Dreistein Castle

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Dreistein Castle
Dreistein Castle, view from the southeast (2015)

Dreistein Castle, view from the southeast (2015)

Castle type : Spurburg
Conservation status: ruin
Geographical location 48 ° 26 '23.7 "  N , 7 ° 23' 28"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 26 '23.7 "  N , 7 ° 23' 28"  E
Height: 628  m above sea level NN
Dreistein Castle (Bas-Rhin department)
Dreistein Castle

The ruins of Dreistein Castle ( French Château de Dreistein ), sometimes also spelled Dreystein , stand at 628 meters above sea level on a rocky spur of the central Vosges about one kilometer west of the Hohenburg Monastery on the Odilienberg . The complex is located in the Alsatian municipality of Ottrott in the Bas-Rhin department and belongs to a group of nine castles in an area of ​​a few square kilometers around Mount Odile , including Birkenfels Castle , the Hagelschloss and Kagenfels Castle . Since March 9, 1990, the castle has been a registered Monument historique ( inscrit ) under monument protection . Although the castle ruins are privately owned, they are freely accessible at all times.

history

Dreistein castle ruins in 1816, illustration by Emanuel Friedrich Imlin

The secured history of the complex is very sketchy, because there are hardly any sources on Dreistein. The spur castle is probably a foundation of the 13th century. It may have been built to protect the mighty Hohenburg Abbey. Accordingly, it was initially perhaps the seat of a Hohenburg ministerial . In 1432 the complex was first mentioned in a document as "Schloss zu den drey Steinen". At that time it was owned by the von Rathsamhausen family , the Emperor Friedrich IIII. the castle was awarded as an imperial fief in 1435 . In 1550, Emperor Charles V confirmed the Rathsamhausen-Ehenweyer this fiefdom again.

Around 1670 the castle complex was described as destroyed. How this came about is unknown. The eastern part of Dreistein may have been abandoned as early as 1400. The von Rathsamhausen family remained the owners of the complex until the French Revolution . Then confiscated and sold as national property to a Mr. Rohmer, the castle finally came to the family of the manufacturer Schäfer from Oberehnheim through a Mr. Fuchs . In 1866, consolidation work was carried out on the ruins, of which a date in a vestment that was reconstructed at that time heralds.

description

The ruins of the castle stand on a rock spur that protrudes to the west. It is divided into two free-standing sections by two trenches up to 20 meters deep , on which the remains of two building complexes made of red Vosges sandstone stand. The eastern one is called Klein-Dreistein ( French Petit-Dreistein ) or Ostburg, while the western one is also called Groß-Dreistein ( French Grand-Dreistein ). The building material comes partly from the artificially enlarged trenches and from the so-called heather wall , a section of which passes close to the castle complex.

The western of the two ruin complexes consists of a double castle, the shape of which is probably due to the division of a family into two lines. The two parts that were created in this way are called Western Castle and Central Castle after their location. Accordingly, Dreistein actually consists of three independent castles, each with their own entrance and giving the complex its name, because in the Middle Ages "stein" could not only refer to a rock, but also to a castle standing on it.

Western castle

The western castle with its round tower

Small remnants of the lower castle wall and a residential building that used to have at least three storeys still exist from the western castle . Its east wall, which separated the western castle from the central castle , acted as a shield wall and was without any opening. The 5.10 meter wide opening of a group of windows has been preserved on the south side of the first floor. The vault of their seating niche is marked with numerous stone carving marks.

At the northeast corner of the castle is a round tower , which could be entered from the second floor of the residential building, which has now almost completely disappeared. The tower used to have a curtain-type wooden bay window and a toilet bay . In its interior a resulting spiral staircase to the top floor of a dome vault was spans. The shield wall and tower have been preserved up to a height of about 12 meters.

The western castle was accessed on the west side through a gate that has now been destroyed .

Mittelburg

Western castle (left) and central castle (right), view from the southeast

Based on stylistic features, which are not numerous and also not very specific, the construction of the central castle can roughly be dated to the 13th century. The complex was probably built together with the western castle in one go and is connected to it with a small inner courtyard to the east. To the east it was protected by a shield wall clad with humpback blocks. This is up to six meters high and has numerous stonemason's marks. The area of ​​the middle castle has two height levels. In the higher, northern part there used to be a residential building, of which only a few remains of the wall are left today. To the south of this was a lower-lying second building, the south wall of which has been partially preserved up to a height of eight meters and had an abortion or litter box .

Ostburg

Housing construction and keep foundation of the east castle

The east castle on the eastern rock section is about 30 meters away from the middle castle. Essentially only the western part of the 26-meter-long, three-storey residential building has survived. With a clear width of only three to six meters, it was built very narrow. Its west wall facing the central castle is reinforced and up to two meters thick. The basement was divided into two rooms by a transverse wall, the larger of which could be heated by a fireplace. Another fireplace was on the first floor, which also had a toilet on the north wall. On the second floor, the arched niches of a former pointed arched double window with three-pass decoration have been preserved. They probably indicate the former location of the castle hall .

The residential building was protected on the eastern attack side by an at least partially round keep . The tower may have been blown up at an unknown point in time, so that today only the foundation remains.

The eastern castle was accessed from the south through the lower castle, of which only a few parts of the wall are left today. In front of the gate of the upper castle are the remains of a round cistern , the extraction shaft of which is still 6.68 meters deep, but was earlier probably over 7.5 meters deep.

Due to the few existing stylistic features, the emergence of the Ostburg can roughly be dated to the third quarter of the 13th century.

literature

  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The early Gothic castle building in Alsace (1250-1300) (= The castles of Alsace. Architecture and history. Volume 3). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-422-06132-0 , pp. 131–140.
  • Guy Bronner: Dreistein. In: Encyclopédie d'Alsace. Volume 4: Colmar – Druid. Publitotal, Strasbourg 1983, pp. 2458-2461.
  • Guy Bronner, Bernadette Schnitzler: Ottrott. Château de Dreistein. In: Roland Recht (ed.): Le Guide des châteaux de France. Bas-Rhin. Hermé, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-86665-024-7 , pp. 121-122.
  • Fritz Bouchholtz: Castles and palaces in Alsace. Based on old templates (= castles, palaces, mansions. Volume 24). Weidlich, Frankfurt a. M. 1962, pp. 81-82.
  • Christophe Carmona, Guy Trendel: Les châteaux des Vosges. Histoire, architecture, legend. Volume 2: Les châteaux near you Mont Sainte-Odile. Pierron, Sarreguemines 1996, ISBN 2-7085-0161-5 .
  • Marc Greder: Châteaux Forts dʼAlsace. Salvator, Mulhouse 1985, pp. 60-65.
  • André Lerch: Dreistein. Châteaux du Mont Saint-Odile (= Châteaux-forts dʼEurope. No. 22). Castrum Europe, Strasbourg June 2002, ISSN  1253-6008 .
  • Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales dʼAlsace. Dictionnaire dʼhistoire et dʼarchitecture. La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , pp. 76-79.
  • Charles-Laurent Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace. Alsatia, Strasbourg 1991, ISBN 2-7032-0193-1 , pp. 66-70.
  • Felix Wolff: Alsatian Castle Lexicon. Directory of castles and chateaus in Alsace. Unchanged reprint of the 1908 edition. Weidlich, Frankfurt a. M. 1979, ISBN 3-8035-1008-2 , pp. 48-51.

Web links

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

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b Fritz Bouchholtz: Castles and palaces in Alsace. Based on old templates 1962, p. 81.
  2. ^ First entry of the castle ruins in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French),
  3. ↑ a b c d e Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The early Gothic castle building in Alsace (1250-1300) 1995, p. 131.
  4. ↑ Guy Bronner, Bernadette Schnitzler: Ottrott. Château de Dreistein. 1986, p. 121.
  5. ^ A b Marc Greder: Châteaux Forts dʼAlsace. 1985, p. 61.
  6. ↑ Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales d'Alsace. 2013, p. 76.
  7. ^ A b Felix Wolff: Elsässisches Burgen-Lexikon. 1979, p. 50.
  8. ^ Marc Greder: Châteaux Forts dʼAlsace. 1985, p. 62.
  9. ^ Charles-Laurent Salch: Atlas des châteaux forts en France. 19th edition. Publitotal, Strasbourg 1988, p. 634.
  10. ^ Charles-Laurent Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace. 1991, p. 69.
  11. ↑ a b c Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The early Gothic castle building in Alsace (1250-1300) 1995, p. 138.
  12. ↑ a b c d e f Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The early Gothic castle building in Alsace (1250-1300) 1995, p. 133.
  13. ↑ According to Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The early Gothic castle building in Alsace (1250-1300) 1995, p. 138. Other authors, for example Charles-Laurent Salch and Guy Bronner, however, assume that the central and western castle were built one after the other.
  14. ↑ Christophe Carmona, Guy Trendel: Les châteaux des Vosges. Histoire, architecture, legend. Volume 2. 1996.
  15. ^ René Kill: Filter cisterns on hilltop castles in Alsace. In: Castles and Palaces . Journal for Castle Research and Monument Preservation. Volume 50, No. 3, 2009, ISSN  0007-6201 , p. 151, doi: 10.11588 / bus.2009.3.51958 .