Hohrappoltstein Castle

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Aerial view of the Hohrappoltstein castle ruins

The Hohrappoltstein Castle (also Hoh-Rappoltstein and Hohrappolstein ; French Château de / du Haut-Ribeaupierre ) is the ruin of a hilltop castle northwest of Ribeauvillé (German Rappoltsweiler ) in the Alsatian department of Haut-Rhin . Together with the castles of Ortisei and Girsberg, it is one of the three Rappoltstein castles that are close to each other and tower over the city.

A fortification on the castle hill that was built in the High Middle Ages was overbuilt in the 13th century by today's castle and initially belonged to the Bamberg diocese , which lent the complex to the von Rappoltstein family . Later a Basel fief, the castle remained in the possession of this family until the Rappoltsteiners died out in 1673. At that time, however, it was no longer inhabited and a half-ruin.

The complex has been classified as a Monument historique since October 1, 1841 and is therefore a listed building .

Names and designations

In the course of history, the castle complex appeared in documents under many different names. It has been attested since 1254, because in that year a Bertholdus miles de Altenkastele was named in a document. The fact that the Hohrappoltstein Castle was meant by Altencastel is clear from another mention in a document from 1341: "Hohen Rappoltzsteine, which are also called Altenkasten". Before that, “two houses Rapolzsten and Altenkasten” were named in a document in 1298, which documents the existence of two castles owned by the von Rappoltstein family. Altenkastel was derived from the Latin altum castellum , which means "high castle" and refers to the exposed location of the complex. In 1338 the castle was listed as "Hohen-Rappoltstein", and for the year 1371 there is the annotation " castrum Rapolczteynen superius in volgari Altenkastel " ( German  the upper castle Rappoltstein, in the vernacular Altenkastel ). In 1426, still simply called “the castle”, the castle bears the name “Hoh-Rappoltstein” in documents dated 1453, 1478 and 1518. In documents from 1507 and 1572 the name "Upper Castle" can be found for them. In 1638 a similar name appears with "Obercastel". In 1715 the complex was described as "Hohen-Rappoltstein Castle, which is called Altes Castel", in a document that can be traced back to 1778 as "Altenkastel or Hohen-Rappoltstein".

history

The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1254, but its location was already settled in the Bronze and Hallstatt Ages, which is proven by finds of appropriately dated ceramic shards . In addition, shards from the Iron Age and Roman coins were found on or in the vicinity of today's castle area , which prove a long tradition of settlement. Around the 9th to 11th centuries a predecessor of today's castle was built, secured by several ramparts and ditches . Remnants of the northern half of this fortification measuring around 150 × 80 meters have been preserved. Its southern part was built over with the current system in the first half of the 13th century. The lords of Altenkastel named in 1254 were probably lower nobility from the retinue of the Rappoltsteiners, who were Burgmannen von Hohrappoltstein.

The castle was initially a fiefdom of the Bishop of Bamberg, but over time he lost sovereignty over the complex to the diocese of Basel. It is unclear how the Bamberg diocese came into possession of this distant complex. It is possible that it was initially owned by the empire , which King Heinrich II gave to the diocese in 1007 when it was founded. As early as 1268 the Rappoltsteiner recognized the Bishop of Basel as feudal lord of their castle Hohrappoltstein, but in the 14th century Bamberg claimed feudal sovereignty for itself.

Anselm von Rappoltstein is documented as the owner for 1288, because in that year, in addition to the neighboring St. Ulrich Castle, when the Rappoltstein estates were divided, Hohrappoltstein Castle also fell to him. In 1368 Bruno I von Rappoltstein became lord of the castle. He entered the service of the Burgundian Duke Philip the Bold in 1369 and fought together with French soldiers in the Hundred Years War against the English. In 1384 he made a name for himself when he captured the English knight John Harleston together with twelve of his companions and arrested him in Hohrappoltstein Castle, although the Emperor had promised him safe conduct. Lengthy negotiations about a ransom and the release of the prisoner ensued. John Charleston was to give Bruno I 30,000  gold francs , 20 cloths of the finest English linen, 20  war swords and 20  daggers for his freedom. Because he was threatened by the city of Strasbourg , King Wenceslaus and King Richard II of England , the Rappoltsteiner placed himself in the service of the French King Charles VI. and in 1386 also granted him the right to open Hohrappoltstein. In 1387 he finally released the English knight. Wenzel then forgave Bruno and confirmed that he owned the castle. In return, the emperor was given the right to open Hohrappoltstein.

Drawing of the castle ruins by Emanuel Friedrich Imlin , 1819

When the Rappoltsteiner shared the property again, the facility came to Ulrich VIII von Rappoltstein, who in 1424 gave Duke Charles II of Lorraine the right to open it. In 1426 Ulrich had extensive construction work carried out on the castle, and further work followed in 1481. During the 15th century the castle also served as a prison again. So there was Philippe de Croy , Count of Chimay , set on 11 January to 18 May 1477th He had been captured by the lord of the castle in the battle of Nancy in the fight against Charles the Bold . Ulrich VIII's descendant Wilhelm von Rappoltstein, imprisoned his own son Sebastian in the castle before 1498 because he was too lavish with the family's wealth. At the latest from that time (end of the 15th century), the Rappoltsteiners had the castle administered by Burgvögten . When in 1528 a military intervention by France in Alsace was expected to be stationed in a hurry a garrison in the area and used the high keep as a watchtower. The soldiers were instructed to fire two cannon shots in the event of a forest fire and to fire three times in the event of the enemy approaching. The last construction work on Hohrappoltstein is guaranteed to be in the years 1572/1573, but by the late 16th century the castle - like the Ulrichsburg - was no longer inhabited. However, in the first quarter of the 17th century it still served as a prison for thieves and poachers. In an engraving by Matthäus Merian from 1643, Hohrappoltstein Castle is depicted completely without a roof. When exactly it was left cannot be determined from documents. Perhaps its decline is related to the Thirty Years War .

After the Rappoltsteiners died out in 1673, the Rappoltstein rule fell to the Wittelsbach line of Pfalz-Birkenfeld . Today the ruin is owned by the French state and the French national forest authority ( French Office national des forêts (ONF) ). For a long time it was closed to visitors due to the risk of collapse. It is currently (as of 2017) being restored and can therefore only be viewed from the outside.

description

location

The three Rappoltsweiler castles, Hohrappoltstein on the right in the picture; Matthäus Merian, 1644

The castle ruins are located about 1.2 kilometers from Ribeauvillé as the crow flies. It is located at an altitude of about 645 meters above sea level on the summit of a mountain, on the southern slope of which about 100 meters below Hohrappoltstein are the castles of Sankt Ulrich and Girsberg. Hohrappoltstein belongs to the category of the summit castles . The base of the mountain peak has an approximately pear-shaped outline and measures 150 meters in length. On its north side it is 51 meters wide, while in the south it is only 15 meters wide.

architecture

Today, Hohrappoltstein is a two-part system that was created in five main construction phases. A prehistoric and early historical complex was followed by the so-called upper castle with keep in the first half of the 13th century . A little later the extension of an outer bailey (lower castle) took place. In a fourth phase in the 15th century the complex was strengthened with a bastion in the south, before the castle was supplemented with a second gate on the south side in the 16th century . As a building material was predominantly the leftover stone of the castle rock, porphyritic granite , used for Eckquaderungen and some garment was sandstone used. The castle is surrounded by a multi-part rampart and moat system, which is older than the ruins that are preserved today and which were partially built over.

Keep

The core castle (upper castle) from the first half of the 13th century is located on an elongated rock spur in the southeast of the mountain peak about 12 meters higher than the lower castle. Its best-preserved part is the round keep with an outside diameter of around 10.70 meters. The outer cladding of its 3.4 meter thick walls consists of sandstone humpback blocks . There are some stonemason's marks on the blocks of the wall . The four storeys of the 23.25 meter high tower used to have beamed ceilings , the lowest of which is only illuminated through narrow slits of light. The high entrance to the keep is on the southeast side on the first floor. It used to be accessible through a covered wooden bay window , of which only the beam holes and a console stone remain. The second floor was only converted into a full floor with a lavatory bay by building walls in the late Middle Ages . Above is the slightly cantilevered third floor, the crenellated crown of which was replaced in brick during a restoration in the 19th century . There is a filter cistern on the southern edge of the Oberburgfelsen . It has a diameter of 3.45 meters and is covered by a dome vault. A residential building used to stand between the keep and this cistern, but only a lining wall made of sand and granite rubble remains .

To the west and north of the upper castle are the remains of the outer castle, which probably dates from the late 13th or 14th century. The 1.7 meter thick curtain wall on the north and north-east side as well as parts of a large residential building have been preserved. The northern wall is still ten meters high today and used to have a battlement . In the north-eastern section of the ring wall there is a small gate, the present day structure of which is not original, but was built from Spolia in 1904/1905 . In front of the gate are the small remains of a kennel . The former two-storey residential building stood on the west side of the outer bailey and had a clear width of 8.30 meters. His bullets had beamed ceilings and were of a high pitched roof completed. There was a lavatory on the upper floor.

Gate system

On the south side of the lower castle there is a second entrance by means of a gate system with double gates, which are in the 15th / 16th Century was built. The late Gothic gate was built in two construction phases in front of the original gate of the lower castle. The first gate may have been erected during construction in 1426. The arched entrance still shows a drawbridge cover , next to it there used to be a slip gate, which however disappeared when the second gate was erected south of the first. However, this was never fully completed. Its design is very similar to the first gate: the arched gate passage is surrounded by a drawbridge panel, next to it is a rectangular pedestrian gate that was accessible via its own drawbridge. Both gates were previously equipped with hurdles , but they have not been preserved. A round stair tower standing right next to the gate in the lower castle enabled access to the upper castle and was previously only accessible via a drawbridge. South of the cistern are the remains of a polygonal building on the slope , which like the gate from the 15th / 16th centuries. Century. It was probably an artillery plant that served to defend the gate and bridge.

literature

  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) (= The castles of Alsace. Architecture and history. Volume 2). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-422-06635-9 , pp. 277–283.
  • Georges Bischoff, Gilbert Meyer: Ribeauvillé: Château de Haut-Ribeaupierre. In: Roland Recht (Ed.): Le Guide des châteaux de France. Haut-Rhin. Hermé, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-86665-025-5 , pp. 122-123.
  • Christophe Carmona, Guy Trendel: Les chateaux des Vosges. Volume 7: Les châteaux around de Ribeauvillé et Riquewihr. Pierron, Sarreguemines 2001, ISBN 2-7085-0250-6 , pp. 51-71.
  • Jacky Koch: Contribution à lʼétude des systèmes d'entrée des châteaux forts alsaciens. Haut-Ribeaupierre (Altenkastel ou Hohrappolstein) . In: Châteaux forts dʼAlsace . Volume 7, 2005, ISSN  1281-8526 , pp. 37-62.
  • Jacky Koch: Lʼart de bâtir dans les châteaux forts en Alsace (Xe - XIIIe siècle). Volume 2. Dissertation at the Université de Lorraine. Nancy 2012, pp. 63–80 ( PDF ; 128 MB).
  • Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales dʼAlsace. Dictionnaire dʼhistoire et dʼarchitecture . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , pp. 266-267.
  • Charles-Laurent Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts dʼAlsace. Alsatia, Strasbourg 1991, ISBN 2-7032-0193-1 , pp. 261-263.
  • Felix Wolff: Alsatian Castle Lexicon. Directory of castles and chateaus in Alsace. Unchanged reprint of the 1908 edition. Weidlich, Frankfurt a. M. 1979, ISBN 3-8035-1008-2 , pp. 283-286.

Web links

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

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Entry of the three Rappoltstein castles in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  2. ^ Fritz Bouchholtz: Castles and palaces in Alsace. Based on old templates (= castles, palaces, mansions. Volume 24). Weidlich, Frankfurt a. M. 1962, p. 112.
  3. ^ Jean Wirth: Les Châteaux-forts Alsaciens du XIIe au XIVe siècle (= Recherches sur les châteaux forts Alsaciens. Volume 2). Volume 1. Center d'Archéologie Médiévale de Strasbourg, Colmar / Strasbourg 1975, p. 87.
  4. ^ Friedrich J. Ortwein (ed.): Rappoltstein. 1905-2005. Lochner, Cologne 2005, ISBN 978-3-930054-50-3 , p. 638 ( PDF ; 138.3 MB).
  5. ↑ a b c d T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250). 2007, p. 278.
  6. ^ A b Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: Beginnings of the noble castle in Alsace in Ottonian, Salian and early Staufer times. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme (Hrsg.): Castles of the Salierzeit, part 2: In the southern landscapes of the empire. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4134-9 , p. 259 ( PDF ; 923 kB).
  7. ↑ a b T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250). 2007, p. 277.
  8. ↑ C.-L. Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts dʼAlsace. 1991, p. 262.
  9. ↑ a b c d Site des Châteaux Forts dʼAlsace , accessed April 10, 2017.
  10. ↑ a b c d F. Wolff: Elsässisches Burgen-Lexikon. Directory of castles and chateaus in Alsace. 1979, p. 285.
  11. ↑ a b N. Mengus, J.-M. Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales dʼAlsace. 2013, p. 266.
  12. ↑ Information from T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250). 2007, p. 278. According to other publications, this work was carried out in 1428 by or at the behest of Charles II of Lorraine.
  13. ↑ Information on the castle ruins on the Châteaux Alsaciens website , accessed on April 11, 2017.
  14. ↑ Information about the castle on the Kastel Elsass website , accessed on April 11, 2017.
  15. ↑ The castle on the Ribeauvillé and Riquewihr Tourist Office website , accessed April 11, 2017.
  16. ↑ Different heights can be found in the specialist literature. They vary between 624 and 647 meters.
  17. ↑ Ferdinand Mehle: Castle ruins of the Vosges. Morstadt, Kehl, Strasbourg, Basel 1986, ISBN 3-88571-146-X , p. 154.
  18. ↑ a b J. Koch: Lʼart de bâtir dans les châteaux forts en Alsace (Xe - XIIIe siècle). Volume 2. 2012, p. 69.
  19. ↑ All information on the construction phases according to J. Koch: Lʼart de bâtir dans les châteaux forts en Alsace (Xe - XIIIe siècle). Volume 2. 2012, p. 66.
  20. ↑ Information from T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250). 2007, p. 278. In the castle information system BINSY , the outer diameter is given as 9.3 meters.
  21. ↑ a b Information on the keep in the castle information system BINSY , accessed on December 23, 2019.
  22. ^ Fritz Bouchholtz: Castles and palaces in Alsace. Based on old templates (= castles, palaces, mansions. Volume 24). Weidlich, Frankfurt a. M. 1962, p. 113.
  23. ↑ a b c d T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250). 2007, p. 281.
  24. ↑ a b c T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250). 2007, p. 280.
  25. ↑ G. Bischoff, G. Meyer: Ribeauvillé: Château de Haut-Ribeaupierre. 1986, p. 122.

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 22.7 ″  N , 7 ° 18 ′ 19.3 ″  E