Schwarzenburg Castle

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Schwarzenburg Castle
Main castle with keep

Main castle with keep

Alternative name (s): Schwarzwihrberg, Schwarzwihr
Creation time : 1st half of the 11th century
Castle type : Two-part hilltop castle in a summit location
Conservation status: Keep, remains of buildings
Standing position : Noble Free
Construction: Hunchback ashlar, ashlar and quarry stone masonry
Place: Rötz building yard
Geographical location 49 ° 21 '15 "  N , 12 ° 29' 26.5"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 21 '15 "  N , 12 ° 29' 26.5"  E
Height: 706  m above sea level NHN
Schwarzenburg Castle (Bavaria)
Schwarzenburg Castle

The Schwarzenburg , also Schwarzwihrberg or Schwarzwihr called, is now a ruin of a high medieval to early modern hilltop castle on Castle Hill in the city Rötz in Oberpfälzer district of Cham in Bavaria , Germany .

The castle was founded as early as the 11th century, strengthened around 1450 and expanded around 1500 with mighty bastions and a roundabout . It was destroyed by the Swedes in 1634 during the Thirty Years War and then used as a quarry.

Today the freely accessible castle ruin in the area of ​​the outer bailey is mostly used as a grandstand for the festival taking place in the castle, in the area of ​​the main castle there is a temporarily managed refuge with a beer garden. The accessible keep serves as a lookout tower .

Geographical location

The extensive castle ruins are located in the southern part of the Upper Palatinate Forest on the wooded and rocky summit of the Schlossberg at 706  m above sea level. Above sea level. The Schlossberg is the highest elevation of the Schwarzwihrberg at the southeastern end of a small group of hills that rise above the valley of the Schwarzach and the Eixendorftalsperre . The ruin is located about 270 meters above the valley and 3,080 meters west-northwest of the Catholic parish church Sankt Martin in Rötz, 1,000 meters west above the village of Bauhof, a district of the municipality of Rötz, or about 20 kilometers northwest of Cham .

The Schlossberg from the east

Nearby are other former medieval castles, a few kilometers north-north-west of the Thannstein castle ruins and the Altenthanstein castle stables, the Warberg castle stables to the west-north-west of the town of Warberg near Neunburg vorm Wald and the Altenschneeberg stables to the north .

history

The Schwarzenburg was first mentioned between the years 1048 and 1060 with "Heinricus de Swarcenburg". His mention in the donation book of the St. Emmeram monastery as Vogt of the monastery and the church of Regensburg documents the high social position of the noble family . From this early period of the castle, however, no remains have survived, so that it is assumed that a predecessor complex existed on the old Schwarzwihrberg a little north, or that the first castle was a wooden complex from the 10th century. However, both assumptions are still unproven. The oldest parts of the ancestral castle of the Schwarzenburgs, the remains of the castle chapel , the presumably tower-shaped residential building immediately south of the chapel, the curtain wall and the remains of a tower with adjoining residential building in the eastern corner of the lower castle at the eastern bastion date from around the year 1100.

The most famous Schwarzenburg of importance across the empire was the Archbishop of Cologne, Friedrich I (Sedenzzeit 1100–1131). The report of the Annales Rodenses to Archbishop Friedrich von Schwarzenburg could also point to a wooden predecessor or a somewhat earlier dating of the oldest parts of the current ruins: According to this report, written almost contemporary (around 1160), Count Adolf (von Saffenberg) had Margarete von Schwarzenburg, a niece of Friedrich I, married. “... She was born at Schwarzenburg Castle in Bavaria, which lies on the border with Bohemia. It is well known that Friedrich [b. around 1075/78] itself… ”. An original document dated July 18, 1134 is also available in the archive of the city of Cologne for this marriage.

The last member of the Schwarzenburg noble free is the "Bertholdus de Swarcinburch", documented from approx. 1122 to 1147/48, ie Berthold II of Schwarzenburg , a nephew of the Archbishop of Cologne , Friedrich von Schwarzenburg. He returned from the Second Crusade with King Conrad III. not going back. He or his father are likely to be the builders of the oldest parts of the complex.

After the Schwarzenburgs died out, the castle came to the Staufer Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa via the Babenberg Duke Heinrich von Mödling (the elder) . There are no separate documents for the transfer of the Schwarzenburg to the Babenbergers after 1148 or the sale to Friedrich I. Both processes are subsequently mentioned in the document of September 26, 1212 mentioned below.

On September 26, 1212 King Friedrich II transferred the Schwarzenburg to King Ottokar I Přemysl of Bohemia. The keep and the younger residential building of the main castle were probably built under them. It was not until March 10, 1240 that a “dominus de Swarcenburch” reappeared as a witness to a donation from Konrad and Heinrich von Hohenfels to the Pielenhofen monastery . He and the younger Schwarzenburgs, which can be continuously documented again from 1256, were probably not related to the older Schwarzenburgs, they were ministerials from Bohemia who perhaps came from a noble family.

Since the division of Bavaria in 1255 , the domain of the ministerial family belonged to the Wittelsbach Duchy of Lower Bavaria . The decline of the family began in the year 1300, which was also evident in the pledging of Rötz and the "purkh ze Swartzenburch" in 1307 by the feudal lord Duke Stephan I of Lower Bavaria to Konrad von Chamerau , but they still sat in the castle until 1317 . The family died out with "Bertha von Schwarzenburg" in 1391.

After the division of the country in 1331, the rule came to the Duchy of Henry XV. The Natternbergers, who sold the castle the following year for 3,000 pounds Regensburg pfennigs together with Rötz and Waldmünchen to Landgrave Ulrich von Leuchtenberg . He had to undertake to build 400 pounds of Regensburg pfennigs into the castle.

The Leuchtenbergers owned the Schwarzenburg-Rötz-Waldmünchen rule, except for a pledge between 1364 and 1367 to Georg Auer von Stockenfels until around 1404, when they sold the rule to Amalia Kagerin von Störnstein and her sons Hinczik and Hans Pflugk zu Rabenstein. Under the plow, first under Hinczik, who died after 1460, then under his son Sebastian, he died in 1491/92, both were caretakers for Cham and his grandson Hinczik the Elder for a long time . J., who died in 1495, they were able to increase the rights and importance of the rule. Between 1439 and 1460 unspecified construction measures for 600 guilders are known, the three still-preserved semicircular towers, one on the tower-shaped residential building of the main castle, one within the western bastion and one next to the preserved inner gate of the outer castle, were certainly built at this time. Possibly there was also a second tower on the opposite side of the gate. The reason for the reinforcement of the fortifications is likely to be the threat to the region from the Hussite attacks from Bohemia . In 1433, Schwarzenburg was the assembly point of the army under Hinczik Pflugk , which prevented an army group of the Hussites from advancing to Lower Bavaria in the victorious battle of Hiltersried .

In 1495 the heirs of Hinczik d. J. for 36,000 guilders the rule to Heinrich von Plauen , the burgrave of Meissen . Heinrich was in possession of the castle and the manor until 1505; he had extensive construction work carried out for 4,000 guilders. It was then that the three bastions, the roundabout, the outer gate of the outer bailey and the lined neck ditch were probably built.

Heinrich von Plauen sold the castle to his brother-in-law, the Bohemian nobleman Heinrich von Guttenstein- Vrtba, on February 6, 1506, but the owner is proven on January 9, 1505, and the sale apparently took place before the date of the sales deed. The rulership of Schwarzenburg-Rötz-Waldmünchen, which previously belonged to Lower Bavaria , came to the Young Palatinate on July 30, 1505 through the Cologne verdict after the Landshut War of Succession . Duke Friedrich II of the Palatinate renounced all claims to repurchase and left him the rule against a five-year opening right as free property.

Heinrich von Guttenstein-Vrtba repeatedly used the strong castle as a starting point for his raids, which is why the Swabian Federation decided in 1509 to take action against him. He had the castle tested for its stability through his own fire and sold it due to the poor result in October 1509 with the entire rule for 41,000 guilders to Ludwig V and his brother Friedrich II of the Palatinate , even before a siege by the Bund came.

The Wittelsbach could restore the castle in 1514, she was appointed to the seat of a nurse of 1509, also known as "county Schwarzenburg" designated, Palatine Pflegamtes Rotz . The caretakers of the office sat in the castle until 1542, then moved first to the building yard, the former farm yard of the castle, and in the middle of the 17th century to the city palace of Rötz.

In 1634 Schwarzenburg Castle, which was presumably only poorly maintained after the keepers left , was destroyed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War and subsequently used as a quarry by the surrounding residents.

investment

From the former in the core Romanesque castle nor are the keep and extensive remains of walls of a battery tower , one Burgtor the upper castle, the ring wall and small remains of a castle chapel received. Today the 15 m high keep serves as a lookout tower. Festivals are held on the castle grounds, with the battery tower being used to store props and as an actor's cloakroom. Festival visitors and hikers can use the Schwarzwihrberghütte, a hut open from April 1st to October 31st for around 60 people.

literature

  • Bernhard Ernst: Castle construction in the southeastern Upper Palatinate from the early Middle Ages to the early modern period, Volume 2: Catalog . Publishing house Dr. Faustus, Büchenbach 2003, ISBN 3-933474-20-5 , pp. 124-132.
  • Ursula Pfistermeister : Castles of the Upper Palatinate . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1974, ISBN 3-7917-0394-3 , pp. 94-95.
  • Philipp Jedelhauser: The Noble Free from Schwarzenburg near Rötz (approx. 1054–1148), in: Negotiations of the Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg, Volume 156, 2016, Regensburg 2017, pp. 95–128, here pp. 95–100, p 104-111.
  • MG SS 16, 1859, Annales Rodenses, pp. 688–723, here pp. 703, 1122. The original version of the Annales Rodenses (from approx. 1160) reports on the beginnings of the Augustinian canons of Klosterath (French Rolduc) from 1104 -1157. The anonymous author belonged to the convent. The monastery complex is now near Herzogenrath, directly over the border in the Dutch province of Limburg.
  • AA Eder: History of the Pielenhofen Monastery, in: Negotiations of the historical association of Upper Palatinate and Regensburg, 23rd volume (1865), pp. 1–188, here supplement 3. pp. 88f., 1240 March 10th, witness "dominus de Swarzenburch ".

Web links

Commons : Schwarzenburg castle ruins  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Burgstall Alter Thanstein on the BLfD website
  2. ^ Burgstall Warberg on the BLfD website
  3. ↑ Source story: Ernst 2003, p 124ff.

4. Regesta Imperii IV, 2,3 No. 2517, Augsburg, 1179 September 16.