own devices. It fell into disrepair and served the population of the surrounding area as a quarry.
literature
- Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The castles of Alsace - architecture and history. Volume 1: The beginnings of castle building in Alsace (until 1200) . Published by the Alemannic Institute Freiburg i. Br., Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-422-07439-2 , pp. 233-239.
- Fritz Bouchholtz: Castles and palaces in Alsace. According to old templates . Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1965, pp. 120–121.
- Ferdinand Mehle: Castle ruins of the Vosges . Morstadt, Kehl [et al.] 1986, ISBN 3-88571-146-X , p. 160.
- Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales d'Alsace. Dictionnaire dhistoire et d'architecture . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , pp. 37-38.
- Heino Pfannenschmid: Bilstein Castle in Upper Alsace . In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine . New series, volume 4. J. Bielefeld's, Karlsruhe 1899, pp. 549-564 ( online ).
- Felix Wolff: Alsatian Castle Lexicon. Directory of castles and chateaus in Alsace . Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-8035-1008-2 , pp. 18-19.
Web links
- Description and photos (French)
- Bilstein Castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- Photos and floor plan (French)
- Detailed castle history (French)
Individual evidence
- ^ Felix Wolff: Elsässisches Burgen-Lexikon .
- ^ Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The castles of Alsace - architecture and history. Volume 1: The beginnings of castle building in Alsace (until 1200) , p. 236.
- ^ A b Bilstein Castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on October 16, 2008.