Schöneck Castle (Alsace)

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The ruins of Schöneck Castle

Castle Schöneck ( French Château du Schœneck ) is the ruin of a rock castle in the French town of Dambach in the Alsatian department of Bas-Rhin . It stands at a height of about 380 meters on a foothill of the Fischerberg above the Winecker valley about 24 kilometers northwest of Haguenau . It is considered the best preserved castle ruins of northern Vosges and is since 28 December 1984 as inscribed monument historique under monument protection .

The multi-part complex, the remains of which are visible today, was created in the 15th and 16th centuries by expanding and remodeling a medieval castle from the 13th century. From the latter, there are still remains of brickwork and smooth house stones , but the majority of the existing building fabric comes from later construction phases.

The area is freely accessible at any time, but can also be visited as part of a guided tour. From the upper castle there is a wide view of the Winecker valley and the Wineck castle ruins .

history

middle Ages

No documents have survived about the time when Schöneck Castle was founded, so there is no reliable information about that time. The complex was first mentioned in 1287 when the Strasbourg Bishop Konrad III. von Lichtenberg justified the introduction of a special tax in order to be able to redeem his pledged Schöneck Castle, among other things. Some publications mention the destruction of a castle called Schonecke by King Rudolf von Habsburg due to robbery in 1282 and relate this to Schöneck in Alsace, but the destroyed complex was Sooneck Castle in the Middle Rhine . However, Schöneck could be much older than the first documented mention and initially only consisted of wooden structures. By comparing architecture, its oldest preserved stone building can be dated to around the middle of the 13th century. Schöneck is one of the oldest castles in the Northern Vosges.

On March 21, 1301 , Bishop Friedrich I von Lichtenberg enfeoffed his nephew Johann I von Lichtenberg (1281-1315) with "Schonecke an dem Wasichen". It remained as a fief of the diocese of Strasbourg with the Lords of Lichtenberg and their legal successors. In the rule of Lichtenberg, the castle was assigned to the Wörth office, which had arisen in the 13th century, and formed its own bailiff there . The castle was used to secure the road south towards Haguenau. The Lichtenbergers gave the facility as an after loan to the von Schöneck family from Strasbourg . In 1335 the land was divided between the middle and younger lines of the House of Lichtenberg . The castle fell to the descendants of Johann III, who died early. von Lichtenberg, which established the middle line of the house.

From 1354 to 1362 it served Sigmund von Lichtenberg (1335-1380), the brother of Bishop Johann von Lichtenberg , as his residence. Friedrich von Blankenheim then had it repaired in the period from 1375 to 1390. When the brothers Jakob and Ludwig von Lichtenberg divided up the family property in 1440, Schöneck Castle went to Jakob. Under his aegis, the castle was administered by a bourgeois bailiff . In the latent dispute between the two brothers in 1464, Count Palatine Friedrich I occupied the complex on the grounds that Jacob's administration was damaging the interests of the Lichtenbergers. When they died out with Jakob von Lichtenberg in 1480, the inheritance was shared between his two nieces Anna and Elisabeth (1444–1495). The Wörth office - and with it Schöneck Castle - came through Elisabeth to her husband Simon IV. Wecker von Zweibrücken-Bitsch . After 1480, under the Count of Zweibrücken-Bitsch, the castle complex was expanded in late Gothic and Renaissance forms .

The Schöneckers continued to hold the castle as an after fief. With the death of Kuno von Schöneck in 1488, this family also died out. In the same year the castle was taken by the Palatinate Elector Philip . He thus secured the right to open the system for the following years .

Early modern age

Reinhard von Zweibrücken-Bitsch gave the castle and rule as a fief to the knight Wolf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim in 1517 . In the loan deed, Schöneck was referred to as a "dilapidated castle". Archbishop Wilhelm von Hohnstein therefore made his new feudal man the requirement to thoroughly repair the dilapidated castle. Wolf Eckbrecht was not the only tenant in 1517, because that year he concluded a truce with his brother-in-law Friedrich Steinhäuser zu Neidenfels . The Eckbrecht von Dürkheim continued the expansion begun under the Zweibrücker Counts, although they only used the castle temporarily as a residence, because the family normally resided in Frœschwiller . Under Kuno Eckbrecht von Dürkheim, the facility was modernized between 1545 and 1547, primarily to adapt it to the conditions of modern firearms. When the Counts of Zweibrücken-Bitsch died out in 1570, Schöneck passed to the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg .

During the Thirty Years War the castle served as a refuge for residents from the surrounding villages, after which it became meaningless. This made itself felt, among other things, in the fact that the castle crew consisted of only four men. And after a forest fire spread to the castle buildings on March 22, 1663 and largely destroyed them, the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg refused to provide their liege recipients with the required 100  Silberécu for the reconstruction because, in the count's opinion, this was not an urgent matter has been.

Lithograph of the castle ruins by Jacques Rothmüller , around 1839

Wolf Friedrich von Dürkheim was not only governor of the Counts of Sponheim , but also a colonel in the Palatine regiment "Isenburg". During the Dutch War , 1675 soldiers from this regiment were therefore stationed at Schöneck Castle to repel French troops. A first attempt at conquest by the French under the command of Nicolas de Bautru, marquis de Vaubrun could be repulsed in 1676. In the following four years, the population of the area sought refuge from enemy soldiers in the well- fortified complex, which was able to withstand all French attacks. The last baptism, which took place in the castle chapel on March 6, 1679, testifies to this . When Elector Karl Ludwig of the Palatinate , the regiment of soldiers, however, had taken off, it came in 1680 to a siege of the castle by troops under the generals Joseph de Montclar and Ezéchiel du Mas , Comte de Mélac who was successful on 29 April of the year. Like so many other castles in the Wasgau , the occupiers razed the complex and blew it up in November 1680. Evidence of the destruction work is still a sapper tunnel on the foundation of the turret. In the period that followed, Schöneck Castle fell into disrepair.

After the death of the last Hanau count, Johann Reinhard III. , the inheritance - and with it the ruined castle Schöneck - fell in 1736 to the son of his only daughter Charlotte , the hereditary prince and later Landgrave Ludwig (IX.) of Hessen-Darmstadt .

Modern times

During the French Revolution , the ruins were confiscated and declared national property. In 1820 it was bought by the von Dietrich family. In 1881, the Society for the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Alsace ( French Société pour la Conservation des Monuments historiques en Alsace ) undertook extensive renovation work on the remaining building fabric before the first excavations on the castle area followed in 1881 . After further conservation measures had taken place in 1953, the École d'architecture de Strasbourg and the Société Niederbronnoise d'Histoire et d'Archéologie led by Maurice Frey and René Schellmanns carried out three excavation campaigns from 1981 to 1983/84. Not only was the entrance area of ​​the castle including bastions and moat uncovered, but also a component from 1676 was found, which testifies to the reconstruction work in Dürkheim after the forest fire of 1663. The association Cun Ulmer Grün, founded in October 2000, has set itself the task of promoting the preservation of the castle ruins and promoting their exploration. Not only is the protection of Schöneck on the program of the association, but also its partial reconstruction. The Pimodan family owns the castle and the surrounding forest.

description

Schematic floor plan of the castle

Schöneck Castle is a typical Alsatian rock ridge castle. It consists of two core castles - called upper castles - the remains of which lie on an elongated rock ridge between 10 and 15 meters high, and two outer castles - called lower castles ( French basses-cours ) - at the foot of the approximately 100-meter-long cliff. While the upper castles are at around 380 meters above sea level, the lower castles are therefore at a height of around 365 meters. The castle rock is divided into two saddles by a deep incision, of which the higher, northern one has the essential wall remains. In the gap in between there used to be a building measuring 20 × 10 meters with a spacious basement. It has almost completely disappeared today, but can be dated to the 15th or early 16th century. The castle rock drops off steeply to the south, east and west. In the north it is separated from the Fischerberg by an almost 20 meter wide neck ditch .

Compared to other castle ruins in the northern Vosges, a lot of the complex has been preserved because it was far away from settlements and was therefore not used as a quarry after it was razed. The masonry that has been preserved is made of the red sandstone found in the area . It is made of quarry stone on the one hand , but also carved cuboids, the shape of which - especially in the two outer castles - is characteristic of the 16th century in Alsace.

Kennel

The access to the castle is at the southern end of the castle area and has been secured since the middle of the 16th century by a ditch in front of it and by two square flanking towers on the two southern corners. The eastern of the two bastion towers has two types of mouth , the masonry of the western one is still up to two meters high. The moat used to be spanned by a drawbridge , which is now replaced by a permanent bridge. Behind the main gate there was a gate with two rooms, of which only the foundation walls have been preserved. From there, the visitor arrives at a multi-part kennel , which gives access to the two lower castles. The western part of the kennel with a floor plan of 10 × 10 meters is an extension of the east kennel that was built earlier. This can be reached through a roughly three meter deep rock breakthrough, which could be closed by a no longer existing, two-winged gate.

Western outer bailey and gun turret

The outer bailey area at the western foot of the rock measures around 40 × 10 meters. His buildings were built around the same time as the western kennel extension. In addition to a well that is still ten meters deep today, parts of the circular wall on the west and north sides and the ruins of a round tower with a domed ceiling on the ground floor have been preserved. The northern part of the wall is more than twice as high as the western wall and has a semicircular throwing hole . Both wall parts had a parapet with battlements over a round arch frieze . It is repeated in the round corner tower as well as in a massive gun turret that adjoins the northern outer bailey wall in the east and is up to three meters thick. The U-shaped tower from around 1500 has an inner diameter of 4.30 meters and four rectangular mouths on the ground floor. Its upper floor above the arched frieze protrudes far and has an inner diameter of 6.70 meters. It was probably used as a guardroom earlier.

Eastern bailey

Pointed arch gate of the eastern outer bailey

In the past, a total of four gates had to be passed to get to the eastern outer bailey. The last of these was in the southern part of the outer bailey wall, which is 1.93 meters thick on this side. It is a 2.50 meter wide pointed arched gate with a semicircular throwing hole above it, which was covered by a conical roof. The elongated area behind the south wall measures 84 × 11 meters. Its buildings are only rudimentary. This includes a 20 meter long piece of curtain wall on the east side, which is still up to three meters high, and a five-sided corner tower made of quarry stone masonry on the northeast corner, of which the two lower floors are still preserved. With its slits , it probably dates from the 16th century. Remains of another, semicircular tower can be found roughly in the middle of the former east wall. Other buildings in the eastern outer bailey, some of which are still preserved, are a cistern and a vaulted cellar in the northern part.

Oberburgen

The remains of the upper castle on the southern rocky reef are only very sparse and less well preserved than the remains of the northern upper castle. It consisted of a single building with a floor plan of 28 × 5.70 meters, of which brickwork made of smooth and bumpy blocks remains, especially in the northern part. The entrance was located in this 1.70 meter thick north wall, the door frames of which are still partially preserved today. The outer walls on the long sides of the south castle are 0.95 meters thick and are still a maximum of four layers today, making them as tall as a man. However, based on old drawings, it is known that the building used to have three floors.

The plateau on the north rock is about 40 meters long and between four to eight meters wide. Almost its entire length was occupied by a narrow, sometimes only around 2.5 meters wide residential building , of which only the middle part of the wall remains higher. Remnants of an east-facing niche can probably be interpreted as the remains of a small castle chapel . The building had at least one upper storey and its entrance was on the southern narrow side. This was previously accessible from the eastern lower castle via a staircase carved into the rock, but today it is no longer accessible. In the north, the residential building was joined by a pentagonal keep with foundation walls made of humpback ashlars. Its outer walls are up to 1.90 meters thick and up to seven layers high.

literature

  • Rüdiger Bernges: rock castles in Wasgau. Investigations of a special type of castle in the southern Palatinate Forest and in the northern Vosges . Self-published, Wuppertal 2005, ISBN 3-930376-25-3 , pp. 127-134.
  • Bertrand-L. Bilger: Schoeneck ou les ambitions des Durckheim . 1991 ( online ).
  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) (= The castles of Alsace. Architecture and history . Volume 2). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-422-06635-9 , pp. 404-418.
  • École d'architecture de Strasbourg: Le château de Schoeneck, archeology, architecture, archéographie. Chantiers 1981-1984 . Self-published, Strasbourg 1984.
  • Fritz Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. Investigations into the property, the rule and the politics of domestic power of a noble family from the Upper Rhine . In: Writings of the Erwin von Steinbach Foundation . 2nd edition, unchanged in the text, by an introduction extended reprint of the Strasbourg edition, Rhenus-Verlag, 1938. Volume 10 . Pfaehler, Bad Neustadt an der Saale 1985, ISBN 3-922923-31-3 (268 pages).
  • Walter Herrmann: On red rock. A guide to the most beautiful castles in the Palatinate and Alsatian Wasgau . 1st edition. Braun, Karlsruhe 2004, ISBN 3-7650-8286-4 , pp. 164-167.
  • Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales d′Alsace. Dictionnaire d′histoire et d′architecture . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , pp. 291-295.
  • Bernhard Metz, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Schöneck. In: Jürgen Keddigkeit , Ulrich Burkhart, Rolf Übel (eds.): Palatinate Castle Lexicon . Vol. 4.1: O − Sp (= contributions to the history of the Palatinate . Vol. 12.4.1). Institute for Palatinate History and Folklore, Kaiserslautern, 2007. ISBN 978-3-927754-56-0 , pp. 477–491.
  • Charles-Laurent Salch: Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace . Alsatia, 1991, ISBN 2-7032-0193-1 , pp. 292-294.
  • Marc Schampion: L'association "Cun Ulmer Grün" et le château du Schoeneck . In: Annuaire - Société d'Histoire de Reischshoffen et environs . Société d'Histoire de Reischshoffen et environs, Reichshoffen March 2009, ISSN  1164-8988 , pp. 10-16 ( PDF ; 832 kB).
  • Marc Schampion: Rétrospective sur les travaux de 2009 et 2010 au château du Schoeneck . In: Annuaire - Société d'Histoire de Reichshoffen et environs . Société d'Histoire de Reischshoffen et environs, Reichshoffen May 2011, ISSN  1164-8988 , pp. 23–26 ( PDF ; 4.9 MB).
  • Bernadette Schnitzler: Dambach. Château de Schoeneck . In: Roland Recht (Ed.): Le Guide des châteaux de France. Bas-Rhin . Hermé, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-86665-024-7 , pp. 43-44.
  • Rémy Valentin: Un sauvetage réussi au château du Schoeneck: l'extension de la face est du logis nord. In: Châteaux forts d'Alsace . Vol. 15, 2015, ISSN  1281-8526 , pp. 33-41.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ R. Bernges: Felsenburgen im Wasgau , p. 127.
  2. ^ Mathias Heissler: Travaux de sauvegarde au château de Schœneck à Dambach . In: Châteaux forts d'Alsace. Histoire - Archeology - Architecture. Volume 6. Center de Recherches Archéologiques Médiévales de Saverne, Saverne 2004, ISSN  1281-8526 , p. 99 ( PDF ; 663 kB).
  3. ↑ Entry of the castle ruins in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  4. ↑ a b Entry of the castle ruins in the French inventory of monuments
  5. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 404.
  6. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 406.
  7. ↑ a b c d T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 415.
  8. ↑ a b c R. Bernges: Felsenburgen im Wasgau , p. 128.
  9. ^ Alfred Hessel (ed.), Manfred Krebs (ed.): Regesta of the bishops of Strasbourg . Volume 2. Wagner, Innsbruck 1928, p. 423, No. 2541 ( digitized version ).
  10. ^ F. Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. 1985, p. 239.
  11. ^ F. Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. 1985, p. 240.
  12. ↑ B. Schnitzler: Dambach. Château de Schoeneck , p. 44.
  13. ↑ C.-L. Salch: Nouveau Dictionnire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace , p. 292.
  14. ^ F. Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. 1985, p. 79.
  15. ↑ C.-L. Salch: Nouveau Dictionnire des Châteaux Forts d'Alsace , p. 294.
  16. ↑ a b c d e Bertrand-L. Bilger: Schoeneck ou les ambitions des Durckheim , accessed on January 19, 2013.
  17. ↑ a b R. Bernges: Felsenburgen im Wasgau , p. 129.
  18. ↑ M. Schampion: L'association "Cun Ulmer Grün" et le château du Schoeneck , p. 10.
  19. ^ R. Bernges: Felsenburgen im Wasgau , p. 130.
  20. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , pp. 411-412.
  21. ↑ a b c T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 412.
  22. ↑ a b c T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 414.
  23. ↑ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 413.
  24. ^ R. Bernges: Felsenburgen im Wasgau , p. 131.
  25. ↑ a b T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 411.
  26. ↑ a b c T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 410.
  27. ↑ a b T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 409.
  28. ↑ a b T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 407.
  29. ^ R. Bernges: Felsenburgen im Wasgau , p. 132.
  30. ^ T. Biller, B. Metz: The late Romanesque castle building in Alsace (1200-1250) , p. 408.

Coordinates: 49 ° 1 ′ 6 ″  N , 7 ° 39 ′ 31 ″  E