Hermannstein Castle

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Hermannstein Castle
South view of the castle

South view of the castle

Alternative name (s): Hermanstein
Creation time : around 1400
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Received or received substantial parts
Standing position : Count
Place: Wetzlar-Hermannstein
Geographical location 50 ° 34 '46.9 "  N , 8 ° 29' 38.8"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 34 '46.9 "  N , 8 ° 29' 38.8"  E
Hermannstein Castle (Hesse)
Hermannstein Castle

The castle Hermannstein lies on the Black Mountain as a hilltop castle above the present Wetzlar district Hermannstein in central Hesse .

Daniel Meisner / Eberhard Kieser : Thesaurus Philopoliticus (1631) with a view of Hermannstein.

The upper castle of Hermannstein Castle was built towards the end of the 14th century to protect the Hohen Strasse and the Hessian border above the Lahn valley . Its shape is based on French donjons . The lower castle (also called the middle castle) was built in the 15th century.

history

In 1376 Count Johann IV. Von Solms -Burgsolms used the unrest within Wetzlar to seize the city. Emperor Charles IV had instructed him to reinstate the old council, which the count used to take over the city himself. As a countermeasure, Landgrave Hermann II decided to build a castle in front of the gates of Wetzlar on Solmsian terrain. The start of construction of the castle has not been determined exactly. In 1377 the construction of the castle was not yet completed, but it could have been in full swing. According to entries made by the Hessian rent master, lime and stones were delivered to Hermannstein in July 1377. The Landgrave's opponents tried to disrupt the construction of the castle, but could not prevent it.

Master craftsmen were probably the carpenter Gumprecht and the stonemason Tilemann. This is likely to be identical to Tyle von Frankenberg , who worked at Wetzlar Cathedral from 1360 to 1374 . The work there had to be interrupted due to the financial hardship of the Wetzlar people. Tile von Frankenberg is said to have built Hermannstein Castle.

After a peace treaty between Count Johann IV and Landgrave Hermann II was signed in 1379, the former Solms area on which the Hermannstein was built fell to Hesse. However, the people of Solms were given the opportunity to build a village together with Hesse below the castle, half of which should belong to Hesse and half to Solms. The Counts of Solms probably did not make use of this option.

The Landgrave initially had the Hermannstein administered by Burgmannen . Later he also used it as a pledge in times of financial need. The first Burgmann was Dietrich von Buchenau in 1378. He probably also oversaw the completion of the castle. Kuno von Rodenhausen followed in 1381, and Gumpracht von Hohenfels in 1386. Then the castle was pledged to Gottfried von Girmes and Gernand Rau von Holzhausen. They received the castle, location and accessories.

In 1437, when Henne Wais von Fauerbach was in pledge possession of the castle, an attack was carried out on the Hermannstein and a fire was set. Henne accused Count Bernhard von Solms-Braunfels of having been the instigator of this attack, but could not prove this. In 1438, Henne asked Landgrave Ludwig I to give the castle to the fair of Schwalbach as a fief.

In 1444 Johann von Schwalbach was lord of Hermannstein, in 1448 Simon Schütz administered the castle as bailiff.

In 1455 Daniel von Mudersbach took over the castle as pledge for 200 guilders. In 1466, Landgrave Heinrich III pledged it . the castle for 200 Rhenish guilders in a mortgage note and 700 guilders in cash to Daniel's son, the bailiff Ludwig von Mudersbach and his wife Liese.

In 1481 Johann Schenk zu Schweinsberg acquired the dilapidated castle with all its accessories, with the consent of Landgrave Heinrich III., For 900 guilders from Mudersbach's widow and then received it from Heinrich III. for another 4,000 guilders as a home falling to the Landgrave fiefdom . Johann and his wife Margaretha von Schlitz called von Görtz resided at Hermannstein Castle, which was in a very bad condition. In 1486, Landgrave Wilhelm III. that the Hermannstein "was completely past and dilapidated". At the same time, he also recognized the high costs that the Marshal had incurred to restore the castle. Johann Schenck had initially built 1200 guilders when he was allowed to invest another 800 guilders in 1486. He used part of the money to build the lower castle.

Count Otto von Solms-Braunfels, who among other things was enfeoffed with half of Hermannstein, lodged a complaint against the Schenckian seizure of possession and tried to get the entire Hermannstein for himself. The dispute was settled in 1489 through the mediation of the Elector Philip of the Palatinate . Otto von Solms-Braunfels the claim to one half of Hermannstein Castle was recognized and cleared up to the extent that he took this half as a fief from the Landgrave and immediately passed it on to Johann Schenk zu Schweinsberg as an after fief .

The descendants of Johann and Margaretha later referred to themselves as the Hermannstein line of Schenck zu Schweinsberg . (This line mostly spelled its name with only "k", not with "ck".)

It is not known when the barons relocated from the castle to the adjacent estate . A copper engraving from 1631 by Daniel Meisner shows the castle still in good condition. In 1691 Baron von Curtin and Anna Helena von Schenck were married in the castle. In 1717 it says: ... in the Hochadl. Hauß was married and married , which could already refer to the estate. In 1787 Pastor Görtz wrote: It is a pity that this tower, which was to be preserved for the eternal memory of its builders, is not destroyed by time and age, but by ravaging hands. Much of the masonry in Hermannstein will have been built from the stones of the castle over the centuries. The castle fell into disrepair and became a ruin.

In 1961 the castle was sold to Buderus AG . In 1965 it was privately owned, renovated and inhabited until 2009. In 2010 the Dutch couple Emile and Heidy van Duren bought the castle. From February 2012, his employees lived in and partially restored the castle. In 2019, the American couple Leonhard and Beatriz LeComte bought Hermannstein Castle.

Building description

View of the castle from Burgstrasse

The castle consists of an upper castle and a lower castle. The first floor of the upper castle is on the same level as the second floor of the lower castle.

Another view of the mighty residential tower

Oberburg

The actual defense structure is the mighty residential tower , which was built on the protruding cliff of the Schwarzenberg. This is only connected to the mountain range on the north side and is separated from it by a deep ravine, probably the original neck ditch . This ravine, which now runs around the lower building to the east of the tower, has probably been raised in the course of time.

The rock slopes steeply to the northwest, west and southwest. The farm buildings, including a house from 1483, are grouped at its foot.

The floor plan of the tower forms a shifted square with an average wall thickness of 2.50 m on the ground floor with three rounded corners, while the fourth, northern, is simply bevelled. A semicircular, massive template jumps out of the northeastern attack side and accompanies the tower along its entire height. The tower contains two high rooms covered with cross vaults, each of which was divided into two floors by a layer of wooden beams. The top vault forms the weir plate , above which the battlement rises by 3.20 m. In the east corner, not protruding to the outside, lies the stair tower , which jumps from the last landing under the weir plate into the wall thickness of the northeast side. In the middle of this side, the stairs lead out onto the defensive slab, to clear the corner for one of the small defensive towers , which, also not protruding from the outside, occupy the three rounded corners. A narrow passage leads through the fourth broken corner to a step cantilevered on two console stones. On the southeast side, just above the tower entrance, which is on the ground floor here, a cast bay window is projected onto consoles, and a chimney is in the opposite wall. Two tall chimneys tower over the battlements, supported at the bottom by protruding extensions. Until 1780 the tower was covered with a high hipped roof, which was occupied at the four corners with wich houses. In the southwest wall there is a large window with a stone cross , which is divided by a groove and a fold. Similar windows are on the lower floors. The attack side has no breakthroughs.

Of the pointed arched cross vaults with simply grooved ribs, the lowest rests on an octagonal central pillar, which is converted into a square at the foot and the spider. The upper vault rests on a pillar with a square cross-section from which belts and ribs grow smoothly. In the lowest hall, the windows of which are noticeably high above the floor, a vaulted area is separated by a wall that protrudes almost to the central column. A large fireplace mantle suggests the kitchen in this department. On the first floor there is a fireplace on the south-east wall.

Lower castle

The lower building has no defense devices. Only the door leading to his left into a narrow lower courtyard is defended by a round tower protruding from the lining wall.

The entrance on the southern front side first leads into a room whose four ribless cross vaults on the walls rest on partly rough-carved supporting stones, in the middle on a round column that merges into a hexagon at the base and a square at the chapter.

Under the right rear vault there is an installation made of stone slabs, which can be interpreted as a hearth or smokehouse and reveals the room as a kitchen. Behind this, accessible through an ogival door, are the also vaulted cellars, one of which has access to the outside. To the left of the entrance, a staircase that initially bends around a rounded corner of the wall and then runs straight leads to the first floor, which has largely collapsed but still clearly shows its layout. At its rear, leaning against the rock, it has a corridor, from which a narrow barrel-vaulted corridor runs roughly in the middle to the front. This divides the floor into a large front room and a back room, possibly used as a kitchen. The front hall was covered on a round central column with four cross vaults, the ribs of which crossed on the fighter. In the south wall was a large window with a grooved stone cross. A bay window in the half octagon protruded from the east wall. Its baseplate, which is still preserved, rests on cantilevered ribs, which are supported by a male and female head. This bay window formerly extended through two floors and was covered with a gable roof that cut into the high roof of the main building. At the back of the first floor begins the spiral staircase in a polygonal tower, which leads to the almost completely destroyed second floor and thus to the entrance to the residential tower.

Surroundings

The residential building and the castle rock move at different distances and at different heights, the walls of the kennel that unite on the west side with the farm buildings attached here. In addition to the above-mentioned building, which was built in 1483, there are elongated half-timbered buildings around a rectangular courtyard, some of which are richly treated with wood that suggests the 16th century. The stone ground floor of one of the wings seems to come from the same time.

literature

  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 289.
  • Ferdinand Luthmer: The architectural and art monuments of the districts of Biedenkopf, Dill, Oberwesterwald and Westerburg. Heinrich Keller publishing house, 1910.
  • Maria Mack: Chronicle of the congregation Hermannstein - Part I. Published by the Ev. Hermannstein parish, Hermannstein 1991.
  • Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich, Jens Friedhoff : "Decided with strong iron chains and bolts ...". Castles on the Lahn . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-2000-0 , pp. 66-71.

Web links

Commons : Burg Hermannstein  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Meisner / Eberhard Kieser: Thesaurus Philopoliticus or Politisches Schatzkästlein Vol. 2 , facsimile reprint of the Frankfurt / Main edition 1625–1626 a. 1627–1631, Nördlingen 1992, book 7, no. 20.
  2. ^ Helfrich Bernhard Wenck: Hessische Landesgeschichte, Volume 3 . Varrentrapp and Wenner, Frankfurt and Leipzig 1803 ( p. 154, full text in the Google book search).
  3. ↑ History of Schweinsberg Castle on burgschweinsberg.de
  4. ^ Wetzlarer Neue Zeitung of June 5, 2913: "Restoring the castle" is a life's work ". BURG Hermannstein visits possible ”. Retrieved June 6, 2013.