Meiningen Castle
| Meiningen Castle | ||
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 The main building of the castle was rebuilt in 1861 in 2009 |
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| Creation time : | before 1000 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | Receive main house | |
| Standing position : | Ministerials of the Hochstift Würzburg, high nobility (from 1542) |
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| Place: | Meiningen | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 34 '13 " N , 10 ° 24' 46" E | |
| Height: | 290 m above sea level NN | |
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The Meiningen was a town castle in today's county town Meiningen and existed until 1682. Today it is at the same place, the baroque castle Elizabeth Castle .
location
The castle was a moated castle on the northwestern edge of the historic old town of Meiningen on the right bank of the Werra at a ford .
description
Meiningen Castle was a town and moated castle and was integrated into the north-western part of the town fortifications. The moat was fed by the Werra. It consisted of a main house, the Centhaus , ancillary buildings, a tower and a castle wall. The access was in the south and was secured by a drawbridge .
history
The exact start of construction of the castle is not known, but due to its protective function of the Meiningen Mark and the Meiningen royal estate as well as a Werrafurt it is assumed to be before 1000. To prove this, wooden pile foundations from this period were found during construction work near today's castle in 2012 . Meiningen, like the nearby Landwehrberg , Vachdorf , Belrieth and other places in the East Franconian Grabfeldgau, was probably provided with a simple fortification during the time of the Hungarian invasions from 899–955.
As compensation for losses of territory by 1007 was made new foundation of the diocese of Bamberg handed 1008 Henry II. The Bishopric of Würzburg including the royal estate Meiningen. To protect this exclave, the Würzburg bishops had the existing fortifications expanded into a moated castle. As Burgmannen the bishops sat ministerial one lords of the gentry who often also for also würzburgische Burgenland weirs were responsible. Gumbert von Meiningen (1168), Berthold von M. (1206) and Otto von M. (1240) were among the first castle men to be mentioned in a document.
In 1406 the Junkers von der Tann took the castle as a fief. The increasingly hostile attitude of the Junkers towards the Diocese of Würzburg prompted Bishop Johann II von Brunn to storm the castle in 1418 , to have the Junkers captured and deposed. In a civil uprising on August 10, 1432, the Meiningers destroyed the castle and expelled the castle men, as they incurred the anger of the citizens through attacks on the population. From 1509 to 1511, Bishop Lorenz von Bibra had the castle rebuilt in the Renaissance style .
In 1542 the castle and town of Meiningen became part of the county of Henneberg . After the Counts of Henneberg died out in 1583, the county and thus Meiningen Castle fell to the Ernestine line of the Saxon ruling house Wettiner according to the contract . Since they could not agree on a division of the county with other ruling houses, who also made claims to the Henneberg inheritance, a joint Henneberg government was formed first. Meiningen was chosen as the administrative seat and the government took up residence in Meiningen Castle. In 1615/16 the castle was enlarged with a free-standing tower, gardens and an extended castle wall. The castle survived the Thirty Years War unscathed. It was not until 1660 that the county of Henneberg was finally partitioned and the Henneberg government was dissolved.
In 1680 the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen was founded through an inheritance division , and the castle came into its possession. In 1682, Duke Bernhard I decided to build a new residential palace in place of Meiningen Castle. Except for the main building as a temporary residence, the castle was razed and construction began on the open spaces. For financial reasons, the ideal plan for Elisabethenburg Palace could not be implemented, and the remaining main building of the castle was integrated into the three-wing complex as the north wing and henceforth called the "Old Palace". From 1859 to 1861, the "Bibrabau" wing, now named after the builder Lorenz von Bibra, was rebuilt by the architect and construction officer Otto Hoppe , which gave it its present-day appearance.
status
The remaining main building is now a cultural monument . It is the seat of the Meiningen City Archives, the Thuringian State Archives Meiningen and the “Max Reger” music school.
literature
- Alfred Erck (Ed.): Meiningen. Lexicon on city history. Bielsteinverlag, Meiningen 2008, ISBN 978-3-9809504-4-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Ludwig Bechstein: Meiningen and its surroundings. Kesselringsche Hofbuchhandlung, Meiningen / Hildburghausen 1842, pp. 26 and 27.
- ↑ Bernd W. Bahn: Meiningen before the first documentary mention. In: Contributions to the town history of Meiningen (= Südthüringer Forschungen. Vol. 17, ISSN 0585-8720 ). Staatliche Museen, Meiningen 1982, pp. 8–15.
- ↑ Armin Ender: The Landsberg near Meiningen. In: Contributions to the town history of Meiningen (= Südthüringer Forschungen. Vol. 17, ISSN 0585-8720 ). Staatliche Museen, Meiningen 1982, pp. 51–64, here p. 51.
- ↑ Johann Sebastian Güth: Poligraphia Meiningensis. Reyher, Gotha 1676, digitized .
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