Knesebeck Castle
| Knesebeck Castle | ||
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 Official building of the former Knesebeck Castle, today a conference venue |
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| Creation time : | first mentioned in 1296 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | Office building, remains of the wall | |
| Standing position : | Noble | |
| Place: | Wittingen - Knesebeck | |
| Geographical location | 52 ° 40 '48.8 " N , 10 ° 42' 24.9" E | |
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The Knesebeck castle was a medieval lowland castle whose remains today on the outskirts of Wittinger district Knesebeck in Gifhorn in Lower Saxony are.
The 1296 first documented as Castro Knesbeke mentioned castle was the headquarters of the black tribe of noble family from the Knesebeck . As an aristocratic seat it was of regional importance until around 1400 and later became the seat of a ducal office. Their defense value is rated as rather low. The main remains of the castle are the remains of the wall and the former administrative building, which has long served as a forestry office and since an extensive renovation in 2009 as a conference venue.
description
The castle complex was located in a swampy depression on a small elevation about 2 meters high, which was probably heaped up. According to the name researcher Hans Bahlow , the name of the castle Knesebeck is based on the root word knese as in Old Dutch and in England for bog or swamp and the word beck for brook. However, it could also be derived from Slavic ( Czech kníže or Polish książę means prince). The castle was enclosed by an inner and an outer moat . The brooks Jörnsbeek and Knesebach formed the outer ditch. The inner moat ran directly at the foot of the castle plateau and enclosed the inner castle buildings. Today the Jörnsbeek runs as a water-bearing ditch around the castle area in the north. In the middle of the former Burgplatz is the official building that was restored in 2009.
A Merian copper engraving around 1650 shows the former castle complex. Merian calls it the Fürstlich Lüneburgisches Amtshaus , which is located in a piece of wood, the Barnbruch. There it was built on stakes in a swampy place. It was surrounded by a wall and two moats that could be passed via drawbridges . The copper engraving by Merian shows a bridge with a gatehouse on the outer moat with a building ring. On the Burgplatz itself, the official building can be seen as a larger building with extensions that form a courtyard with another building. Merian's contemporary engraving does not show a castle tower or other fortifications.
Around 1670 the office building was described as dilapidated. One of the heavily dilapidated buildings was the smaller office building built in 1536. The new, today's office building was built on its foundation in 1690. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of buildings on the former castle grounds fell victim to demolition work.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the prehistorian and castle researcher Carl Schuchhardt drew the layout of the complex for the 1916 atlas of prehistoric fortifications in Lower Saxony. At that time there were even more buildings on the site than there are today. The oldest remnant of the castle complex is a free-standing, approximately 15-meter-long and 1.6-meter-wide wall remnant with window openings. The wall was built using clamshell technology and at times served as the outer wall of a washing and baking house that has since been torn down.
history
Knesebeck Castle was first mentioned in a document in 1296. Around 50 years earlier, the black tribe of the von Knesebecks was first mentioned in 1248 with Wasmodos von dem Knesebeck. In 1318, Duke Otto von Braunschweig's feudal book names Knesebeck Castle. The dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg gave the castle as a fiefdom to various lords during the 14th century . The 1340 Knesebeck vowed the dukes Otto and Wilhelm of Braunschweig and Lüneburg as well as the Duke of Saxony the truce . In 1345 Paridam von Knesebeck pledged the fourth part of his estate to the dukes of Braunschweig and Lüneburg, which at that time was already known as the castle . In 1348 Paridam von Knesebeck and the miners Paridam Plote, Henning vor dem Knesebeck and Huner von Bartensleben were given the castle by the dukes for one year for administrative purposes.
In 1344 the brothers Paridam and Iwan von dem Knesebeck attacked five villages in the area and robbed their farms. After their capture and imprisonment in Lüneburg, they were released for a ransom and had to swear primal feuds . In 1350, ducal troops destroyed Wittingen Castle in order to end the robber baronage of the brothers. Due to the destruction of Wittingen Castle, the official seat was moved to Knesebeck. Although the Duke of Braunschweig received complaints about robbery about the family of von dem Knesebeck in 1395, Duke Friedrich von Braunschweig and Lüneburg lent his castles Gifhorn and Fallersleben to Paridam von dem Knesebeck a short time later .
In 1351 the dukes Heinrich von Grubenhagen and Wilhelm von Braunschweig released the von dem Knesebeck with their castle from the feudal contract. In 1354 the miners Günther von Bartensleben and Heinrich von Wrestede held the fief. A number of other feudal recipients join, among others Duke Magnus II of Braunschweig granted them as liege lord. After 1400 the von dem Knesebeck lost the castle. In 1428 Manecke von Estorf is listed as the owner. Since the middle of the 14th century, the castle was primarily used as an administrative and court seat.
During the Thirty Years' War Knesebeck was occupied by the troops of Duke Christian von Braunschweig in 1626 . In 1639 Swedish regiments quartered in nearby Wittingen , which were also housed in Knesebeck and were still there at the end of the war in 1648.
Recent history
In the 16th to 17th centuries, the castle became a princely administrative house, where officials sat. They administered around 20 villages in the bailiwicks of Knesebeck and Wittingen and the courts of Brome and Fahrenhorst. The administrative and judicial function of the Knesebeck office ended in 1859 when it was merged with the Isenhagen office, which resulted in the Isenhagen district in 1885 . In 1880 the administrative building became the state forest office. In 1998 an association for the preservation of the Knesebeck castle ruins was founded. When the forest administration left the listed building in 2005, it threatened to deteriorate. In 2006 it was bought by the owner of the Knesebeck-based Butting Group . After extensive restoration work, the office building has been used as a conference venue for the Butting Academy since 2009 . During the renovations, a new extension was created as a tower-like staircase based on the earlier castle.
Archaeological excavations on the castle grounds were carried out by Gifhorn District Archeology with the help of 15 interested laypeople in 1999, 2000 and 2001. In the process, walls and stone pavements as well as the filled inner moat were discovered in the ground. At a depth of 2.5 meters below today's surface of the earth, a layer was found that contained finds from the time the castle was founded in the 13th century.
literature
- Hans Adolf Schultz : Castles, palaces and mansions in the Gifhorn-Wolfsburg area . Gifhorn 1985.
- Sigrun Ahlers: Topographical-archaeological studies of prehistoric and early historical fortifications in the districts of Gifhorn, Helmstedt and Wolfenbüttel and in the urban district of Wolfsburg , (dissertation), Hamburg 1988.
- Hans-Peter Roppel: The Knesebeck moated castle . In: Reports on the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony . Vol. 19 (1999), pp. 137-138.
- Andreas Wallbrecht: Vacation on an archaeological excavation In: Archeology in Lower Saxony . 2000.
Web links
- Entry by Christian Frey zu Knesebeck in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Knesebeck moated castle in the Lower Saxony Monument Atlas
- Reconstruction drawing of Knesebeck Castle by Wolfgang Braun
- The history of BURG Knesebeck on the website of today's users in the form of the Butting Academy
- In the footsteps of the past The Knesebeck Castle ( Memento from December 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) ( Castle history of the museums of the Gifhorn district )
Individual evidence
- ↑ 750 years of Knesebeck ( Memento from October 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive )