Schenkenstein Castle

Schenkenstein Castle
Schenkenstein Castle - general view from the valley
Creation time :	12th Century
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	ruin
Place:	Bopfingen - Aufhausen
Geographical location	48 ° 51 '21 "  N , 10 ° 19' 9"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 51 '21 "  N , 10 ° 19' 9"  E
Height:	573  m above sea level NN

The castle Schenkenstein is the ruin of a high medieval Spur castle above the Bopfinger district Aufhausen in Ostalbkreis in Baden-Württemberg .

Geographical location

The ruin is located on the so-called Schlossberg at 573  m above sea level. NN . The Schenkenstein lies at the end of a rocky spur about 100 meters long on the Schlossberg. The Burgstall Schlössle is located about 1150 meters southwest.

history

Coat of arms of the Schenkenstein taverns in Siebmacher's coat of arms book

Scheibler coat of arms

The Schenkenstein was the seat of a noble family von Stein (de Lapide), which were a branch line of the Lords of Rothenburg . A "Konrad von Stein" appeared in various documents from 1138 to 1152. The Stein sold the fortress around 1230 to the Augsburg Bishop Hartmann von Dillingen . As early as 1263, however, the rule fell back to the sellers and then passed to the Counts of Oettingen .

The Oettingers put the servants of the Ehringen taverns on the castle. This family then named itself after the new fief. Georg Schenk von Stein opened the castle in the imperial city of Nördlingen in 1410 against payment of 200  florins. In the German Peasants' War , the rebels stormed the Schenkenstein in 1525, which was then uninhabitable and abandoned. The von Stein Schenken family went out in 1902 with Max von Stein in South Tyrol. In 1931 the castle ruins came to the community of Aufhausen as a gift from Prince Eugen von Oettingen-Wallerstein.

description

Round keep with part of the wall and the rest of the attached hall

The keep and some remains of the wall have been preserved from the former castle complex. Three section trenches in front of the castle are almost completely filled.

Behind the last ditch, the gateway leads past a rocky ridge to the former gate. Behind it - a little higher - is the main castle , which is in front of a terrace or a kennel in the west. The polygonal core castle (approx. 30 by 38 meters) was enclosed by a circular wall, of which only remnants have survived. The round donjon rises in the middle, to the south the hall was built onto the curtain wall. Behind the main castle was the lower castle . The terrain is terraced, with rubble walls and remnants of walls still evidence of the former development.

The outer wall of the hall is still around 4 meters high and 7 meters long. The adjoining boulder had to be worked off horizontally to create space for residential construction. Only remnants of the rising masonry can be seen on the edge of the rock. The facing of the keep has been partially rebuilt in recent decades. The original wall shell is still present in the north and east, the additions are clearly distinguishable from the old structure. The infill masonry is exposed in the upper third of the round tower. The tower is still around 16 meters high, the arched high entrance is in the southwest. The interior is square (approx. 3 by 3 meters), the diameter is approx. 8 meters.

Below the ruin is the Jewish cemetery , which was probably laid out in the 16th century. Today there are still 363 tombstones. The last burial took place in 1940. Today the Christian cemetery is added down the valley, the entire short forest valley serves as a burial place.

literature

• Günter Schmitt : Castle Guide Swabian Alb. Volume 6 Eastern Alb. Hiking and discovering between Ulm, Aalen and Donauwörth . Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei, Biberach an der Riß 1995. ISBN 3-924489-74-2 , pp. 211-216.