Herrenzimmern Castle (Bösingen)

Burg Herrenzimmern
The main building of the castle Herrenzimmern
Alternative name (s):	Lower castle
Creation time :	around 1050
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	ruin
Standing position :	Barons / Counts
Place:	Bösingen - gentlemen's rooms
Geographical location	48 ° 13 '26 "  N , 8 ° 35' 16"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 13 '26 "  N , 8 ° 35' 16"  E

Burg Herrenzimmern , also called Unterer Burg , was a castle owned by the barons, later counts of Zimmer . The ruins of the Spornburg are located in the Herrenzimmern district of Bösingen in the Rottweil district in Baden-Württemberg .

Geographical location

Within sight of the castle, about 500 meters as the crow flies above Talhausen, is the Nussburg castle stables , which could be the remainder of a previous castle . This is probably identical to the Lusburg described in the Zimmerische Chronik, page 20 .

history

Ruin of the castle chapel Herrenzimmern with a view of the Neckar valley to Talhausen.

According to Zimmerchen's chronicle , an upper castle and a lower castle existed in mansions as early as the second half of the 11th century . At the time of the Werdenberg feud, the castle was owned by Gottfried Freiherr von Zimmer († May 10, 1508) and thus remained in the family's possession. This transferred it in 1501 to his bastard son Heinrich, who was declared legitimate and noble at the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1500 . From then on, this was called von Zimmer.

It burned down in 1504 when, as Zimmer's chronicle notes elsewhere, Heinrich handled the fire carelessly while bathing. It was rebuilt by Heinrich von Zimmer, who was initially able to expand his fortune by using the bailiwicks assigned to him by his father.

In 1508, in a contract signed in Rottweil between the nephews and heirs of Gottfried von Zimmer, Heinrich von Zimmer was confirmed to be based in Herrenzimmern. But soon he got so deeply in debt that he had to cede Herrenzimmern to Wilhelm Werner von Zimmer (1485–1575).

Wilhelm Werner expanded the castle further. This was where the extensive library and cabinet of curiosities that he had compiled was located. His nephew Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer (1519–1566), who resided in Meßkirch, was able to find extensive source material for his Zimmer Chronicle here in extensive discussions and research .

The Herrenzimmern castle near Rottweil. Lithograph from 1839, after a drawing from 1830

The family of the rooms became extinct with the last male descendant, Count Wilhelm (1549–1594), the son of Froben Christoph. Count Wilhelm sold the Wunderkammer to Ferdinand II. (Tyrol) , although Wilhelm Werner had decreed in his will that it should not be for sale. Today it forms one of the basic stocks of the Ambras collection , although it is no longer identified as such there.

His eight sisters sold the castle to the city of Rottweil on May 10, 1594 . However, this was already outdated as a fortress building. Due to its location, it is located on a spur that extends into the valley, but which is towered over by both sides of the valley, it would not have been able to withstand an artillery fire from top to bottom. Useless and robbed of its art treasures, it was spared in all wars and fell into general decline.

From 1805 it served as an inn and was bought back by the Herrenzimmern community in 1810 for 1,700 guilders.

Building description

For comparison: Balingen Zollern Castle

The Herrenzimmerner Geschichts- und Kulturverein eV is working together with the State Office for Monument Preservation Baden-Württemberg to preserve the ruins.

The main building of the original Spornburg consisted of a substructure with brick outer walls and timbered floors and a cantilevered half-timbered house on top . A design that can still be seen today at the Topplerschlösschen, near Rothenburg ob der Tauber , or at the Zollernschloss Balingen .

The Zimmerische Chronik describes this and also shows the danger inherent in such a construction:

The big stone in stock at the castle ain hilzin house on it, masonry in the rigel and loads of shoes in all places, like the old ones in custom. But no matter what kind of floor there was no veil, but allain hilzin büninen and some of them whether or not, and through hülzin stegen you came from ainem soler to the other uf and from. But upstairs in the rigelwerk, whether the stick, the kuchin has got it right. The same floor is either covered with some for fire, or, as in the kitchen, covered with a laimin screed . But when the unmarried Zimberer, junker Hainrichen, his first fraw von Heckelbach, died, he had a messy, sloppy housekeeping on Zimber, that the screed in the cake was damaged by half a hand. Such a thing might have been bequeathed with a little glue, but it was so long that several kolen fell from the hearth of the hearth in the upper chamber and they set fire to everyone's house. Hainrich has not known domals anhaimbsch, but has kept the housekeeping and sloppy, disobedient are provided. So it happened too; The castle is, of course, made by others, that nothing comes of it, then Allain die Mentschen, so you knew that everything else is spent in it, vil old letters, registers, talk and different, what originated and named Zimber vil important, beautiful old ones armature from tartschen, werinen, tournament witnesses is also there. ( Zimmerische Chronik, Volume 2, Page 28 f. )

literature

• Arthur Hauptmann: Castles then and now - castles and castle ruins in southern Baden and neighboring areas . Verlag des Südkurier, Konstanz 1984, ISBN 3-87799-040-1 , pp. 173–176.
• Max Miller (ed.): Handbook of the historical sites of Germany . Volume 6: Baden-Württemberg (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 276). Kröner, Stuttgart 1965, DNB 456882928 .
• Zimmer Chronicle . Based on the edition by Karl August Barack, Freiburg: Mohr 1882. Published by Paul Hermann. Meersburg and Leipzig: Hendel 1932 (reprint of Barack's 2nd edition, 4 volumes).
• The Chronicle of the Counts of Zimmer. Manuscripts 580 and 581 of the Princely Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek Donaueschingen . Published by Hansmartin Decker-Hauff with the collaboration of Rudolf Seigel. Thorbecke, Konstanz 1964–1972 (3 volumes), incomplete.

Web links

Commons : Burg Herrenzimmern  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Herrenzimmer at leo-bw.de