Lindheim Castle

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The Lindheim Castle is a former castle in Lindheim , in the municipality of Old Town in Wetteraukreis in Hesse. In the Middle Ages, the castle belonged to a large inheritance of lower noble families, which represented an important local power factor in the eastern Wetterau . In 1697, Lindheim Palace was built in place of the castle . Only a few remains of both buildings are preserved today.

Part of an older knight's hall has been preserved in the nave
Detail of the church portal with the arms of the Lindheim Book
View of the castle from the east, engraving by an unknown artist, 1755
Memorial plaque for Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Mollersches Landhaus or Schlösschen 2011

history

Medieval castle

Lindheim was first mentioned in a document in 930 and was initially owned by the von Munzenberg family . A first castle complex was probably destroyed in 1241. In 1289 Konrad von Büches received permission from King Rudolf to build a new castle in Lindheim, although it was not in the same location.

Shortly after this new building, the castle complex was in the shared ownership of several families, in 1324 von Büches, von Kransberg and von Bommersheim . In 1391 17 families signed a truce , in the 15th century the number of gan heirs increased to 56, with more frequent changes. The Archbishop of Mainz also tried to gain a foothold in the castle from 1405 and supported the expansion financially. To compensate against Mainz, however, the Ganerbe submitted to the Count Palatine Friedrich I in 1458 , on whose side they fought in the Mainz collegiate feud .

Since the beginning of the 15th century, the castle has increasingly attacked merchants who were on their way to the Frankfurt fair . The city ​​of Frankfurt had the castle attacked, but failed several times in 1464, 1470, 1485 and 1490. Frankfurt could not control the robberies, while the Ganerbe expanded the castle during this time and also walled the town of Lindheim. The place was first designated as a city in 1342 and, as a free court, retained imperial, city-like rights until 1806.

The decline of the inheritance began with the Sickingen feud in 1523 and was accelerated by the Thirty Years' War . The place was destroyed in 1623 and 1627, another destruction followed in 1645 in the Hessian War by Hesse-Darmstadt troops. Interest in owning the destroyed castle complex fell apart. In 1618 the Rosenbach and Wallenstein pledged their share to the Lords of Schlitz called von Görtz . In 1630 only four Ganerbe gathered. Since 1648 the property was bought up by the Lords of Oeynhausen .

Modern lock

Christian Ludwig von Oeynhausen had a palace built after the war, which was completed in 1697. Stones from the castle were used for the construction.

The von Schrautenbach family owned the castle in the 18th century . In 1736, Carl Ernst Balthasar von Weitolshausen, known as Schrautenbach, briefly admitted Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf , who had been expelled from Saxony, to the castle with the Moravian Brethren . In 1744 the “ Seminarium Theologicum ” of the Moravian Brethren was moved from Marienborn to Lindheim Castle. In January 1747 the famous edification writer Friedrich Christoph Steinhofer was appointed head of the theological seminar in Lindheim.

In the middle of the 19th century, the last parts of the castle complex with roundabouts and gatehouses were demolished.

Until his death in 1895, the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch lived in Moller's country house , a wing of the castle. A plaque on the building now commemorates him. In 1928, a major fire destroyed the main building of the palace. The few remaining remains are privately owned and are not accessible.

investment

Lindheim Castle and Palace are located in the lowlands of the Nidder . Remains of an older castle on the opposite bank of the river are said to have been visible in the corridor of the Alteburg until the middle of the 19th century .

The medieval Ganerbeburg was built on an almost square island, which was formed by deriving the Mühlbach from the Nidder. After a fire in 1550, the area had become too narrow, so that the settlement was relocated beyond the Nidder as a typical street village. Only small remains of the medieval fortifications have survived, including the Hexenturm , a small round tower in the inaccessible castle park. It is not entirely certain whether the current free-standing church tower was part of the castle complex. In the nave of the church there are remains of a knight's hall, inside there are several tombstones of the Ganerbe von Lindheim. The type of construction suggests that the building was originally used for non-sacred purposes.

The castle area was built on with several Burgmannenhöfe of the various Ganerbe, of which, however, almost nothing has survived. Remnants of such a courtyard may still be found in the Moller-Schlösschen.

The Moller-Schlösschen is also the only significant remaining part of Lindheim Castle. The core of the building is to contain the west wing of the former three-wing palace from 1697. In 1841/42 Georg Moller had the wing expanded into an independent mansion with commercial and drawer wings on the side. In the center of the building is a tented roof with a ridge turret , several late Baroque coat of arms stones were reused. A park with the witch's tower is part of the complex. The Moller-Schlösschen presents itself as a modest, well-proportioned Biedermeier complex . The castle, witch tower and park are now a listed building due to their former residents and their importance as a whole. In the house built in 1930 in traditionalist forms, some spoils of the castle building are walled up.

literature

  • Karl Ernst Demandt : History of the State of Hesse , 2nd edition, Bärenreiter-Verlag , Kassel and Basel, 1972, ISBN 3-7618-0404-0 , p. 467.
  • Karl Ernst Demandt: The imperial estate Lindheim in the Wetterau. In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 6, 1956, pp. 77–137 and 10, 1960, pp. 149–211.
  • Siegfried RCT Enders: Monument Topography Federal Republic of Germany , Department: Architectural Monuments in Hesse. Wetteraukreis I. Ed. By the State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse , Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1982, ISBN 3-528-06231-2 , pp. 42–49.
  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 356.
  • Joachim Schneider: Inheritance and truces in the early modern period - relics or functional adaptations? In: Eckart Conze, Alexander Jendorff, Heide Wunder : Nobility in Hessen. Rule, self-image and lifestyle from the 15th to the 20th century. Historical Commission for Hessen, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-942225-00-7 ( Publications of the Historical Commission for Hessen 70 ), pp. 129–148, especially pp. 136–141.
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 14.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. Regesta Imperii VI No. 2242; Knappe p. 356.
  2. Demandt 1972 p. 467.
  3. Palaces, castles, old walls, p. 14; Monument topography p. 42.
  4. Palaces, castles, old walls , p. 14.
  5. Gottlieb Korschelt : History of Herrnhut . Eduard Kummer, Leipzig 1853, p. 75.
  6. Castle fortifications: Monument topography p. 42; Fortification of Knappe p. 356.
  7. Monument topography, p. 49.
  8. Monument topography p. 42.

Coordinates: 50 ° 17 '22 "  N , 8 ° 59' 8.1"  E