Giessen Castle

Giessen Castle
Giessen Castle
Alternative name (s):	Giessen moated castle
Creation time :	before 1250
Castle type :	Niederungsburg, moth
Conservation status:	Received or received substantial parts
Place:	Kressbronn on Lake Constance
Geographical location	47 ° 37 '35.5 "  N , 9 ° 35' 56.7"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 37 '35.5 "  N , 9 ° 35' 56.7"  E

Giessen Castle, view from 1701; Watercolor by Johann Jacob Heber

Giessen Castle, view from 1721; Drawing by the Lindau cartographer Isaac Sohm

View of the gate tower

The castle casting , also surge casting called, is a high medieval castle in Kressbronner district pouring in Baden-Württemberg Bodenseekreis in Germany .

location

The Niederungsburg is located north of the Kressbronn district of Betznau and east of Gießenbrücke . It served to secure the Argenübergang , which possibly already existed in Roman times , as settlements and Roman roads have been identified in the immediate vicinity of the castle.

investment

The castle, built as a tower hill castle (Motte), was a well-fortified moated castle in the Middle Ages , whose moat was constantly supplied with water through a canal from Laimnau . The well-preserved castle complex is now privately owned and can therefore not be visited.

This well-fortified medieval moated castle was given its present form in 1482. The gate tower and today's access to the courtyard dates from the late 16th century. He has five tower rooms and a tower terrace.

history

The tower hill castle was at this point probably already before 1250, it is first mentioned in a document from 1357. It was the administrative center of the goods acquired from the Lindau Heilig-Geist-Spital between 1388 and 1405 in the hinterland of Lake Constance in the lower Argental.

The first documented owners of Gießen Castle came from the knightly family of the Lords of Wolfurt , who had had a great influence in southern Germany and Switzerland since the 13th century and produced not only abbots and nuns but also warriors.

The Wolfurts did not speak well of the Counts of Montfort . They preferred to maintain contacts with the city of Lindau and monasteries outside the Montfort area of ​​influence.

On July 3, 1405, the Lindau Heilig-Geist-Spital bought Gießen Castle including the building yard, mill, further individual farms, serfs, court, interest income, wine and grain tithes from and other rights to the knight Ulrich von Wolfurt and his nephew Wolf von Wolfurt for 3,000 Rhenish guilders as the three children of the deceased Rudolf von Wolfurt were not able to keep the inherited property.

The Gießen Castle with its possessions and rights was soon united with the village of Laimnau , the Elmenau property and the Ulrich chapel to form the Gießen and Laimnau Hospital Lower Court . In keeping with its importance, the castle was not occupied by a court master but by a Vogt .

In the years 1482 to 1486 the castle was fortified with a moat and wall - against all protests of Count Ulrich von Montfort in Tettnang. In 1521 the house was enlarged, the tower clock was commissioned in 1529 and spring water has flowed from a well since 1531.

During the Thirty Years' War the Swedish General Wrangel occupied Gießen Castle on May 8, 1647 after the unsuccessful conquest of Lindau (see Naval War on Lake Constance 1632–1648 ). In the middle of the 18th century, major construction work began on the castle: a new tower clock was installed in 1768, the moat was rebuilt, the inner castle wall was razed in 1774 and the inner moat was filled in, and in 1788 the old drawbridge was replaced by a stone vaulted bridge.

After Napoleon's reorganization of Europe , Gießen Castle became unprofitable for the Lindau Hospital and was to be sold. Their parceled land found buyers with difficulty. The castle itself was auctioned in May 1810 for 14,020 guilders to the Elector of Trier Chamberlain Carl Anselm von Horben zu Ringenberg from Augsburg. However, he could not pay, so that on September 26th of the same year the castle passed into the possession of the staff holder Josef Köberlin von Mitten (Wasserburg) in return for a payment of 13,000 guilders .

For the next 175 years, Gießen Castle remained a farm. The owners kept changing. In 1868, Father Augustin Fischer, cabinet secretary of the Austrian Archduke Maximilian , acquired the complex, and from 1877 to 1974 it was owned by two farming families. The former moated castle Gießen and its outbuildings are still privately owned today.

See also : List of German hill towers

Monument protection

Since April 29, 1930, the complex has been registered as a cultural monument in accordance with Section 28.1.2 of the Monument Protection Act .

• See also : List of cultural monuments in Kressbronn on Lake Constance

Franz Innocent replica

Innozenz Nachbaur was born on March 25, 1830 as the son of the farmer Fidel Nachbaur and his wife Genoveva, nee. Götz was born at Gießen Castle. He only adopted the name Franz later. Nachbaur was a well-known tenor - all Wagner - opera he has lent his voice.

Web links

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

• Giessen Castle
• Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun

Individual evidence

1. ^ Description of the Oberamt Tettnang at Wikisource
2. ^ "List of cultural monuments, part A 1 - immovable architectural and art monuments including objects of medieval archeology" of the State Monuments Office of Baden-Württemberg