Hugstein Castle

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Ruin of the gate tower of Hugstein Castle

The ruins of the Hugstein Castle ( French Château du Hugstein ), more rarely called Hugenstein Castle , stands 389 meters above sea level on a ledge on the slope of the Liebenberg above the Alsatian town of Guebwiller ( German  Gebweiler ) in the Florival, the valley of the Leek . The hillside castle dominates the entrance to the valley of the Murbach. It got its name from its builder, Hugo von Rothenburg , the abbot of the nearby Murbach Monastery , who had the complex built as a residence and to control Gebweiler and the Lauchtal. It thus took a central position in the monastic possessions.

The ruined castle is just five kilometers from Murbach away and is located both in the area of Guebwiller and on Buhler territory, because the border between the two municipalities runs straight through the dungeon of the plant. Hugstein is a monument historique classified and is since 6 December 1898 monument . The owner is the municipality of Buhl.

description

The two-part castle complex , consisting of fore and core , had a double ring and was protected by a moat in the south and west . There are also isolated remains of external works , which may have originated from a kennel . The outer bailey was to the north and probably also east of the core bailey. This is indicated by the relatively flat terrain in the north of the almost rectangular castle area measuring around 50 × 100 meters and a presumed gate to the main castle in the north-west corner of its circular wall. The on-site gneiss was primarily used as building material . As a quarry stone , it was used for the wall shells that were previously plastered . However, some parts of the complex were also clad with blocks made from local sandstone .

Hugstein Castle in winter

The outer ring wall and the two towers integrated in it in the west were almost completely removed. Large parts of the former residential building and the attached western wall of the main castle have also disappeared. Almost all of the sandstone reveals were forcibly broken out.

The rectangular core castle stands roughly in the middle of the castle area and measures around 18 × 25 meters. It stands around four to five meters above the level of the northern outer bailey and is surrounded by an inner circular wall up to ten meters high, which is 2.6 meters thick. Three of the corners of the wall are rounded, which should lead potential attackers to believe that there are round corner towers. Access to the main castle was granted by a former three-storey gate tower from the 15th century, of which two floors have been preserved. In addition to dry stone also has for its construction brick used during its ornamental decoration is made of sandstone. In the past, a drawbridge , the cover of which can still be seen on the outside, led to the arched gate entrance. The gate hall behind it once had a groin vault . In addition, the tower used to have a small pedestrian gate. Its outer front has notches and shooting windows . The upper end of the first floor forms a circular arc fries of brick with corner cubes of sandstone, the simple blend tracery have.

Hugstein Castle around the middle of the 19th century, lithograph by Jacques Rothmüller

The shape of the round keep with a diameter of around ten meters is a rarity in Alsace. The tower, which is up to ten meters high today, stands in the middle of the main attack side in the west of the facility. Inside was a single room with a rectangular floor plan. Its wall thickness on the courtyard side is considerably less than that on the attack side. The keep had a brickwork made of humpback ashlars and protrudes a little from the curtain wall, which was built on this side from smooth ashlars. However, very little of its ashlar cladding remains, as the stones were used to build houses in Buhl in the 18th century. A breach caused by blasting or undermining directly to the north of the tower was previously incorrectly interpreted as a port of departure .

The keep was previously connected to the castle's residential building via a corridor. This was probably in the south of the main castle area and had two or three floors. During repair work in the second half of the 19th century, wall paintings in the form of tendrils in red-brown color were found on the remains of the wall in the Ganges . Nowadays the location of this connecting passage can no longer be located. It is the same with the medieval castle chapel . Their location has not yet been determined with certainty. It is assumed that it was located in a rectangular building on the eastern side of the core castle area. There is still a Gothic keystone of the chapel that shows the relief of an Agnus Dei and can be seen in the Musée Théodore Deck (until 2009 Musée du Florival) in the municipality of Guebwiller.

history

In his description of the town of Gebweiler (Gebweiler before the great revolution), Johann Paulus Deck gives the year 1227 as the founding date of Hugstein Castle, but without naming his sources for this information. The chronicle of the Murbach Monastery, on the other hand, reports that Abbot Hugo von Rothenburg only had the facility built in 1230, so that only this date can be considered certain. This makes it the oldest documented castle of a monastery in Alsace. It has served the Murbach abbots as a residence since it was built. Under Abbot Konrad von Stauffenberg, Hugstein's castle chapel was consecrated to Saint Benedict and the Holy Cross in 1313 .

Bartholomäus von Andlau , who was abbot of Murbach from 1447 to 1476, had various repairs carried out on the castle and probably also had the gate tower built. He also had the facility reinforced with two towers and an additional surrounding wall. At the beginning of the 16th century, under Georg von Masmünster, it served as a prison for heretics , i.e. for Protestants and witches .

Hugstein Castle 19th century, painting by Léon Berthoud

In 1542, Hugstein Castle had to prove itself militarily in a subsequent dispute for the only time in its history. When the Murbach dean Heinrich von Istetten did not agree to the election of Rudolf Stoer von Stoerenberg as the new abbot because he claimed his position for himself, he quickly occupied the castle. When he was besieged by his adversary, however , he gave up and was imprisoned in the “great tower”. The castle was possibly destroyed by the Murbach abbot himself in the same year. After the destruction it was abandoned and further damaged by a lightning strike in 1598. What was left of the building was finally destroyed by vandalism during the Thirty Years War . In the 18th century, the Murbach Hugstein monastery finally gave up. The ruins were then inhabited by the poor before the buildings were used as a quarry in the 19th century.

In 1862 the first uncovering work was carried out on the overgrown ruins, which was followed by restorations - especially on the gate tower. Wall paintings were found that can no longer be made out today.

In May 2006, an initiative called Pro Hugstein was founded , which has been committed to the preservation of the ruins ever since. Several cleaning and repair campaigns have already taken place in the castle area under her direction.

literature

  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The castles of Alsace. Volume II: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-422-06635-7 , pp. 284–287.
  • Fritz Bouchholtz: Castles and palaces in Alsace. According to old templates . Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1962, pp. 142-143.
  • Walter Hotz : Handbook of the art monuments in Alsace and Lorraine . 3rd edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-422-00345-2 , p. 92.
  • 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. 158–159.
  • Roland Recht (Ed.): Le guide des châteaux de France. 68 Haut-Rhin . Hermé, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-86665-025-5 , pp. 26-28.
  • Felix Wolff: Alsatian Castle Lexicon. Directory of castles and chateaus in Alsace . Reprint of the 1908 edition. Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-8035-1008-2 , pp. 161–163.

Web links

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

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b Alsacez-vous! Aux pays des châteaux forts . ADT du Bas-Rhin et du Haut-Rhin, March 2008, p. 21 ( PDF ; 7.5 MB).
  2. ↑ a b F. Wolff: Elsässisches Burgen-Lexikon , p. 163.
  3. ↑ a b c T. Biller, B. Metz: The castles of Alsace. Volume II: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) , p. 286.
  4. ↑ a b c T. Biller, B. Metz: The castles of Alsace. Volume II: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) , p. 285.
  5. ↑ a b A. Morley: Le guide des châteaux de France. 68 Haut-Rhin , p. 27.
  6. ^ A. Morley: Le guide des châteaux de France. 68 Haut-Rhin , p. 28.
  7. ↑ Information from T. Biller, B. Metz: The castles of Alsace. Volume II: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) , p. 285. Felix Wolff stated in his publication Elsässisches Burgen-Lexikon , published in 1908, a height of twelve meters.
  8. ^ F. Wolff: Elsässisches Burgen-Lexikon , p. 162.
  9. ↑ Information from Kastel Alsace . Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe gives in his floor plan lexicon castles of the German Middle Ages a diameter of 8.5 meters.
  10. ^ Website of the Center Régional de Documentation Pédagogique d'Alsace , accessed on December 15, 2011.
  11. ↑ Hugstein Castle on Alsace chasuble , accessed on December 15, 2011.
  12. ↑ Entry No. IA00054791 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  13. ^ A b T. Biller, B. Metz: The castles of Alsace. Volume II: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200–1250) , p. 284.
  14. ^ Jean-Marie Nick: Le Hugstein , accessed December 15, 2011.

Coordinates: 47 ° 55 ′ 15.1 ″  N , 7 ° 11 ′ 31.4 ″  E