Peine Castle

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Peine Castle
The Schlossberg as the location of Peine Castle with the former moat, remnants of a casemate, Escarp wall and stone bridge

The Schlossberg as the location of Peine Castle with the former moat, remnants of a casemate, Escarp wall and stone bridge

Alternative name (s): Peina Castle, Peyna Castle
Creation time : 12th Century
Castle type : Niederungsburg
Conservation status: Castle moat , remains of a casemate , Escarp wall
Place: Peine , Peine district , Lower Saxony
Geographical location 52 ° 19 '27.3 "  N , 10 ° 13' 25.1"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 19 '27.3 "  N , 10 ° 13' 25.1"  E
Height: 76  m above sea level NHN
Peine Castle (Lower Saxony)
Peine Castle

The castle Peine was built around the 12th century castle in Peine in today's Lower Saxony , which in the 17th century fortress was expanded. After the castle buildings fell into disrepair, they were demolished at the beginning of the 19th century for the construction of administrative buildings, so that only a few structural remains of the castle and fortress have survived. Redesigned ramparts and ditches have served as a park since 2000.

location

Peine Castle was located at the northern end of a slightly raised ridge that protrudes like an island into the once damp valley of the Fuhse . At that time, this location offered natural protection.

The elevation on which the settlement and castle were built is around 400 × 800 meters. The castle hill, which is also known as the castle hill , grew over the course of time due to earthfills. The nearby Fuhse fed the moat .

history

Since the beginning

The castle, which probably protected a ford on the Fuhse, is believed to have been built in the 12th century. A historical tradition is only available through the naming of a Berthold von Peine in 1130, who was one of the later Emperor Lothar III. confirmed the document issued at the Reichstag in Braunschweig as a witness. Berthold von Peine was probably a ministerial who could also be considered as the builder of Peine Castle. His son Ludolf is mentioned in 1154 in a document from Henry the Lion . After Heinrich's fall, Ludolf or his son of the same name joined the Staufers . Heinrich later stormed the castles of his fallen followers, including Peine Castle around 1193. As early as 1194, Ludolf rebuilt his destroyed castle.

Peine Castle
City of Peine, 1785.
The location of Burg Peine on a map of the city of Peine in 1785
Peine Castle, 1675

Around 1220 Gunzelin von Wolfenbüttel founded the settlement of Peine, which received city ​​rights in 1223 . Around 1260, the city and the castle came under the influence of the Hildesheim monastery . During the Hildesheim collegiate feud , Peine, as a Hildesheim outpost, was besieged by a Braunschweig army for the first time in 1519, the castle was held, but the city burned down. There were further sieges lasting several months in 1521 and 1522. According to tradition, the Braunschweiger shot over 300 bullets with 16 cannons at the medieval castle tower "Güntzel", which was badly damaged. The Braunschweiger hoped that he would fall into the moat and thereby enable them to cross the moat. The castle crew, however, secured the tower with heavy chains and finally let it fall into the castle courtyard. Since the castle withstood each time and was therefore considered impregnable, the name “ Owl's Nest ” emerged for Peine . According to a legend , a pair of owls nesting in the castle could not be driven away by the fighting. After the feud, the heavily damaged castle was rebuilt as a simple building. It consisted of farm buildings connected to one another in a circle and a main building with a stone substructure and a half-timbered structure on the upper floor .

Peine Castle, 1725

During the Thirty Years War , the castle changed hands several times between the warring parties of the imperial and Swedes. In 1633 troops of the Duke of Brunswick besieged the castle and town. After the capitulation of the imperial occupation, the Brunswickers let the city fortifications razed . After the end of the war, the Hildesheim bishop expanded the castle like a fortress from 1659 onwards. The round castle hill got a square shape. Four earth bastions were built at the corners , of which only one is preserved today. The surrounding moat was up to 15 meters wide. The work was largely stopped in 1661 after the financial resources had been exhausted. During the 18th century, the structure of the castle deteriorated due to insufficient maintenance.

In 1711, the Peine fortress in the diocese of Hildesheim was taken by troops under the Electorate Lieutenant Colonel Erich Philipp von Schwan .

At the beginning of the 19th century, Prussian troops took the city of Peine in 1802 without resistance. Between 1803 and 1816 all castle buildings were demolished. As a result, various administrative buildings were built on the Schlossberg, such as an office, a prison, a stable for service horses and a grain barn. Some of these buildings were demolished and new ones built for them. Today the buildings of the Peine District Court are located on the Schlossberg . In 1893 the city of Peine acquired parts of the Schlossberg from the state. These included the northern corner bastion of the fortress as an earthfill, a remnant of the moat used as a fish pond and the castle garden.

Around the year 2000, the so-called Amtmann-Ziegler-Garten , an area at the foot of the Schlossberg, was redesigned into a park. Information boards on the history of the castle are set up in the 6000 m² castle park that has been created. Open-air events take place regularly in the park .

excavation

The former moat with escarp wall of the bastion wall and casemate remains
Bastion Wall

An archaeological excavation took place in 1998 before the site was transformed into a castle park . It took place in the so-called Amtmann-Ziegler-Garten, where the drained moat ran. The investigation of the overgrown garden area made sense because the castle hill itself has been reshaped many times over the centuries. During the excavation, the carefully crafted, approximately two-meter-high Escarp wall that fortified the bastion wall was exposed. It dates from the time the castle was redesigned around 1660 with corner bastions. Under the “Am Amthof” road leading to the castle hill, two stone arches were uncovered, which used to connect a drawbridge to the castle. Most of the finds were recovered from the earlier moat, including medieval ceramics that came from the Gröpern pottery district in Pein . In the mud area of ​​the moat there was a stone ball and a burst hollow projectile made of cast iron that was filled with oil and sulfur. The objects found in situ are attributed to the sieges in the years 1519 to 1522, during the Hildesheim collegiate feud. Presumably the bullets ricocheted off the walls of the castle and sank into the mud of the water. In the area of ​​a casemate in the wall that was uncovered in the 1970s , the foundation walls of a small gatekeeping house in the area of ​​the former drawbridge were exposed. Finds were fragments of ointment pots and clay pipes as well as glass remains from wine and medicine bottles. In addition, a shaft system made of natural stone blocks with a corridor five meters deep was dug. This used to divert the rainwater from the castle into the moat. In the backfilling of the shaft system, found objects from the 17th and 18th centuries were found, such as ceramic shards, a folding knife with decorated handles made of bone and five dog skulls.

literature

  • EFJ Koch: History of the dynasty, the office, the city, castle and fortress Peina in Lower Saxony . Peine 1850
  • Jens Koch: Excavations in the "Owl's Nest". On the trail of the Peiner Burg. In: Archeology in Lower Saxony , 1999, p. 150
  • Albert Quaritsch: History of the castle and town of Peine. From the attack at the Hildesheim monastery to the monastery feud . Heuer, Peine 1900, DNB 575699094 .
  • Margret Zimmermann, Hans Kensche: Castles and palaces in Hildesheimer Land . Hildesheim, 2001, pp. 128-129
  • Michael Utecht: The history of the castle park . Ed. from the city of Peine, 2004 ( online PDF, 420 kB).

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kreisheimatbund Peine: The Castle Park - History of Castle and Burg Peine
  2. ↑ Michael Utecht: The Peiner Owl - from a derisive name to a landmark . In: Niedersachsenbuch 2000 Peine , Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport , Hannover 2000, pp. 150–158, ISSN  0946-5588
  3. ↑ Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts, which so far have been invented and improved by human understanding and wit. Darinnen ... , Vol. 35, Halle; Leipzig: Johann Heinrich Zedler, 1743, column 1841; Digitized via Google books
  4. ↑ Open Monument Day. Other events: Water tower, castle park and manor in Peiner Allgemeine from September 8, 2009
  5. ↑ Jens Koch: The excavations on the Schloßberg