Nassenfels Castle

Nassenfels Castle
General view from the south
Creation time :	First mentioned in 1245
Castle type :	Niederungsburg, moated castle
Conservation status:	Half ruin
Standing position :	cleric
Construction:	Brick, limestone cuboid, quarry stone masonry
Place:	Nassenfels
Geographical location	48 ° 47 '45.5 "  N , 11 ° 13' 44.4"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 47 '45.5 "  N , 11 ° 13' 44.4"  E
Height:	384  m above sea level NHN

The castle Nassenfels stands on the edge of the market Nassenfels in Eichstätt in Bavaria . The former moated castle is inhabited and can only be viewed from the outside.

history

Today's Nassenfels was already an important market place (Vicus Scuttarensium) in the hinterland of the Raetian Limes in the 2nd century AD . This settlement was preceded by a wood-earth warehouse that was built during the reign of Emperor Domitian (81–96) , which only existed for a short time and was then built over civilly in Roman times. The Nassenfels earth fort was probably closed after the nearby Pfünz fort (Vetoniana) was built .

In the early Middle Ages , there were new settlements on the fringes of the Roman building remains. During the construction of the recycling center in 2013, twelve mining houses from the Carolingian era were uncovered. In the Krautgartenfeld corridor, the remains of an early medieval church around seven by twelve meters were partially exposed between 2001 and 2006. There were also outbuildings and a cemetery. Spolia from a Roman villa built directly in this area were walled up in the early medieval buildings. In the 10th century the settlement of this place broke off to the present day.

Since the high Middle Ages the place belonged to the Hochstift Eichstätt . The castle first appeared in a document in 1245 when Count Gebhard von Hirschberg was murdered by his court jester during the siege of the fortress . Episcopal servants with the addition of Nassenfels to their name can be traced back to 1198, but disappeared again from written sources in the middle of the 14th century.

Today's castle goes back largely to the extensions under the bishops Konrad II. Von Pfeffenhausen (1297–1305) and Friedrich IV. Von Oettingen (around 1400). In 1699, the prince-bishop's court architect Jakob Engel built the box house in the south-east corner as the service building of the bishop Kastner. Until 1804 the castle served as the seat of the Eichstatt officials and carers. In the course of secularization , a rent office was set up in the rooms for two years. In 1806, the Bavarian state auctioned the complex to private individuals, who added some residential buildings to the ring wall and demolished several buildings. Stone material is said to have been removed in 1867 for the construction of the Adelschlag and Tauberfeld stations . In 1932 the box house with its stucco ceilings burned down due to a lightning strike. A planned reconstruction did not materialize.

In the 1980s, the archaeologist and district home administrator Karl-Heinz Rieder acquired the castle complex. Since then, the four Jura houses in the castle area have been restored. In 1990 a section of the battlements was reconstructed. Today the interior of the castle is only open to the public on special occasions, as the fixtures built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries are still used for residential and commercial purposes (some holiday apartments, restorers' workshops).

description

Historical representation in the parish church of St. Nicholas (18th century)

The entire rectangular complex is located on the southern edge of the market. The former wide moat is mostly filled in or silted up. The medieval curtain wall was laid down in the western part in the 19th century and replaced by farm buildings. On the other sides the wall is up to five meters high, there is also a narrow kennel in front of it. The original battlements are more available anywhere, the Palas and the Pfleghaus were discontinued in the early 19th century. After the fire of 1932, only the surrounding walls of the Kastnerhaus are left. The rest of the interior development mostly dates from the 19th century.

Despite the demolitions and losses, the former moated castle is still one of the most important and impressive castles in Bavaria. In addition to the partially preserved circular walls, three wall towers and the high keep have survived. The four towers are closed by steep gable roofs. The gable walls are made of bricks , and stepped gables are formed on the keep and on the east tower .

The unusually high keep was built over an older tower, the basement of which has been preserved in the masonry. The inventory tape interprets this tower as an older keep. The ground floor of this older building was designed as a chapel room with a choir arch and formerly covered with a cross vault, which was mostly lined out. In the south an entrance breaks through the masonry. A small nave was originally built onto the choir arch. Apparently a small Romanesque choir tower church was expanded as a massive keep around 1300. Later a new chapel was built to replace it, but it was profaned in 1808 and then demolished. The location of this second castle chapel is unclear.

The keep is about 37 meters high to the roof ridge. The arched high entrance is in the east of the second floor. A wall template has been built there, which previously carried a corridor from the abandoned nursing home to the entrance. The tower consists of regular limestone blocks , the other parts of the castle are mostly made of irregular quarry stone masonry .

The large castle complex has so far been little investigated and researched in terms of castle history. During archaeological excavations in 1982 within the castle complex, finds from the period 70,000 years ago to the Celtic period 2000 BC and at a depth of about one meter were found on a 145 million year old coral reef, the so-called sunken Speckberg.

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  The keep from the north

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  North-east corner tower and view of the gate

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  View from the outskirts (north)

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  The former moated castle from the southeast with the ruins of the "Kastnerhaus"

literature

• Peter Leuschner : The Jurahaus curiosities on the coral reef . In: Das Jura-Haus 10 (2004/2005), pp. 5–10.
• Werner Meyer : Castles in Upper Bavaria - A manual . Verlag Weidlich, Würzburg 1986, ISBN 3-8035-1279-4 , p. 94-95 .
• The art monuments of Bavaria, V, 2nd District Office Eichstätt . Munich 1928.
• Karl Zecherle (Red.): Castles and palaces . Eichstätt district in the Altmühltal nature park. Ed .: District of Eichstätt. 2nd unchanged edition. Hercynia-Verlag, Kipfenberg 1987, DNB  944206697 , p. 52-53 .

Web links

Commons : Burg Nassenfels  - Collection of images

• Nassenfels castle ruins on burgseite.de

Remarks

1. ↑ Thomas Fischer, Erika Riedmeier-Fischer: The Roman Limes in Bavaria. Pustet, Regensburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-7917-2120-0 , pp. 186–187 (with ill.).
2. ^ Guided tour of the excavation , Donaukurier, April 26, 2013
3. ↑ Early medieval settlement at the Nassenfels recycling center at 48 ° 47 ′ 53.11 ″  N , 11 ° 14 ′ 7.52 ″  E
4. ↑ Daniel Funk: Unique treasure in the ground. State Office for Monument Preservation is critical of the expansion of “Krautgartenfeld” in Nassenfels . Donaukurier, December 1, 2015