Corn Castle
| Corn Castle | ||
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 Zenoburg near Meran by Thomas Ender (approx. 1845) |
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| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | Burgstall | |
| Place: | Tyrol (South Tyrol) | |
| Geographical location | 46 ° 40 '25.4 " N , 11 ° 10' 19.1" E | |
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The castle corn is an Outbound hilltop castle on Zenoberg , the lowest foothills of Küchelberg , at the junction of Passeiertal the Adige Valley above the Merano basin. It is the predecessor of the Zenoburg , which is now in the municipality of Dorf Tirol .
history
In Roman times there was already the customs post statio maiensis , probably at the crossing of the Via Claudia Augusta between today's Obermais and Meran . The archaeological finds made here range from the younger Iron Age to the first half of the 5th century; they also prove that a castle ( castrum ) existed on the Zenoberg from the first half of the 5th century .
The name castrum maiensis appears for the first time in the Vita Corbiniani , which was written by the Freising Bishop Arbeo around 770. Then Korbinian 717/18 visited the grave of the missionary or traveling bishop Valentin , who died as a hermit on the Zenoberg in Mais and was buried in the local chapel. The church of the "blessed" Valentin ( Valentini benedicti templa ) is already mentioned in a travel description of Venantius Fortunatus from 576 . From the second half of the 6th century onwards, the church on the Zenoberg certainly bore the Valentin patronage and was probably a well-known pilgrimage destination. It is therefore one of the oldest churches that was consecrated to a non-martyr (hence the name " Blessed " or "Blessed Confessor of Christ"). This chapel, which no longer exists today, was presumably located on the southern, somewhat lower front terrace, directly above the vertically sloping cliffs to the east.
After the end of the Roman Empire and the Ostrogoth Empire of Theodoric († August 30, 526) the Rhaetian provinces came to the Franks around 536/37 as part of an Ostrogothic-Franconian agreement . The castle was first corn (up to 561), a frontier post against the realm of the Goths , then to Byzantium (562-568), and finally against the Lombard (from 568).
The Franconian Vinschgau passed to the Duchy of Baiern around 714/15 . During the lifetime of the Bavarian Duke Theodo and even afterwards, his son Grimoald owned the Vinschgau. The latter received the partial duchy of Freising in Bavaria from his father in 715/16, which at that time extended to South Tyrol.
The Freising Bishop Arbeo describes around 770 that Duke Theodo sent the Frankish messenger of faith Korbinian to his son Grimoald in Freising. He had convened the entire college and received Korbinian with all honors. Korbinian then continued his journey to Rome and Grimoald had him escorted by the ducal ministri to the Bavarian-Lombard border in what is now South Tyrol (presumably to Völs ). He had ordered his “mountain guards” ( auctores montani ) there in Vintschgau to report any return Korbinian to the Duke immediately.
Korbinian visited Pope Gregory II in 721 and stopped at the Longobard King Liutprand both on the way there and on the way back . This was a delicate matter, since Liutprand had allied himself with Hugbert , a nephew of Grimoald, who was in a dispute with Grimoald because of his claim to the entire Duchy of Bavaria. In the meantime Grimoald had married the widow Pilitrud of his deceased brother Theudebald , which was forbidden by canon law after a synodal resolution of 721 and was therefore opposed by Korbinian; Moreover, this marriage was a strong sign that Grimoald pursued the claim to rule over all of Bavaria.
On his return from his trip to Rome, Korbinian was arrested by the border guards in Mais Castle when crossing the Lombard-Bavarian border. During this arrest in the administrative district of Mais Castle, Korbinian took the opportunity to pray at the grave of the “blessed Confessor” Valentin and to explore the area around Mais Castle. He discovered a "hidden place" ( locus secretus ) called Cainina ( Kuens ). He had the site acquired by Duke Grimoald (but it cannot have been Mais Castle, because it was then owned by Grimoald). In Kuens, Corbinian built a dwelling ( habitaculum ) and had vineyards and orchards laid out there. He is said to have built a basilica here, which he dedicated to Saints Valentinus and Zeno .
The messengers who had meanwhile been sent to Duke Grimoald came back with the instruction that Korbinian should be brought to the Duke in Freising immediately. Korbinian left his luggage and some of his entourage at Mais Castle. This episode proves that Mais Castle was a militarily occupied border fortress in the 8th century and that the guards there were under the direct orders of the Bavarian duke. Arrived in Freising, Korbinian refused a personal meeting with Duke Grimoald as long as he was married to Pilitrud. Allegedly, Duchess Pilitrud subsequently sought his life and had commissioned the secretarius Ninus to carry out a poison attack . Korbinian, who had been warned of the murder plot, then fled from Freising to Mais Castle around 722, which fell into Lombard hands between 722 and 725. The attack of the Longobard King Liutprands on the area around Mais is likely to have been part of an agreed Lombard-Franconian action against Duke Grimoald, perhaps with the support of Hugbert. The Franconian caretaker Karl Martell did not march into Bavaria until 725. Grimoald had been murdered by his opponents before.
When Hugbert assumed his rule in Bavaria in 724, he persuaded Korbinian to return to Bavaria from his exile. He stayed in Freising until the end of his life. During his lifetime, Korbinian had expressed the wish to be buried with Blessed Valentine. The burial ad sanctos arose from the early Christian idea of receiving intercession in the hereafter through being close to a saint. When Korbinian felt his death approaching, he sent messengers to the duke (presumably to Regensburg) and asked for permission to bury his body in maize. Since the Bavarian Duke Hugpert was evidently not interested in building a sacred center with a bishop's grave in Freising, he allowed the funeral procession after corn, which had meanwhile become Lombard. The Lombard King Liutprand also gave permission for burial in Mais Castle. The body was transferred via the Inn valley. The Lombard castle garrison in Mais suspected an ingenious ruse to conquer the castle and initially did not want to open the castle gate. The guards did not allow entry until the written order from the Longobard king arrived from Pavia . In the church of Blessed Valentine, Korbinian was then given to earth. Just a few years after Korbinian's death, the anniversary of his death was celebrated at Mais Castle. On the eve of the festival of Korbinian, a miraculous incident is said to have occurred. Bishop Arbeo says that even as a little boy he walked carelessly along the church walls, made a mistake and fell down the slope of the castle, but miraculously got stuck on a ledge and was saved unscathed.
In the period between 728 and 764, the bones of the Rhaetian bishop and confessor Valentin were brought by the Lombards from Mais Castle to Trento . The exact time and circumstances are not known. The Lombard rule over the castle Mais lasted approximately until 764. By the marriage of Tassilo III. with Liutberga , the daughter of the Longobard king Desiderius , this area and thus also the castle Mais 764 came back to the Duchy of Bavaria. The Mais Castle was now on an inner Bavarian county border, but a military occupation of the Zenoberges can still be expected.
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Since the relics of Valentine were transferred from Trento to Passau in 764 , Bishop Arbeo von Freising also began to think about repatriating Korbinian's bones to Freising, as the saint was allegedly not given due honors in May. For him, Valentin's transfer to Passau was a precedent and he began to advertise his transfer project in Freising. After Saint Valentine had significantly upgraded the bishopric of Passau, the new Freising Bishop Arbeo expected the return of Korbinian, whose cult he had known since childhood, a religious and moral gain for his church and his diocese. Duke Tassilo III. gave the permit for repatriation from the now Bavarian castle Mais. The return campaign took place in the winter of 768/69. When the corpse was lifted from the grave, of course, several miracles occurred, which emphatically expressed the saint's will to return to Freising. On this occasion, Arbeo again revealed some details about Mais Castle: Korbinian's grave was in the church floor of St. Valentine's Church, it had been opened and the coffin lifted from the ground, then it was laid out in front of the altar. There was a house in the immediate vicinity of the church. On February 24th, 769, the bones of Korbinian were already in Freising ( ad sepulchrum sancti Corbiniani confessoris Christi in loco Frisingas ). After Mais Castle lost St. Valentine in 728/764 and St. Corbinian in 768/69, St. Valentine's Church was now without relics. This must have meant an absolute low point for Castle Mais after the military downgrade.
During the early early Middle Ages, Mais Castle on Zenoberg was the central location in the burgrave office . How long the castle was used and whether the fortifications were maintained after the 8th century is not known.
Between 770 and 847, a replacement for the two lost saints Valentinus and Korbinian was found in the church of Mais Castle in the form of Saint Zeno . The St. Valentin Zeno Church became a St. Zeno Church and the former main saint was increasingly forgotten, as was the name "Burg Mais". With the new patronage of St. Zeno, the name of the new saint was also transferred to the hill.
In the early 13th century a castle reappears on the Zenoberg, this time as a new building by the Tyrolean Ministerial Suppan, who called himself de Monte sancti Zenonis in 1237 ; The castle, newly built in 1258, appears from then on as a Zenoburg ( in castro sancti Zenonis apud Meranum ). From this a tower remnant with corner hump blocks in the western late medieval surrounding wall has been preserved.
literature
- Hubert Glaser , Franz Brunhölzl , Sigmund Benker : Vita Corbiniani. Bishop Arbeo von Freising and the life story of St. Korbinian. Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7954-0447-7 .
- Joachim Jahn : Ducatus Baiuvariorum: The Bavarian Duchy of the Agilolfinger. (= Monographs on the history of the Middle Ages ). Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-7772-9108-0 , p. 117.
- Bernhard von Mazegger: Chronicle of corn, its noble seats, castles and churches. Verlag F. Pleticha, Obermais-Meran 1905.
- Oswald Trapp : Tiroler Burgenbuch. Volume II: Burgrave Office. Publishing house Athesia, Bozen 1980.
- Günther Kaufmann: From Mais Castle to Zenoburg. In: Arx 34/2. 2012, pp. 43–51 , accessed on July 12, 2019 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Paul Gleirscher: The Vinschgau in the early Middle Ages. In: Acta Müstair, Kloster St. Johann, Volume 3. 2013, accessed on July 15, 2019 .
- ↑ Kaufmann, p. 43