Hohenhardt Castle

Hohenhardt Castle
Hohenhardter Hof 1982
Alternative name (s):	Hohenhardter Hof
Creation time :	around 1150
Castle type :	Niederungsburg, moth
Conservation status:	Preserved essential parts
Standing position :	Noble Free, Ministeriale
Place:	Wiesloch
Geographical location	49 ° 18 ′ 40.5 "  N , 8 ° 44 ′ 56"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 40.5 "  N , 8 ° 44 ′ 56"  E
Height:	205  m above sea level NN

Hohenhardt Castle , now called Hohenhardter Hof , is a tower hill castle (Motte) near Wiesloch in the Rhein-Neckar district in Baden-Württemberg . The castle, located between the districts of Baiertal and Schatthausen , was originally the ancestral seat of the noble free von Hohenhart , later a ministerial family of the same name , and passed through numerous other owners such as Messrs. Sturmfeder von Oppenweiler and the Freiherren von Benserod. Since the modern era, the castle had mostly been leased to existing tenants who used the property for agriculture. The last noble owners from 1828 were the barons of Gemmingen , who were expropriated there during the land reform after the Second World War . One of the tenants in the early 20th century was the Wiesloch sanatorium , which grew food and feed there. Privately owned since 1957, the buildings, especially the manor house, have been renovated in accordance with historical monuments. Since 1985 the complex has been home to the Wiesloch Golf Club , which uses the entire area belonging to the Hofgut for gaming.

history

The origin of the castle lies in the dark of history and can only be deduced from a few documents and structural findings. Older research has variously linked two documents from 782 and 795, in which a place called Hodomaron or Hohenmartin is mentioned, with the castle. In the meantime, however, this place is more likely to be located at an oxbow lake near Walldorf, Ludwig H. Hildebrandt suggests Sandhausen .

According to the structural findings, a moth with wooden buildings may have existed as early as the late 11th century , followed by a stone residential tower in the early 12th century . Today's building is dated to the time around 1240 due to its early Gothic windows, the notches and the masonry technology to be found, whereby the foundations and secondary parts such as a Romanesque lintel probably originate from the older construction phase.

The noble free von Hohenhart first appeared in a document in 1127 with a Konrad von Hohenhart, who was named as a witness of a feudal testimony to Bishop Buggo von Worms . The von Hohenhart's relationships point north to the Odenwald and Bergstrasse ; in the last third of the 12th century they were presumably underruns in parts of Elsenzgau and Lobdengau , from the 13th century onwards they are mostly only mentioned as clerics and probably died soon after the last mention of a Gerhard in 1270.

Hohenhardt Castle probably fell to the Palatinate after the nobles died out and then as a fief to a family of ministers who also called themselves von Hohenhardt . In 1311, Hans von Hohenhardt was vicarage of the Count Palatine near Rhine.

Based on the document situation, the noble free Konrad von Hohenhart, mentioned from 1127 to 1165, comes into question for the construction of the first stone residential tower. No obvious person appears in the documents for the current building, dated around 1240, as the noble free were clerics or insignificant at that time. According to documents, the current building should therefore be dated to the time from 1291 under the Palatinate Ministerial Hans (I) von Hohenhart.

The Hohenhart ministerials got into financial difficulties in the 14th century and then sold numerous goods. In 1369 Albrecht (I) von Hohenhart finally sold Hohenhardt Castle or parts of it to the Electoral Palatinate, with the consent of his sons Hans (IV) and Wiprecht. In 1379 Friedrich von Sickingen committed half of the castle to his wife Anna von Gemmingen, which he had as a pledge from Hennel von Angelach. In 1398, with Wiprecht von Hohenhart, another representative of the ministerial family received the castle with accessories as a man fief, but by 1413 he sold half of it again. His widow Anna Zengerin received a life annuity from half of the castle in 1426.

The first mention of Messrs. Sturmfeder von Oppenweiler in northern Kraichgau in a letter from the city of Heilbronn to Hans (II.) Sturmfeder d. Ä. to Honhardt . From the context of the writing and from the relationship between Sturmfeder and the Lords of Bebenburg at Honhardt Castle in Hohenlohe , Hohenlohe Castle could also be meant, but Hohenhardt Castle in Kraichgau was certainly in possession of Sturmfeder in 1496, so that they could have been there as early as 1439 .

It is sometimes claimed that the castle was destroyed in the Peasants' War in 1525, but there is no documentary evidence of this. It is only certain that from the time of the Peasants' War the respective owners leased the complex as an agricultural property to one or more existing tenants and no longer served as a mansion.

In 1580 Sturmfedersche heirs are mentioned as owners, in 1593 Philipp Gans von Otzberg acquired the complex as a Palatine chamber property for 2000 guilders. Via the Lords of Bettendorff , the Palatine hunter Georg von Fechenbach and the Junkers of Brüggen, the court came to the Barons of Benserod through marriage in 1694 . Oberhofmeister Benserod zu Bruchsal and later his widow litigated from 1780 to 1803 without result for jurisdiction over the Hohenhardter Hof, a decision finally became obsolete due to the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and the transfer of ownership of Baden .

From 1817 to 1819 the farm was owned by two barons von Koffler, in 1819 the Wiesloch master baker Georg Philipp Schweinfurt acquired the farm, followed in 1822 by the royal Bavarian captain August Freiherr von Frays , and in 1828 by the chamberlain and Knight of Malta Ludwig von Gemmingen-Michelfeld . At that time, in addition to the buildings, the yard also included 180 acres of arable land, 12 acres of meadows and five acres of gardens. In 1869 the farm came to the owner of the Michelfelder family estate of the Gemmingen-Michelfeld line , August von Gemmingen-Michelfeld .

From 1919 the farm was leased to the Wiesloch sanatorium and the former tenant Jakob Rupp, who had been tenant for many years, was employed as a supervisor until his death in 1927. The sanatorium grew food and feed there on a leased area of ​​60 hectares. In 1931 the sanatorium could no longer agree with Baroness Walpurga von Gemmingen-Michelfeld about an extension of the lease, so that afterwards individual tenants came back into action.

In the course of the land reform after the Second World War , the 81.5 hectare farm was expropriated by resolutions of 1948 and 1952. The Badische Landsiedlung sold the estate with about 52 hectares of land in 1957 to the former tenant Karl Walter, further parts of the land went to farmers in the area. From 1957 to 1963, Karl Walter had numerous old buildings demolished or modernized and numerous new buildings erected, including a residential building.

In 1977 Ulrich Mack acquired the estate. At that time, the farm was recognized by the State Monuments Office as a cultural monument , whereby the castle hill and the barns were considered part of the cultural monument in addition to the manor house. With the funding and grants that were still possible at that time from the monument office, the Ministry of Food from the village development plan, the district and the city of Wiesloch, the owner was able to restore the facility in 1981/82 in accordance with the preservation order. In 1983 the farm ended. Instead, a golf course was built there in 1984/85, which takes up most of the area belonging to the courtyard. The old manor house was converted into a guest house. In 1985, only 4 of 50 hectares of the associated land were still in agricultural use.

investment

Location sketch

Although the castle was on a hill above the valley, the core castle was built on an artificially raised hill and was thus a moth . The core of the residential tower-like building on the hill that still exists today goes back to the high Middle Ages . Several farm buildings of the later Meierhof are lined up around the hill , which certainly use the foundations of the former outer bailey.

Above the entrance to the manor house is a coat of arms stone from 1694 with the alliance coat of arms of Benserod / von Brüggen and the initials of the owners at that time Wilhelm Heinrich von Benserod zu Hohenhardt (WH VB ZH) and Maria Margareta von Brüggen von Benserod (MM V BG VB).

See also : List of German hill towers

literature

• District Association Baiertal (Ed.): From buridal to Baiertal - a community flips through its history . Wiesloch 1988, pp. 32-40.
• Rainer Kunze: Hohenhardt Castle - an overlooked rarity . In: Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter NF 1, 1994, pp. 49-58.
• Ludwig H. Hildebrandt: Medieval documents about Wiesloch and Walldorf . Ubstadt-Weiher 2001, pp. 38-61.
• Ludwig H. Hildebrandt: The noble family von Hohenhart . In: Kraichgau 17 , 2002, pp. 201-214.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 41, No. H18.
2. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, p. 32.
3. ↑ Ludwig H. Hildebrandt: Wüstungen in the southwestern Rhein-Neckar-Kreis in the mirror of documented news and archaeological finds , in: Kraichgau , special volume 18, 1997, pp. 59–112.
4. ↑ Kunze 1994, quoted from Hildebrandt 2001, p. 38.
5. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 43, No. HE1.
6. ↑ Hildebrandt 2002, pp. 201-203.
7. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 38.
8. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 38.
9. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 38/39, No. H1.
10. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 39, No. H5.
11. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 39, No. H6.
12. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 40, No. H12.
13. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 40
14. ↑ Hildebrandt 2001, p. 41, no.H15.
15. ^ Meinrad Schaab in: The city and districts of Heidelberg and Mannheim. Official district description. Edited by the Baden-Württemberg State Archives Administration, vol. 1, p. 204.
16. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, p. 32.
17. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, p. 33.
18. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, pp. 33/34.
19. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, pp. 38/39.
20. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, p. 35.
21. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, pp. 36/37.
22. ↑ From buridal to Baiertal 1988, p. 35.

Web links

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

• Golf-Hohenhardt.de
• Description at burgen-web.de
• Photos from 1987 at bildindex.de