Reicheneck Castle

Reicheneck Castle
Remnants of the wall at the outer moat of Reicheneck Castle (February 2012)
Creation time :	before 1238
Castle type :	Two-part hilltop castle in a spur location
Conservation status:	ruin
Standing position :	Reichsministeriale
Place:	Happurg -Reicheneck
Geographical location	49 ° 28 '30.8 "  N , 11 ° 29' 7.4"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 28 '30.8 "  N , 11 ° 29' 7.4"  E
Height:	500  m above sea level NN

Former outer gatehouse of the castle, now a residential building (June 2015)

The castle Reicheneck is the ruin of a former high medieval nobility castle , which is in the district Reicheneck in the municipality Happurg in Middle Franconia Nuremberg County in Bavaria , Germany is.

Geographical location

The sparse remains of the Spornburg are in the central area of ​​the Hersbrucker Alb , part of the Franconian Alb , on a mountain spur at about 500  m above sea level. NN , and thus about 130 meters above the Happurger See . This mountain spur borders on the northeast side of the valley of the Happurger Bach and on the west side of the Kainsbachtal. The site of the former castle is about 1100 meters west of the Protestant parish church of St. John the Baptist in Förrenbach or about 30 kilometers east of Nuremberg .

Nearby are the remains of other former medieval castles, about two kilometers east of a castle stables on the Vogelfels, and a little further the Lichtenegg castle ruins . To the north are the Altes Haus castle stalls and the Lichtenstein castle ruins above the town of Pommelsbrunn and another castle stables called Hacburg above Happurg.

History of the castle

The castle under the Königsteiners

The first mention of Reicheneck Castle dates back to 1238, when the possession of the castle was attested to the Reich ministerial Ulrich II von Königstein in a document . Ulrich was related to the higher imperial ministry in Staufer Swabia and was at the head of the Staufer loyalists in the East Franconian area around 1230. It was probably also he who had the castle built in the middle of his territory before 1238. The name Reiches Eck testifies to the self-confidence and reputation of the Königsteiners. The castle chapel , attested to in 1253, was dedicated to the patron saint of mining, Saint Bartholomew , and the economic basis of the Königsteiner probably went back to the numerous iron ore mining in the Hersbruck region during the High Middle Ages .

After Ulrich's son Wirnt had died before 1241 and his grandson of the same name around 1242 after a riding accident near Engelthal , Reicheneck Castle passed to his son-in-law Walter Schenk von Klingenburg after Ulrich's death in the winter of 1252/53, he was the son of dem Kaiser related Edelfreien Konrad Schenk von Klingenburg and was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Ulrich. With Ulrich's death, the Koenigsteiner line was extinct in the male line.

The castle under the Klingenburgers

The family castle that gave the Klingenburgers their name was the Clingenburg above the town of Klingenberg am Main , but they only called themselves Schenken von Reicheneck from 1278 after they had sold their property on the Upper Main. At that time, two kemenats are said to have already existed in the castle . Reicheneck Castle was, like under the Königsteiners, the center of a rule that was maintained by a large service and castle guard team. These castle men sat on farmsteads and on small castles or on fixed seats z. B. in the villages of Birkensee (Offenhausen) , Egensbach or Offenhausen near Engelthal.

With Walter's sons, the family of the Schenken von Reicheneck split up into the Walther and Konradin lines during the 14th century, and they also shared the Reicheneck Castle. However, the two waged frequent small wars against the Count Palatine, the Imperial City of Nuremberg and the Landgraves of Leuchtenberg . In 1347/48 the Conradin part of the castle had to be assigned to the Bamberg Bishop Friedrich I von Hohenlohe as a fief after the feud against the Count Palatine and the imperial city was bad for Konrad III. Schenk went out. This presumably prevented destruction by the Count Palatine, but Konrad III. to commit to a four-year military service to the Count Palatinate, he also had to "wait" them with half of the castle for ten years, so he had to fight with his part of the castle and his crew in a war on the side of the Count Palatine.

Shortly afterwards, the Bamberg bishop enfeoffed Count Ludwig von Hohenlohe with the half of the castle, but he sold it to the German King Charles IV as early as 1353 . Charles, who was crowned emperor in 1355, declared half the castle in 1356 as a Bohemian inheritance. The Walter Line also granted the emperor the right to open their own half of the castle, so he could then occupy the entire castle with troops in the event of war.

In the Treaty of Fürstenwalde , in which the emperor exchanged large parts of New Bohemia for the Mark Brandenburg , the Bohemian fief and the right to open the Waltersche castle half fell to the Bavarian duchy in 1373.

Around 1390, with the exception of one eighth from Erhard Schenk, the remaining shares of the Conradinian line were transferred to Ludwig II. Schenk von der Walther's line after three members of the Konradinian line had died. Ludwig died in 1395, the castle then passed through his daughters Margaretha and Klara to his sons-in-law Hans and Heinrich von Absberg zu Rumburg .

The castle under the Absbergers

The Absbergers had been in a violent feud since 1388 with the imperial city of Nuremberg, among others. Although they vowed King Wenzel to keep the peace in 1397, they broke their vows shortly afterwards through further malpractices. On July 7th, 1398 this led to the siege and capture of the castle by the troops of the Nuremberg burgrave Friedrich VI. and the imperial city of Nuremberg. On the orders of King Wenceslas, the castle was burned "to the ground" in July and taken within six days. The attempt at rebuilding in 1400 was forbidden by King Ruprecht I.

Today the castle ruins are listed as a monument D-5-74-128-54 "Castle ruins, wall remains of the castle complex of the 12th / 13th century. Century and the Nuremberg district castle in the second half of the 16th century (demolished in 1807); Former outer gatehouse, now residential building, two-storey saddle roof construction, limestone masonry, second half of the 16th century ”, as well as a floor monument D-5-6534-0025“ Medieval and early modern findings in the area of ​​the Reicheneck castle ruins ”recorded by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation .

literature

• Robert Giersch: Happurg: The Reicheneck castle ruins . In: Alfried Wieczorek (Hrsg.): Excursions to archeology, history and culture in Germany, Volume 52: Nuremberg and Nürnberger Land - excursion destinations between Pegnitz and Franconian Alb. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2368-2 , pp. 157-159.
• Robert Giersch, Andreas Schlunk, Berthold Frhr. von Haller: Castles and mansions in the Nuremberg countryside. Published by the Altnürnberger Landschaft e. V., Lauf an der Pegnitz 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-020677-1 , pp. 346-351.
• Wilhelm Schwemmer: The art monuments of Middle Franconia, Volume X: District of Hersbruck. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1959, pp. 246-251.
• Ruth Bach-Damaskinos, Jürgen Schnabel, Sabine Kothes: Palaces and castles in Middle Franconia. Verlag A. Hofmann, Nuremberg 1993, ISBN 3-87191-186-0 , p. 139.

Web links

Commons : Burg Reicheneck  - Collection of images

• Reicheneck castle ruins on the page "Castles and manors in the Nuremberg countryside"

Individual evidence

1. ^ Location of the Burgstall in the Bavarian Monument Atlas
2. ^ The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
3. ^ ^{A b} Gustav Voit: History of the Engelthal Monastery
4. ↑ Source: History unless otherwise stated: Robert Giersch, Andreas Schlunk, Berthold Frhr. von Haller: Castles and mansions in the Nuremberg countryside, p. 346 ff.
5. ↑ List of monuments for Happurg (PDF) at the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (PDF; 142 kB)