Wettin Castle
| Wettin Castle | ||
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 View of the lower castle, in the foreground the Saale |
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| Alternative name (s): | Wettin Castle | |
| Creation time : | 900 to 1000 | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | Preserved essential parts | |
| Standing position : | Nobles, clericals, counts, princes, kings | |
| Construction: | Earth-wood construction | |
| Place: | Wettin | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 34 '59.3 " N , 11 ° 48' 38.1" E | |
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The Wettin castle , and the castle Wettin called, is a strongly built over hilltop castle in the town of Wettin in Saalekreis in Saxony-Anhalt . It is the ancestral seat of the margraves, electors and kings of Saxony, the Wettins .
history
As with many old castles, the early development of Wettin Castle lies in the dark of history. It is assumed that a Slavic castle complex already existed in Carolingian times , which became the focus of an early German castle award in the course of the German East Settlement . The Slavic name of the nearby desert Pögritz means below the castle . The name Wettin can be traced back to the old Sorbian vitin . Vitin comes from the old Sorbian root vit, which means welcome! is translated. As a result, the place Wettin on a Saalefurt with the castle was a controlled entrance gate from the Germanic to the Slavic area, here in particular in the Gau Nudzici , whose eponymous place Neutz is not far from Wettin.
It was first mentioned in a document from King Otto I of July 29, 961 as Vitin civitas (City of Wettin). Wettin is a castle guard place that is tenth to the Moritzkloster Magdeburg . In 1157 it appears as "In burcwardo Witin in villa que dictur Pothegrodice" (in Burgward Wettin in the place where P. is called) and in 1126 as Witin. The name of the village near the castle Pögritz can be traced back to the Slavic word podgrad (in the 12th century Pothegrodice), which means under the castle . Whether it is a Slavic settlement under a Slavic hill fort or later settlement below the German castle remains to be clarified. What is certain, however, is that Wettin was the center of an important castle guard. The Burgward belonged to the domain of the Margrave Rikdag . His relative Dedo is enfeoffed with the County of Wettin in the 10th century .
The Altzeller Annalen name Dietrich II as a count in Wettin. After Dietrich's murder in 1034, his son Thimo received the county. His son Konrad was an important figure in Saxon history as "the great one". He resided at the castle from 1091.
The rulers of several Central German counties and margraviates (e.g. Meißen , Thuringia ), the rulers of Saxony and Thuringia and, at times, Poland and other European states, descend from the Counts of Wettin .
In 1123, Konrad appointed Ministeriale from the von Schochwitz family as burgrave. They had to give way when Heinrich, Konrad's son, resided at the castle from 1156. In this context, the construction of the upper castle is to be classified as a Burggrafenburg . On the castle rock there were now two castles, each with a separate outer bailey .
In 1217 the Wettin line of the count family died out. The Wettin counts of Brehna inherited Wettin. Otto IV von Brehna sold the County of Wettin to the Archbishop of Magdeburg on November 14, 1288 . It was converted into an archiepiscopal office . The Counts of Brehna were members and beneficiaries of the Knights Templar . Count Friedrich II was a Templar and fell on October 16, 1221 near Acre . Around 1240, his son Dietrich gave the town of Müächen to the order.
A noble family with the name Wettin, who had the castle temporarily as a fief, is not related to the margravial family.
The further history of the castle is connected with a complicated granting of fiefs from around 1300 on. The upper castle and the lower castle were divided into several fiefs with associated lands. Important fiefdoms were the Schraplausche and the Trothaic fiefdom on the upper castle. In 1440 the von Trotha family owned both fiefs of the upper castle. Since 1592 the Schraplausche fiefdom was sovereign Brandenburg property.
In 1565 the goalkeeper's house was built on the upper castle. The keep of the upper castle appears ruinous at Merian in 1640. In 1697 it was completely demolished. The upper castle burned down during the town fire in 1660. In 1663 the Trothas sold their fiefdom to Johann Heinrich von Menius. From 1663 to 1689 he built Menius House on the city side.
The lower castle was sold in 1446 by Archbishop Friedrich to Koppe von Ammendorf and Caspar from the Winckel . The Ammendorfer received the hall side and the angle the town side of the castle. In 1555 the Winkels acquired the Ammendorfer share, so that they owned the entire lower castle. Around 1600 a comprehensive expansion of the lower castle took place under Christoph aus dem Winckel . On the courtyard side of the Ammendorf house, three gables in baroque shapes were placed. The striking angle tower on the northern tip was built in 1606. From 1768 to 1770 the Winkel house was renovated in the Rococo style.
In 1795 the Winkels sold the entire Wettin property to the von Merode family, who sold it to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia on November 4, 1803 . Louis Ferdinand had the Winkelsche Palais expanded again for residential purposes until 1806. After his death, the lower castle was only used for economic purposes. The tenants set up a brewery and a distillery in the buildings. Between 1806 and 1813 the gatehouse on the north side was torn down and the driveway widened. Around 1830 the upper floors of the north and south wings were demolished. The keep, which had been in ruins for a long time, was demolished in 1860 as was the Petrikirche in 1840. Several farm buildings were built on the castle grounds in the 19th and 20th centuries. They still determine the image of the castle today. The area of the gate of the lower castle was changed after 1930 in the course of its use as a Gaufführer school of the NSDAP .
At the beginning of the 1950s, the finance school for farmers moved into the lower castle.
Archaeological research
Excavations by Paul Grimm in the 1930s found walls (stone walls laid in clay), which indicate the presence of a castle in the 10th century. On the steep slopes there were the walls mentioned, while the elevation at the northwest end of the core castle is interpreted as a wall in earth-wood construction with a castle moat in front . The oldest walls are covered by a two meter wide circular wall from around 1100. The dating could be carried out using broken fragments. This proved the location of the count's castle on the site of today's lower castle.
New excavations that have been carried out since November 2018 in connection with construction work to expand the grammar school have provided additional insights into the history of the castle's construction and use.
Shepherd School
From 1955 until its dissolution in 1991, the shepherd's school Wettin was located in the upper castle , the only special vocational school for shepherds in Central Europe.
Engineering school for agrochemistry and crop protection
In 1963 part of the plant protection college moved to Wettin, and the 2nd and 3rd year of study were trained on the Wettin Lower Castle. In 1965 the construction of additional boarding and classrooms in the Petersgarten area began (some of which have since been removed). In 1968/69 the technical school for plant protection was converted into an engineering school for agrochemistry and plant protection. In 1970 the school was expanded to include a technology laboratory in the area of the central castle (today the art wing). During this time, the gym was also built from the coal cellar. Each year around 40 teachers trained around 100 direct study students, 50 distance learning students and agricultural pilots in the field of crop protection and fertilization. In 1990 the castle became the property of the Saalkreis .
Burg high school
In 1991 the Burg-Gymnasium Wettin was established on the castle grounds, which is unique in central Germany with its art department . The school has a boarding school for the students of the art classes, who also take their Abitur due to a special regulation in art. There is close contact with the University of Art and Design in Halle an der Saale .
See also
gallery
Wettin Castle, shell tower in the upper castle.
Wettin Castle, walls in the upper castle.
Wettin Castle, Winkelsche Palace in the lower castle.
Wettin Castle, view from the Saale cycle path
Wettin Castle on a book cover from 1908
literature
- Siegmar von Schultze-Galléra : Wettin Castle: its building history and its inhabitants . Wilhelm Hendrichs publishing house, Halle an der Saale 1926.
- Siegmar von Schultze-Gallera: Topography of Wettin Castle according to recent research . Calendar for Halle 1922
- Hermann Wäscher : Feudal castles in the districts of Halle and Magdeburg . Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1962.
- Paul Grimm: The prehistoric and early historical castle walls of the districts of Halle and Magdeburg . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1958.
- Paul Grimm: Excavations at Wettin Castle. In: Thuringian-Saxon magazine for history and art. Volume 26, 1938.
- Carl Plathner: The towers of Wettin Castle. In: Thuringian-Saxon magazine for history and art. Volume 26, 1938.
- Dehio: Handbook of Art Monuments, The Halle District . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1976.
- Handbook of Historic Places in Germany, Province of Saxony Anhalt . Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1987.
- A prince's cradle . In: The Gazebo . Issue 15, 1867, pp. 237, 238–240 ( full text [ Wikisource ] - with illustration).
Web links
- Website of the Burg-Gymnasium Wettin
- Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun
- Wettin Castle at World of Arms: Description and photos, focus on heraldry
Individual evidence
- ^ Wettin Castle on Slavic ramparts in Germany. Saxony-Anhalt ; accessed on August 26, 2017.
- ↑ lda-lsa.de