Obervoitsberg castle ruins
| Obervoitsberg castle ruins | ||
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 The ruins of Obervoitsberg Castle. On the left part of the still preserved city wall can be seen |
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| Alternative name (s): | Ober-Voitsberg | |
| Creation time : | Probably in the 12th century | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Standing position : | Sovereigns | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone masonry | |
| Place: | Voitsberg | |
| Geographical location | 47 ° 3 '7.5 " N , 15 ° 9' 4.5" E | |
| Height: | 481 m above sea level A. | |
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The Obervoitsberg castle ruins are located in the north of the municipality of Voitsberg in Styria . The history of the castle goes back to the year 1164, when it was built on an area of the St. Lambrecht monastery on behalf of the Styrian lord Ottokar IV . Since the foundation was founded without the consent of the monastery, this year later received an equivalent piece of land as compensation. The first documented naming of the castle was in 1183. Obervoitsberg was repeatedly owned by larger noble families, including the Babenbergs at the beginning , who also expanded the complex. From the 12th or 13th century, Obervoitsberg was the seat of a regional court and the center of a sovereign office. It is unclear whether the facility was conquered during a Hungarian invasion in the 15th century. From the 18th century the castle was considered dilapidated and was finally abandoned after a lightning strike in 1798. In 1802 parts of the castle were demolished and the well was filled in.
At the end of the 19th century, the Graz-Köflach Railway and Mining Company had the ruins restored and in 1910 donated them to the municipality of Voitsberg, which still owns them. Since 1960, Obervoitsberg has served as the stage for the Voitsberg Castle Courtyard Games . When the ruin was adapted to an open-air stage, parts of the old structure were destroyed.
The castle complex is the ruin of a hilltop castle , which was built on a wide ridge in the north of the urban area of Voitsberg and was previously part of the city fortifications . The main castle has a clearly structured, rectangular floor plan. A keep is missing and has been replaced by a permanent house for defense and residential purposes, which closes the complex to the south. In the northern part of the castle there was probably a tower in the past. The east and west of the plant were probably two buildings to the only bar holes point in the castle wall and of which at least one of the Palas served. In the northeast, the castle was closed off by a residential tower-like building, probably the oldest part of the complex. Originally access to the north was via a drawbridge over a moat that has not been preserved today . This was walled up in the 15th century and replaced by a new entrance to the west. The water was supplied via a cistern that received the water from the Tregistberg .
location
The castle ruins stand in the north of the city of Voitsberg on a broad ridge that leads south from Hochtregist towards the Kainach valley and drops steeply to the south, west and east directly north of the Voitsberg city area. In the north, the ruin is connected to the former high settlement area. The castle and the fortified castle settlement Voitsberg underneath used to form a defensive unit.
The ruins can be reached from the city center by a hiking trail that runs along the former eastern city wall.
history
The area around today's town of Voitsberg with the Obervoitsberg Castle came about in the year 1000 through an extensive donation from Emperor Otto III. to the Margrave Adalbero von Eppenstein . Duke Heinrich III. von Carinthia donated the Voitsberger Land to the newly founded St. Lambrecht Abbey in 1103 . The Styrian sovereign Ottokar IV commissioned Konrad von Kinnberg in 1164 to found a castle on Stiftsgrund above the Kainachenge without the consent of St. Lambrecht. The purpose of the castle was to monitor the road between Graz and Judenburg and to be able to block it if necessary. In 1173 Gottfried von Dürnstein , a servant of the St. Lambrecht Abbey, was named the first bailiff . The first written mention of the castle itself comes from the year 1183 as "Vogtesperch" or "castrum Voitseperch". It got the name because Gottfried was a subordinate of St. Lambrecht. The abbot of Lambrecht felt betrayed by the founding of the castle, but after a ten-year trial he received an equivalent piece of land as compensation.
Under the dukes Leopold V. and Leopold VI. the plant was further expanded. At that time, Obervoitsberg became the seat of a regional court that extended to the Stubalpe and the Packalpe and was also the center of a princely office, which included around 200 taxable farms in Gaisfeld , Graden , Gößnitz , Kainach , Söding and on the Herzogberg . The sovereigns had Obervoitsberg administered by burgraves who came from various noble families, but mostly named themselves after the castle. A Heriandus and a Geroldus are documented as burgraves or bailiffs for the year 1224. After the death of Duke Friedrich II , the last of the Babenbergs , after long negotiations the castle went to his niece Gertrud in 1254 , who lived there in the summer. Between 1260 and 1278 Obervoitsberg was occupied by Bohemian mercenaries. The name "castrum superius Witsperch" is documented for the year 1265. By marriage, Obervoitsberg came from Gertrud's daughter Agnes to Count Ulrich II von Heunburg . Heunburg handed over the rule to King Rudolf I in 1279 in return for compensation. Rudolf I pledged Obervoitsberg in turn to Heunburg.
The rule of Obervoitsberg was given to Wulfing von Hanau in 1285 and his family sat there until it died out in 1420. In the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, the fortifications were adapted to the new weapon technology. After the Hanau population died out, Obervoitsberg came to Hans Laun von Haunstein through the marriage of Grüna von Hanau, who did not live in the property but lived in a house in Voitsberg . Haunstein's niece Margarethe Hanau-Laun married Andreas von Greißenegg in 1458 and brought Obervoitsberg Castle into the marriage. After the execution of Greißenegg in 1471, Emperor Friedrich III. the castle and appointed Hans Pirckh as a caretaker. When the Hungarians invaded the Kainach Valley in 1480, they did not succeed in taking the town or the castle. It was not until 1485 or 1486 that they were able to occupy the town and Greißenegg Castle by 1490. It is unclear whether they also took Obervoitsberg. In any case, in 2006 the remains of a circular cannon could still be seen north of the castle, which was probably built at the end of the 15th century.
From 1500 the rule was often pledged. Hans Geumann in 1501, Christof von Racknitz in 1505 and Otto von Ratmannsdorf in 1560 were among the more important pawns. According to a report from 1574, the complex was considered to be very dilapidated at that time and was taken over by Christoph von Racknitz from 1582 and from 1594 repaired and significantly expanded by his brother Franz Freiherr von Racknitz.
In order to cover the considerable expenses for the restoration and expansion, Racknitz demanded increased taxes and labor from his subjects. In order to increase the income further, Racknitz leased the rule to Blasi Wolf, who presumably came from a Voitsberg family. Racknitz's lien was revoked in 1607 or 1609 due to embezzlement and other fraud and it was handed over to Balthasar Leymann von Liebenau. Emperor Ferdinand II sold Obervoitsberg in 1622 to Baron Balthasar von Thannhausen, who passed it on to Count Hans Sigmund von Wagensberg in 1626 , whose family owned the castle until the 19th century. In 1647 a woman was sentenced to death for sorcery at the Obervoitsberg regional court. The noble family Wagen von Wagensperg united the rule Obervoitsberg in 1774 with his rule Greißenegg to form a Fideikommissherrschaft . From around 1760 the castle only served the district court. In 1787 it was considered so dilapidated that the prisoners imprisoned in it were moved to better accommodation. In 1798 the castle was finally abandoned after a fire caused by lightning. Around 1802 some robbers lived in the dilapidated facility, which is why they were largely torn down and the well filled up. When the Wagensperger assets were declared bankrupt in 1877, August Zang bought the castle complex . Obervoitsberg came from Zang to the Graz-Köflacher Railway and Mining Company .
At the end of the 19th century, restoration work took place on the castle ruins and in 1910 it was donated to the city of Voitsberg, which still owns it. A castle restaurant has been in front of the ruins since the middle of the 20th century. Since 1960 the castle grounds have been used as a theater stage for the Voitsberg Castle Court Games in summer . During the construction of the open-air stage and the necessary adaptation measures, little consideration was given to the original structure. In 2003 part of the ruin was covered with a roof, which was expanded in 2011. More recently, the slopes of the castle hill have been redesigned as a landscape park with a vineyard.
description
Remains of a curtain wall still extend from the castle ruins down the mountainside to the town below. In the past, the walls reinforced with towers and battlements attached to the city walls. In the southern part of the complex, a kennel with a round tower secured the castle. It is likely to have been built at the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century during the last phase of the castle's expansion, as indicated by its irregular quarry stone masonry . Probably in the late 15th century, a roundabout was built about 150 meters northeast of the castle , from which remains of the foundation have been preserved. The castle was a house castle with a rectangular, clearly structured floor plan. The missing keep was replaced by a permanent house that was used for defense and residential purposes. The north-eastern parts of the castle show a masonry with large rubble stones, which indicates a construction in the late 13th century. The castle wall and the southern part of the castle have an irregular quarry stone masonry in the lower layers, the construction of which cannot be expected before the 14th century. The upper layers of the masonry are much more fragmented. The inner part of the castle has been badly damaged in recent times due to improper installation and renovation.
The original entrance to the castle was in the north and led over a drawbridge over a moat that no longer exists today. In the northern part of the castle wall, two parts of a dismantled tower are built in a north-south direction. This tower probably protruded partly outwards and partly protruded into the castle courtyard. On the outer side of the castle wall you can see from the construction joints which wall pieces originally belonged to this tower. On the inside of the wall, the tower walls still partially protrude into the courtyard. The castle gate there was probably walled up with bricks in the 15th century; more recently, today's entrance was laid in the west of the complex.
The fortress house built into the rectangular castle wall closed off the complex to the south. The northern wall that separated it from the courtyard has disappeared. On the eastern and western sides of the castle wall, there were probably two narrow buildings facing north-south. Only beam holes in the castle wall indicate this. The eastern of the two buildings probably served as a palace and was rebuilt in the second half of the 16th century. The two buildings together with the fixed house in the south of the castle complex enclosed a small courtyard. In the courtyard there was a cistern that supplied the castle with water and could also be fed with water through a water pipe from the Tregistberg . The north-eastern end of the castle was a residential tower-like building, probably the oldest part of the castle. It stood east of the former castle gate and north of the palace. A tower house was probably built there in the 12th or 13th century before the building of the permanent house, which was included in the castle wall when the castle was later expanded. From this tower house, four inclined upward, arched, arched openings at different heights have been preserved. They come from a three-part window group and from a corner window in a plank room . The castle chapel was consecrated to Our Lady .
Say
According to a legend, a treasure is said to be hidden in the cellars of the Obervoitsberg castle ruins, which can only be recovered at midnight during a certain moon phase. A wanderer is said to have tried to find the treasure once. He found a passage that led into a vault full of barrels. When he opened the first barrel, he found only pebbles in it and a large snake appeared to him with a golden key in its mouth. The boy fled from the vault full of fear and heard loud whimpering and crying from behind. The snake was an enchanted damsel who protected the treasure. Whoever has the courage to take the key out of the snake's mouth should receive the treasure and the damsel as a reward.
According to another legend, the castles of Obervoitsberg, Greißenegg , Krems and Leonroth were once connected by an underground passage. A real connection between these castles seems very unlikely because of the great distances. The legend probably goes back to an underground corridor between the farm buildings of Obervoitsberg Castle in the Voitsberg urban area and a former grain box. Since the farm buildings, like Greißenegg Castle, were often referred to as the “Lower Castle” in the past, these two could have been confused in the vernacular.
literature
- Ernst Lasnik : Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 222-226 .
- Werner Murgg: Castle ruins in Styria . Ed .: Federal Monuments Office (= B . Band 2 ). Verlag Ferdinand Berger & Sons, 2009, ISSN 1993-1263 , p. 162-163 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Entry about Obervoitsberg on Burgen-Austria
- ↑ a b c d Werner Murgg: Castle ruins of Styria . Ed .: Federal Monuments Office (= B . Band 2 ). Ferdinand Berger & Sons, 2009, ISSN 1993-1263 , p. 162-163 .
- ↑ a b Art and Culture Guide . S. 7 ( online [PDF]). online ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d Ernst Lasnik: Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 222 .
- ^ Ernst Lasnik: Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 222-223 .
- ↑ a b c d e Ernst Lasnik: Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 223 .
- ^ Journal of the Historisches Verein für Steiermark, Volume 98, 2007, p. 401.
- ↑ a b Ernst Lasnik: Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 224-225 .
- ↑ a b c d Ernst Lasnik: Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 225 .
- ^ Ernst Lasnik: Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 225-226 .
- ↑ a b c Ernst Lasnik: Voitsberg - portrait of a city and its surroundings . tape 1 . Municipality of Voitsberg, Voitsberg 2012, p. 226 .
- ↑ Wolfgang Morscher: The treasure in the ruins of Obervoitsberg. In: Sagen.at. Retrieved April 26, 2014 .
- ↑ Wolfgang Morscher: The underground passage. In: Sagen.at. Retrieved May 10, 2014 .
Web links
- Obervoitsberg Castle. www.burgseite.com, accessed on March 28, 2014 .
- Homepage of the Burghofspiele Voitsberg. www.burghofspiele.at, accessed on March 28, 2014 .
- Entry via Obervoitsberg to Burgen-Austria
