Hohenstein Castle (Alsace)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hohenstein Castle
Wall remnants of the Hohenstein ruins

Wall remnants of the Hohenstein ruins

Creation time : 13th Century
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Standing position : Ministerials
Place: Oberhaslach
Geographical location 48 ° 34 '1 "  N , 7 ° 18' 37.7"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 34 '1 "  N , 7 ° 18' 37.7"  E
Hohenstein Castle (Bas-Rhin Department)
Hohenstein Castle

The Burg Hohenstein ( French Château de Hohenstein ) is the ruins of a hilltop castle and is situated on 440 meters northwest of the Alsatian town Oberhaslach in the Bas-Rhin within sight of the castles small- and large-ringed stone and about a kilometer in a straight line from the ruins Nideck away . The castle stands since December 6 1898 as monument historique under monument protection and is owned by the French State and the Office national des forêts , a division of the French Ministry of Agriculture .

The castle was built in the 13th century and was the seat of the Hohenstein ministerial family , who called themselves like the castle. The complex did not last long because it was besieged in 1338 by troops of the Bishop of Strasbourg , captured and then razed . It has been in ruins ever since. Its special feature was the massive castle keep , the interior was completely lined and spaceless.

history

View from the castle ruins

With the brothers Heinrich and Albert von Hohenstein, members of the family and thus indirectly also their castle were named for the first time in 1226. The earlier mention of Hohenstein in a document from 1217, which is often cited, is based on the misinterpretation of Hossenstein, by which Ochsenstein Castle is meant. The Hohensteiners were probably among the most important servants of the Counts of Dagsburg , who died out in 1225 , and the Strasbourg Bishop Berthold I von Teck probably managed to win them over to his side in his attempt to take over the Dagsburg legacy Hohenstein with the castle fief or allowed them to build this first ever. The complex has been documented as an episcopal fief since the early 14th century.

The castle was besieged in 1251 or earlier, but the exact date, the reason for it, and the outcome of the siege are not known. Possibly the Hohensteiner had on the against the bishop Heinrich III. von Stahleck defeated the fighting side of the Staufer , whereupon the latter had their castle besieged. This would not have been the last time members of the family rebelled against their territorial lord. In 1262, for example, they fought in the Battle of Hausbergen against Bishop Walter von Geroldseck on the side of the city of Strasbourg. However, in 1279 the knight Burchard von Hohenstein pledged his part of the castle against the payment of 220  silver marks to Bishop Konrad III. from Lichtenberg . Apparently the Hohensteiners took advantage of the change from Konrad to his successor Friedrich I von Lichtenberg to drive out the episcopal occupation of the castle, which apparently had no consequences for the family, because on September 27, 1299 Friedrich I closed with the three other castle owners Anselm, Johann and Brunn von Hohenstein Frieden. However, the contract stipulated that the three brothers had to repair the damage they had meanwhile done to the “Hus und Gut zu Hohenstein” at their own expense.

From 1316 to 1328 Burkhard von Hohenstein held part of the castle as a Strasbourg fief. 1320 he joined one of his relatives Johann Anselm and Brunn truce agreement . In 1337 Rudolf von Hohenstein held Bishop Berthold von Buchegg prisoner at Hohenstein Castle for four months at the behest of the Strasbourg cathedral curator Conrad von Kirkel . The reason for this was Berthold's refusal to recognize Ludwig the Bavarian as emperor . Berthold was only released at the beginning of 1338 after making major concessions. Because the Hohensteiners also expelled the episcopal occupation of the castle, the majority of which belonged to the Strasbourg diocese , they were guilty of breaching the peace and provided Berthold von Buchegg with the justification to have Hohenstein castle besieged in the year of his liberation. The siege was successful, the episcopal troops were able to take the complex and then razed it. Some of the blideballs used in the siege were found in the valley under the castle in the 19th century. Today 17 of them are installed as gable ornaments in the inn at the foot of the ruin. The bishop made peace with the Hohensteiners in 1343 and paid Rudolf von Hohenstein 300 silver marks for his part of the castle. Later co-owners of the facility were the Jörger and the von Müllenheim family .

In 1998, Bernard Haegel carried out uncovering work and an excavation on the castle rock. A further seven intact blideballs with a diameter between 0.23 and 0.41 m were found. The lightest of them weighed 11.5 kilograms, the heaviest 85.5 kilograms.

description

The ruin is located on the western slope of the Großer Ringelberg on a rhyolite rock that drops down about 15 meters on the east side. The castle rock also drops steeply to the south and west, sometimes in high steps. The area of ​​the elongated facility, which is oriented in a north-northeastern direction, is heavily overgrown. In their immediate vicinity, only 300 and 500 meters away, are the remains of the so-called Schwedenschanze and a jump on a spit called a mountain ledge. They were erected on the hills there during at least one of the traditional sieges as bliden positions.

In the northeastern, lower part of the area are the remains of the former outer bailey , which was probably divided into two parts earlier. It was protected from the rising slope by a neck ditch that was filled in today . Its western part probably dates from before 1251 and is therefore the older, while its area to the north and northeast is from a later extension after 1251. In addition to the moat, the outer bailey was secured by a curtain wall with a semicircular shell tower , which had a diameter of 7.35 meters and a wall 1.70 meters thick. Its shape is rare in Alsace for the 13th century. From the western part of the bailey today only foundations and rubble ramparts of the curtain wall are preserved, while still up to eleven layers of high perimeter wall remaining from the expansion hump blocks is preserved. There are fragments of Blidenkugeln mortared into its infill masonry , which shows that this wall could only have been built after the siege around 1251. The castle gate was located in the eastern part of the surrounding wall, as evidenced by a preserved piece of the vestments . In the southern part of the outer bailey, in the shadow of the keep, you can find the nine-layer high wall remains of an isolated, approximately 5.50 x 5.50 meter square tower, the interior of which was octagonal. Its unusual interior shape and its location speak for its function as a fountain tower .

The relatively small inner castle lies on the highest part of the castle rock. The latest possible date of its founding can be set to the first half of the 13th century through documentary tradition and architectural features. The humpback square masonry of the keep made of sandstone could even belong to the time around 1200. The elongated core castle area has a floor plan typical of the 13th century: behind the square keep on the attack side, the residential buildings are lined up to protect it. In the north-south direction, the area is just over 40 meters long, its widest point is around 20 meters. In the north-west of the main castle area you can find the ruined remains of a wall made of humpback blocks with a narrow edge. The dimensions of the keep was at least 8.20 × 7.65 meters, but the exact floor plan of the tower can no longer be determined today. What is certain, however, is that its north-western outer wall was 1.70 meters thick. The tower was later completely lined on the inside so that it was completely empty, which is unprecedented for the Alsatian castle building. Only the keep of Hageneck Castle shows similarities to Hohenstein, but the Hageneck Tower was built as a massive structure from the start. When Hohenstein Castle was razed in 1338, the keep was undermined and finally fell into the inner courtyard of the main castle, burying it under rubble at least three to four meters high. A few remains of the outer wall can still be seen under this rubble. In addition, a four-meter-high circular wall has been preserved at the southeast corner.

The dilapidated foundations of an extension that was later added to the main castle can be found on the rock head located 12 to 15 meters lower south of the core castle. It may have resulted from a division of property within the von Hohenstein family. The building measured about 15 × 15 meters and had a polygonal floor plan. The first floor had three rooms. The building was secured against the northern core castle by a humpback square wall that dates from the 14th century; perhaps from around 1320. It may have been connected to the north core castle by a wall with a connecting passage.

literature

  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) (= The castles of Alsace . Volume II). Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-422-06635-7 , pp. 268-276.
  • Guy Bronner, Bernadette Schnitzler: Oberhaslach. Hohenstein . In: Roland Recht (Ed.): Le Guide des châteaux de France. Bas-Rhin. Hermé, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-86665-024-7 , pp. 103-105.
  • Bernard Haegel: The sieges of Hohenstein Castle in Alsace in 1251 and 1338 . In: Olaf Wagener, Heiko Laß (eds.): … Thrown down in stones - large and not small… (= supplements to Mediaevistik . Volume 7). Lang, Frankfurt am Main [a. a.] 2006, ISBN 3-631-55467-2 , pp. 259-278.
  • Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales d′Alsace. Dictionnaire d′histoire et d′architecture . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , pp. 154–155.
  • Charles-Laurent Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace . Alsatia, Strasbourg 1991, ISBN 2-7032-0193-1 , pp. 148-149.
  • Felix Wolff: Alsatian Castle Lexicon . Reprint of the 1908 edition. Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-8035-1008-2 , pp. 142–143.

Web links

Commons : Burg Hohenstein (Alsace)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b G. Bronner, B. Schnitzler: Oberhaslach. Hohenstein , 1986, p. 103.
  2. ^ Hohenstein castle ruins in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on March 7, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b c d e T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , 2007, p. 268.
  4. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) , 2007, p. 275, note 2.
  5. ^ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , 2007, p. 275, note 7.
  6. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , 2007, p. 275, note 10.
  7. ↑ a b c d e C.-L. Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace , 1991, p. 149.
  8. ^ Regesta of the Bishops of Strasbourg . Volume 2. Universitäts-Verlag Wagner, Innsbruck 1928, No. 2504 ( digitized in the Internet Archive ).
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) , 2007, p. 273.
  10. ^ F. Wolff: Elsässisches Burgen-Lexikon , 1979, p. 143.
  11. ↑ a b T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , 2007, p. 270.
  12. ↑ a b c d e T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , 2007, p. 272.
  13. ↑ G. Bronner, B. Schnitzler: Oberhaslach. Hohenstein , 1986, p. 105.
  14. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , 2007, p. 274.
  15. ↑ a b G. Bronner, B. Schnitzler: Oberhaslach. Hohenstein , 1986, p. 104.
  16. ^ A b c d e T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) , 2007, p. 271.