Herzberg Castle

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Herzberg Castle
Commanders tower with entrance to the outer bailey

Commanders tower with entrance to the outer bailey

Alternative name (s): Herzberg Castle
Creation time : 1280 to 1290
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Preserved essential parts
Standing position : Nobles, dukes, clericals
Construction: Truss
Place: Breitenbach am Herzberg
Geographical location 50 ° 46 '12 "  N , 9 ° 27' 34"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 46 '12 "  N , 9 ° 27' 34"  E
Height: 506  m above sea level NHN
Herzberg Castle (Hesse)
Herzberg Castle

The Burg Herzberg (also Schloss Herzberg called) is a ruined castle in the municipality of Breitenbach am Herzberg in Hesse Hersfeld-Rotenburg ( Germany ).

It is the largest hilltop castle in today's state of Hesse and was the first and original venue for the Burg-Herzberg Festival from 1968 .

Geographical location

The ruins of the Höhenburg are in the south-eastern part of northern Hesse in the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district on the border with the Vogelsberg district in central Hesse . It is located about 2 km as the crow flies southwest of Gehau , a small western district of Breitenbach, in the southern foothills of the Knüllgebirge on an open area of ​​the predominantly heavily forested Hirschberg (formerly Herzisberg ; 506  m above sea  level ). The federal road 62 , which connects Breitenbach in the east through Gehau with Alsfeld in the west, leads about 900 m north past the castle .

The Altstrasse used to run over the Hirschberg “through the Kurzen Hessen ”, in a south direction via Alsfeld to Frankfurt am Main and in an east direction via Bad Hersfeld to Leipzig .

description

View in the castle grounds to the east

The stronghold is located in the trapezoidal fortified central castle (the narrow side is in the north). The originally Romanesque castle chapel , which was laid out as a fortified church , still stands here . In 1790 it was given its current window. Stand by the remains of the old the keep the stronghold. Behind it were the residential buildings of the lords of the castle. They were demolished in 1700 and never rebuilt. Some of the basement walls of these buildings are exposed today.

The central castle was secured by five round towers . Three of these towers are on the southern side, where the only entrance to the central castle is located. The middle tower was the court and prison tower, the right one was the residential tower and the left tower had been the knight's hall since 1565 . In the north there were two more towers that probably never had roofs. There were guns on them. The right tower is the Powder Tower and the left is the Huhnstädter Turm , from which an underground passage led to the Huhnstadt courtyard. It is not known who dug the passage and what purpose it served.

In the south, which closes bailey on. Their access was secured by a drawbridge , a double gate and battlements on the double boundary walls. Today the inner wall is still standing, the drawbridge was removed in 1788 and the moat was filled. On the left side of the gate is the rectangular commanders' tower through which one had access to the left kennel . Opposite, on the other side of the outer bailey, is the rectangular battery on which there used to be cannons . Furthermore, the buildings for the cisterns, armories and magazines were located in the outer bailey.

The path leading to the castle was also secured by two bastion-like entrenchments with cannons.

history

construction

Castle chapel and ruins of the keep, both built around 1290

The construction of the castle began between 1280 and 1290, by Heinrich von Romrod , Marshal of Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse. He had received five villages from the Landgrave as fiefs around the Herzberg . The castle was probably finished in 1298 because Heinrich gave it to the landgrave as a fief that year.

Star war

In 1344 the "von Romrod" with Friedrich, the youngest son of Heinrich von Romrod, died in the male line and the castle came into the possession of Berthold von Lißberg , who had married Friedrich's daughter Mechthild and gave the castle loan to Landgrave Heinrich II . The son of Berthold and Mechthild, Friedrich von Lißberg (also often called "von Herzberg"), joined the Sternerbund around 1370 , which fought against the increasing power of the Hessian landgraves. Because of the strategically important location of the castle, on the military and trade route and between the areas of interest of the Landgraviate of Hesse, the Abbey of Hersfeld , the County of Ziegenhain and the Abbey of Fulda , the castle became an important base for the Sterner. To secure the castle against attacks, the Sterner Duke Otto I of Braunschweig-Göttingen sent his captain Breido Rantzow with his own troops to the castle. In order to regain control at this strategic point, the Hessian Landgrave Hermann II attacked the Sterner in the castle in August 1372 and started the Star Wars . He besieged the castle with about 1,000 men. But since the siege lasted longer, the Sterners were able to raise a relief army with around 1,500 men, and Hermann was forced to break off the siege.

expansion

View to the south-southeast along the castle wall to the residential tower

Werner II von Falkenberg and (his brother?) Konrad IV (Kuno), both also Sterner, had already acquired a share in the castle in 1370 . In 1392 Werner II. Von Falkenberg, from 1374 to 1382 Oberamtmann in Mainz in Hesse and on the Eichsfeld , and his son Kunzmann from Friedrich von Lißberg bought his half and then received it from the Landgrave as a fief, and in 1400 the Abbey of Fulda left theirs Half of the castle to the diocese of Mainz . After the Herzberg line of the Falkenberger had died out in 1441 with Kunzmann's son Werner, in 1463 the Hessian court master Hans von Dörnberg received the Mainz half of the castle and the court as a fief; the other half received his family in 1477 from the Landgrave of Hesse as a fief. Adolf von Dörnberg had the castle enlarged between 1480 and 1497 by the Hessen-Kassel fortress builder Hans Jakob von Ettlingen . It took on the appearance of a fortress as it can still be seen today. To this day, the castle is continuously owned by the Barons von Dörnberg .

Thirty Years' War

During the Thirty Years' War , the castle, defended by Hessian troops, was again of strategic importance due to its location on the Kurzen Hessen. In 1631 Tilly and Ottheinrich Fugger stood in front of the castle, in 1635 they besieged the Marquis de Grana, and in 1637 General Piccolomini marched with 4,000 men and “a lot of heavy artillery” in front of the castle. The castle survived these attacks, as well as that of the Croatian horsemen of General Isolani in 1641, without being conquered.

Seven Years War

During the Seven Years' War the castle was occupied by the French duke and marshal Jacques Philippe de Choiseul-Stainville from 1762 to 1763 .

The fortress was of military importance until 1786. On September 19 of that year, the last Hessian commander, Major Rückersfeld, left the castle.

literature

  • 700 years of Breitenbach am Herzberg , published by the Breitenbach municipal administration in 1994
  • Elmar Brohl : Fortresses in Hessen. Published by the German Society for Fortress Research eV, Wesel, Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2013 (=  German Fortresses  2), ISBN 978-3-7954-2534-0 , pp. 99-104.
  • Reinhard Gutbier: The landgrave master builder Hans Jakob von Ettlingen. A study of the manorial defense and residential building of the late 15th century . Darmstadt, Marburg 1973
  • 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. 158.
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 62.

Web links

Commons : Burg Herzberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Herzberg Castle in Merian's Topographia Hassiae  - sources and full texts