Vohburg Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vohburg Castle
Vohburg Castle - Gate and "Bergfried"

Vohburg Castle - Gate and "Bergfried"

Creation time : before 1040
Castle type : Höhenburg, location
Conservation status: ruin
Standing position : Count
Construction: Cuboid
Place: Vohburg on the Danube
Geographical location 48 ° 46 '14.4 "  N , 11 ° 36' 58.1"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 46 '14.4 "  N , 11 ° 36' 58.1"  E
Height: 370  m above sea level NHN
Vohburg Castle (Bavaria)
Vohburg Castle

The remains of Vohburg Castle lie above the town of Vohburg an der Donau in the Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm district in Upper Bavaria . From the high medieval castle complex only the gate construction is preserved today. In the 1980s, the remaining remains of the wall ring were completely demolished and rebuilt in a stylized form.

Geographical location

The ruin of the hilltop castle is at 370  m above sea level. NHN high rock on the Danube .

history

Coat of arms in the gate tower
The wall tower next to the gateway
Circular wall and maintenance lock
View from the care lock to the reconstructed keep

The urban area and the castle rock were formerly located in the river bed of the Danube and were already settled in the early Bronze Age. Traces of settlement on the rocky southern foothills of the Franconian Jura have also been archaeologically proven from the Latène and Roman times .

At the end of the 10th century AD, there was finally a larger fortified courtyard on the castle hill. In 1040 the counts (from 1055 count palatine) of Rott-Vohburg were already sitting on the fortress. Over the widow of the last Count Kuno II (son of Count Palatine Kuno I von Rott ), rule came after 1081 to Count Rapoto V. von Cham , who died of an epidemic in 1099.

From 1120 the rule was owned by Diepold III. That the - the Rapotonen belonged sex Diepoldsberg Inger - closely versippten. The castle became a main base of this important noble family, whose numerous castle men and service men appear in contemporary documents. After the sister of the lord of the castle was divorced from King Friedrich in 1153, the family lost much of its influence. After the death of Berthold II (1204) the dukes of Bavaria occupied the fortress and made it the center of the office of Vohburg. As the brother-in-law of the childless Berthold, Duke Ludwig der Kelheim raised claims to rule, which could only be enforced by force.

In the middle of the 13th century, the dukes built nearby Ingolstadt into the center of power and administrative center, since the rightful lords of the castle never gave up their claims to the Vohburg estate until the death of the last Diepoldinger (1257). However, Vohburg Castle was also rebuilt, expanded and upgraded as an administrative center. Next to and around the castle hill, the dukes laid the Vohburg market, from which the later town developed.

In 1246, Konrad IV von Hohenstaufen married Elisabeth von Wittelsbach on the Vohburg.

In 1316 the castle was destroyed by the troops of Ludwig of Bavaria and then pledged to the burgraves of Nuremberg. Reconstruction only began in 1414 under Duke Ernst.

That Duke Albrecht III. 1432 here secretly Bader's daughter Agnes Bernauer married, is unlikely.

The unfavorable location between the nearby cities of Ingolstadt and Neustadt significantly hampered Vohburg's development. The market and castle never achieved a prominent position among the ducal centers of power on the Danube. It is disputed whether the settlement was elevated to a city in the Middle Ages.

During the Thirty Years War it came to the final destruction by the Swedes in 1641. The engraving by Matthäus Merian in the “Topographia Bavariae” (1648) shows the town and castle still completely intact.

1721 the Pflegkommissar Johann Kastl built the Pflegschloss as an extension to the Roman city walls.
1809 Emperor Napoleon spent a night in the nursing home.
1959 The slender “keep” in the west was “reconstructed”.
1971/810 The remains of the medieval ring wall of the 13th century that had been preserved up to then were completely removed and rebuilt in a very stylized form.

Vohburg Castle was once one of the largest and most important fortifications in old Bavaria . In many modern travel guides, however, the castle and city are completely overlooked.

description

Today only the reconstructed curtain wall made of regular Eichstatt limestone blocks, the impressive castle gate and a semicircular tower next to the gate bear witness to the high medieval castle complex of the Wittelsbach family .

The irregular oval of the castle wall follows the course of the castle rock. After the demolition of the medieval historical ring wall that was still preserved , the now visible reconstructed wall in stylized form dates from the 1980s and is partly accessible in some places. From here there is a magnificent view of the city and the districts as well as the natural surroundings. In the north you can see the Juratafel , in the west the Irsching power station and the Donauauen , in the east also the Donauauen and in the south the ascent to the Tertiary hill country can be seen in a greater distance ( Dürnbucher Forst ) .

The main gate is one of the most important medieval gate buildings in Upper Bavaria. The plastered porch jumps out of the wall. A small pedestrian gate opens next to the ogival main entrance. The gable roof , however, comes from the reconstruction after a fire in 1891. Inside the castle gate is the oldest surviving depiction of the Bavarian coat of arms from 1477.

The care lock from 1721 was added to the old curtain wall in the west. The pleasant, two-storey mansard roof building later served as a hospital, crèche and old people's home and is adorned on the east side by a baroque house figure of Maria Immaculata.

The baroque parish church of St. Petrus within the wall ring is the successor to a Romanesque basilica that served as the main church of the Vohburg market in the High Middle Ages .

The interior of the castle has long served as a municipal cemetery and is freely accessible.

literature

  • Jolanda Drexler-Herold, Angelika Wegener-Hüssen: Landkreis Pfaffenhofen ad Ilm (= Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation [Hrsg.]: Monuments in Bavaria . Volume I.19 ). Karl M. Lipp Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-87490-570-5 .
  • Werner Meyer : Castles in Upper Bavaria - A manual . Verlag Weidlich, Würzburg 1986, ISBN 3-8035-1279-4 , p. 196-198 .

Web links

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