Hauenstein Castle (Spessart)

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Hauenstein Castle
Hauenstein castle ruins - last remains of the wall and a cellar vault of the complex (2008)

Hauenstein castle ruins - last remains of the wall and a cellar vault of the complex (2008)

Alternative name (s): Robber's Castle, Huwensteyn, more rarely: Hohenstein
Creation time : around 1300
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: Ruin, small remains of the wall preserved
Construction: Quarry stone masonry
Place: Krombach - "Schlossberg"
Geographical location 50 ° 4 '28.2 "  N , 9 ° 11' 15.1"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 4 '28.2 "  N , 9 ° 11' 15.1"  E
Height: 255  m above sea level NN
Hauenstein Castle (Bavaria)
Hauenstein Castle

The castle Hauenstein is the ruins of a hilltop castle in the district of Aschaffenburg in the Bavarian Spessart , between the Hof Hauenstein and cafeterias buttocks on Krombacher district in Kahlgrund lying.

location

Hauenstein Castle, the so-called Robber's Castle, was located on a hill above the Schloßgrundgraben , a stream that flows into the Kahl . A depression separates the castle hill from the height at which the large, new Hauenstein courtyard is located. The upper course of the creek could be dammed by an earth wall laid across the creek bed.

history

Exposed part of the kennel and the outer castle wall as well as the foundation walls of a presumably larger half-timbered building that was leaned against the castle wall.
Old preserved remains of the castle ruins from the eastern moat; on the day of the monument with "appropriate medieval cast"
The exposed southwest corner of the inner castle (wall thickness about 1.6 meters)

The castle was possibly built by the Electoral Mainz bailiffs, the Counts of Rieneck , as part of their chain of castles to the west before 1300 or had it built by vassals.

A Hans Gayling zu Hauenstein , called Wesel , is mentioned as early as 1254 and 1262 in a bull by Pope Urban IV , which granted him the patronage rights of Babenhausen , which was then just Hanau . The addition of Hauenstein to the name leads to the assumption that the castle was originally their ancestral castle . Found ceramics from the second third of the 13th century in the 2017 excavation campaign already prove this earlier settlement. From the castle, together with the somewhat larger Mömbris Castle , which is often incorrectly referred to as the Womburg , and the Hüttelngesäß Castle , the area of ​​the upper Kahl and the Lohr , which was under Rieneck's influence, was secured. The nickname of the Gayling von Altheim came up through knight Heinrich Gayling zu Hauenstein when he was enfeoffed in 1358 by the Archbishop of Mainz Gerlach von Nassau with the place Altheim (Mainz property) in the office of Babenhausen and the castle Hinteraltheim . Heinrich Gayling zu Hauenstein was the archbishop's court marshal that year . He had a bloody feud with Ulrich II von Hanau and died without an heir, so that the Gayling brothers Rudolf and Henne shared his inheritance.

In the network between Hanauer and Rienecker interests, which were still connected by a contract of inheritance from 1296 and with the end of the Rieneck-Rothenfelser line in 1333, further disputes arose, since in 1337 the nearby Mömbris (enfeoffed in 1447 to the Gayling von Altheim) by the Extinction of the Rieneck line fell back on Kurmainz . It is possible that the Gayling used the Mainz help to move to the northern edge of the Odenwald .

Presumably Hanau wanted to acquire a share in the Rieneckisch-Rothenfels inheritance, especially in the direction of Hanau, because it is now certain that knight Werner Kolling was commissioned by his liege lord Ulrich IV of Hanau to create a " kemenaden buwen zu dem Huwensteyne " in 1375 at the latest . Kolling, who also became Vogt of Hanau, was wealthy and advanced the money for the expansion himself, as he lent the Archbishop of Mainz Konrad II von Weinsberg 2000 guilders , whose debts already amounted to an additional 600 guilders in 1394. Amazingly, Mainz and its Archbishop Johann II were suddenly able to repay the debt in installments in August 1405.

In the spring of 1405 the castle was probably built by troops of the Archbishop of Mainz, on behalf of King Ruprecht - whose uncle he was and parallel to a simultaneous campaign against Wetterau castles, by his Aschaffenburg victum and electoral forester Hamann Echter (who in 1412 as thanks for loyal service to the Reason for the later Mespelbrunn Castle as a donation). The castle was probably used as a robber baron castle , as there was an important junction to Birkenhainer Straße . Johann asked the king to be able to take possession of the castle and tear it down, but King Ruprecht did not allow it. As evidenced in the copial book of the city of Frankfurt , Ruprecht had his " brushwoods and riflemen, craftsmen from Frankfurt with rescue vehicles and carts, rifles and artillery " pulled in front of the castle by order of May 18, 1405 , destroyed it and everything useful tore down. The exact reasons for the campaign and the connections between the king, the city ​​of Frankfurt , Mainz and Hanau have not yet been thoroughly researched. Hanau, as collateral lender, was probably involved in the campaign himself. It is also not known exactly why this rather small castle was captured.

From 1446 fiefdoms of the Gayling von Altheim are attested again. Hauenstein with a share of Mömbris, Spessart is named as a fief . The outer bailey continued to be inhabited and was finally destroyed by Swedish troops in the Thirty Years' War .

description

The castle consisted of a "permanent house" with a heatable part of the building for residential purposes. The 2017 excavations suggest a corner tower in the southwest. A kennel and a large stone building in front of the castle wall on the Schloßgrundgraben could be detected.

Probably not only today's ruins belonged to the complex, but also a bailey , which was in the area of ​​today's large Hauenstein court . It mainly included stables, barns and warehouses.

Via the former trade route, the "Alten Heuweg", you get to the Hauenstein ruins, where you can visit the remains of the wall. A cellar with walls and a barrel vault as well as the rest of the adjoining walls in the east of the castle plateau have been preserved.

The castle and today's courtyard are located on the Spessart culture trail " Birkenhainer Straße - Im Krombacher Landgericht " and are described in Table 7.

Excavations 2017

In 2017 an archaeological excavation was approved. This was a joint project of the Archaeological Spessart Project (ASP) , the municipality of Krombach , the Mömbris market and the associations Kulturlandschaft Kahlgrund eV and Bürgerforum Krombach eV. The cut on the south-western side has already produced extensive results and rich finds. A small part could be viewed on the day of the monument during guided tours of the excavation. The southwest corner of the inner castle could be exposed, the remains of the Zwinger and a stone building in front of the outer castle wall were excavated. In addition to extensive collapse material from the destroyed castle, many medieval finds were recovered. In addition to the metal remains of female lustres , an early helmet beard , there were also a large number of different stove tiles that attest to the castle's excellent furnishings.

Monument protection

The area of ​​the castle complex is a ground monument according to the Bavarian Monument Protection Act . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, and accidental finds are reported to the monument authorities. Robbery excavations are punishable by law.

More castle ruins in the vicinity

literature

  • Walter Schilling: The castles, palaces and mansions of Lower Franconia , 1st edition, Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-429-03516-7 , pp. 90–91.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Schecher: The Counts of Rieneck: Studies on the history of a medieval high nobility family in Franconia , 1963, p. 117
  2. ^ JS Verlag, JG Gruber: General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts (Part AG) (Section: Gayling von Altheim ), Leipzig 1852, p. 119
  3. ↑ a b c excavation project: first results on the website of the Citizens' Forum Krombach after just two weeks ; accessed on August 21, 2017
  4. ↑ StA Wü, MIB 12 fol. 236 (01) , In: The Regesta of the Archbishops of Mainz ; accessed on September 22, 2017
  5. ↑ StA Wü, MIB 14 fol. 121 (02) , In: The Regesta of the Archbishops of Mainz ; accessed on September 22, 2017
  6. ↑ Elsbet Orth: The feuds of the imperial city of Frankfurt am Main in the late Middle Ages. Feud law and feud practice in the 14th and 15th centuries (Frankfurter Historische Abhandlungen, 6), Verlag Steiner, Wiesbaden 1973, p. 156
  7. ↑ Johannes Janssen (Ed.): Frankfurts Reichscorrespondenz along with other related files from 1376 - 1519 (Volume 1): From the time of King Wenzel to the death of King Albrecht II. 1376 - 1439 , Freiburg im Breisgau 1863, p. 123 (Online: Heidelberg University Library: Heidelberg historical holdings - digital )
  8. ↑ Ernst J. Zimmermann: Hanau, Stadt und Land: cultural history and chronicle of a Franconian-Wetterauischen city and former county with special consideration of the older time , self-published 1899, p. 47 and 842
  9. ^ Hans Friedrich von Ehrenkrook: Genealogical Handbook of Noble Houses (Vol. 22, 115, 127), Starke Verlag, Limburg an der Lahn 1998, pp. 130 ff. And p. 159
  10. ↑ Our Kahlgrund 2004 . Homeland yearbook for the Alzenau district. Published by the working group for homeland research and homeland maintenance of the Alzenau district, district administrator. ISSN  0933-1328 .
  11. ↑ Birkenhainer Straße - In the Krombacher Regional Court on www.spessartprojekt.de ; accessed on August 22, 2017
  12. ↑ a b Hefner, Wolf (both ed.): The Tannenberg Castle and its excavations , Frankfurt a. M. 1850, p. 114