Kalsmunt Castle

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Reichsburg Kalsmunt
Remains of the Reichsburg Kalsmunt

Remains of the Reichsburg Kalsmunt

Alternative name (s): Carols Mons, Carlmund or Carlmont
Creation time : event. already of early Roman origin or around 785, Charlemagne; expanded by Friedrich Barbarossa around 1180
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Keep, remains of the gate tower and residential buildings
Standing position : Emperors, kings, nobles
Construction: Wall thickness of the keep up to 3 meters
Place: Wetzlar
Geographical location 50 ° 32 '57.7 "  N , 8 ° 29' 44"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 32 '57.7 "  N , 8 ° 29' 44"  E
Height: 256  m above sea level NN
Kalsmunt Castle (Hesse)
Kalsmunt Castle

The ruins of the Höhenburg Kalsmunt , an old imperial castle , can still be seen today on a 256 m high basalt cone above the city of Wetzlar in Hesse .

history

The old imperial castle Kalsmunt: According to Karl Metz, this castle / palace is said to have been an early Roman foundation. Charlemagne built this castle for Zedler around the year 785 in order to be able to keep the already existing city in check. She is said to have been called Carols Mons (Carlmund or Carlmont) by him. The imperial coins for Wetzlar were minted at the Reichsburg Kalsmunt.

Inner gate system (stairway)
Inner gate system (courtyard side)
Close-up of the Reichsburg ruin

The declaration by JP Chelius from 1664 has not yet been refuted, who wants to derive the name from "Carolus mons" and assumes that Emperor Charlemagne had the tower built around 800.

The Reichsburg was expanded by Friedrich Barbarossa over Wetzlar around 1180 in order to protect the city and the position of the Reichsvogtei and to secure the surrounding Wetterau as a realm.

The Kalsmunt was an imperial mint, but no year of issue is known. A denarius struck under Friedrich Barbarossa shows a crowned man enthroned on a folding chair with a lily scepter and palm branch and the inscription: Calsmund. The mint was hardly located on the Kalsmunt, but in the trading town of Wetzlar, and its origin can be estimated at around 1160; an Arnoldus monetarius (→ mint master ) has been found in Wetzlar since 1241.

In 1226, a person bearing the name is mentioned for the first time with a Winterus von Kalsmunt .

In 1252 the castle was expanded for fortification. A number of castle men are mentioned in documents. In 1257 the city fortifications of Wetzlar were confirmed in a document.

In 1284 Tile Kolup appears as Emperor Friedrich II. At first the population believed him, but distrust soon prevailed and he was initially imprisoned and interrogated on the Kalsmunt. On July 7, 1285, he was finally burned at the stake .

On June 28, 1285, an agreement was reached between the castle people and the city of Wetzlar not to accept any enemies of the city in the castle. The background to the agreement is the town's dispute with the Roman-German king , in which the castle is impartial. The castle is never attacked.

In 1286, King Rudolf von Habsburg appointed Count Adolf von Nassau to be the castle captain at Kalsmunt Castle. Adolf kept the office until he was elected King of the Roman-German Empire . As early as 1292 he transferred the office of castle captain to Gottfried von Merenberg .

The lords of Merenberg were wealthy in the area around Burg Gleiberg . After the death of Hartrad VI. from Merenberg came the rule of Merenberg, and with it the Kalsmunt Castle Authority, to the house of Nassau-Weilburg . The Burghauptmannschaft used these several times as a deposit.

Around 1500 the castle no longer had any military significance; as an imperial fief , the fortifications were completely owned by the lords of Nassau-Weilburg. Count Philip III. von Nassau-Weilburg handed over the Bailiwick of Wetzlar and Kalsmunt Castle to Philip the Magnanimous in 1536 . The Landgrave of Hesse became the castle captain . This was part of an extensive area swap.

In 1609 the Landgrave of Hesse had the ruins recorded and measured. The oldest floor plan of the Kalsmunt is drawn.

In 1740 the castle experienced another renaissance, as an extension to a fortress was planned. This then fails for cost reasons.

The castle has been owned by the city of Wetzlar since 1803.

In 1836, the “Wetzlarische Verein für Geschichte und Altertumskunde” under its chairman Paul Wigand had the ground-level entrance in the three-meter-thick wall of the keep broken. Access was previously on the first floor via a tower building.

In 1928, the Wetzlar City Building Department initiated excavations, which Carl Metz reported in Lieb Heimatland, 1928, No. 27 and 28. Extensive archaeological research has been going on around the Kalmunt since 2013 in cooperation with the Kalsmunt Association and the Prehistory Seminar of the Philipps University of Marburg .

Origin of name

The current name is interpreted as follows: Kals = Charles and - munt = vassal , ie a feudal man of the Franconian court. Zedler writes: Charlemagne called it Carols Mons, Carlmund or Carlmont. Other sources consider the name to be pre-Germanic or Celtic, such as: The name Kalsmunt is of Celtic origin and means “barren hill” , meaning useless / fruitless / barren hill. The name, which is combined with the old German word munt = vassal or protection, suggests that the original task of the castle was to protect the Wetzlar royal estate.

Gender Kalsmunt

Also Calsmunt, Calsmund and Marburg-Kalsmunt.

A Winterus from Kalsmunt is mentioned for the first time in 1226 . The place Obbornhofen is on July 10, 1238 half as coins bergisches fief to the knights of winter Kalsmunt by Ulrich I. von Münzenberg awarded. Conrad von Calsmunt was born as the son of Winter von Calsmunt, Burggraf zu Friedberg and Mathildis von Krüfftel at Calsmunt Castle. He belonged to the knighthood of the silver cross from 1250 to 1300.

Marburg-Kalsmunt: Its seat was the Reichsburg in / near Wetzlar, opposite the Domberg, today a ruin. As early as 1200 a v. Marburg-Kalsmunt a Merenberg to wife. At times the v. K. Fulder feudal people. In 1318 they had a castle seat in Marburg. 1280 in Ginseldorf goods and fishing and in 1325 the tithe.

Coat of arms: The same as the Lords of Bicken , with whom they were of a tribe.

literature

  • Zedler: Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts ... By Johann Heinrich Zedler, Johann Peter von Ludewig and Carl Günther Ludovici. Pp. 1451-1478.
  • Karl Metz: The Kalsmunt , early and late Roman research on the Aliso - Halisin - Solisin and the origin of the city of Wetzlar. Printing and publishing: Schnitzlersche Buchdruckerei und Buchhandlung, 1940 Wetzlar.
  • Herbert Flender: The Reichsburg Kalsmunt , in: Leitz objective. Werkzeitung for the employees of Ernst-Leitz Wetzlar GmbH, born in 1980, issue 3/4, reprinted in: Flender, Herbert, Vom historic Erbe der Stadt Wetzlar, Wetzlar, 2¸1993, pp. 137–146. (= Writings on city history, special issue).
  • Friederun Friedrichs: Castles and cities as political and economic focal points of the Staufer Wetterau , in: Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter 16, 1967, pp. 19–49.
  • Wolfgang Hess: Founding cities and beginnings of coinage in the Staufer Wetterau , in: Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 117, 1981, pp. 97–111 (= The Reichstag of Gelnhausen. A milestone in German history 1180–1980, edited by Hans Patze , Marburg / Cologne 1981, pp. 97-111).
  • August Schoenwerk: The Reichsburg Kalsmunt near Wetzlar and its Burgmannen (Ed. By Heinz F. Friederichs), Frankfurt am Main 1962 (= research on Hessian family and local history, 35).
  • Christian Spielmann : History of the city and rule Weilburg . City of Weilburg 1896 (new edition 2005)
  • Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich, Jens Friedhoff : "Decided with strong iron chains and bolts ...". Castles on the Lahn . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-2000-0 , pp. 78-81.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Metz: Der Kalsmunt, early and late Roman research on Aliso - Halisin _ Solisin and the origin of the city of Wetzlar ; City of Wetzlar, 1940
  2. ↑ [1] . (Zedler: Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts ... By Johann Heinrich Zedler, Johann Peter von Ludewig and Carl Günther Ludovici. Pp. 1451–1478, here p. 1477)
  3. ↑ Spielmann: History of the city and rule Weilburg; City of Weilburg, 1896 (new edition 2005) pp. 35–55
  4. ↑ Spielmann: History of the city and rule Weilburg; City of Weilburg, 1896 (new edition 2005) p. 86
  5. ↑ http://www.mittelhessen.de/lokales/region-wetzlar_artikel,-Ende-Maerz-wird-gegraben-_arid,251888.html
  6. ^ Hans Heinrich Kaminsky, The first evidence for Munzenberg as a city from the years 1238 and 1244. in: Petra and Uwe Müller, Munzenberg. Home in the shadow of the castle. 1975, pp. 75f-80, pp. 75-78.