Wolfershausen Castle

Wolfershausen Castle
Alternative name (s):	castellum wolfershusen
Creation time :	12th Century
Castle type :	Niederungsburg
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Place:	Felsberg - Wolfershausen
Geographical location	51 ° 10 '54.1 "  N , 9 ° 26' 39.8"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 10 '54.1 "  N , 9 ° 26' 39.8"  E

The castle Wolfershausen even castellum wolfer husen called, was a small, probably built in the 12th century and destroyed in the year 1273 lowland castle in Wolfershausen , a district of Felsberg in northern Hesse Schwalm-Eder-Kreis .

Geographical location

The Burgstall is roughly at the point where the church stands today, immediately north of Lotterbergstrasse ( Kreisstrasse 4 coming from Deute in the west ), where the cul-de-sac "In der Burg" at least reminds of her by name. After the destruction of the castle - when exactly is not known - a fortified church with a square tower was built on the remains of the castle ruins ; its Gothic nave was built around 1425 and rebuilt again in 1484. Parts of the wall of the old churchyard may still come from the former castle.

The earlier assumption that the castle was located at the site of today's Amselhof, around 750 m northwest of the village center on the so-called "Amsel" on the nearby Lotterberg - as even Georg Landau still thinks in his "Description of the Electorate of Hesse", published in 1842 meanwhile refuted.

history

Coat of arms of those of Wolfershausen

The village of Wolfershausen was first mentioned in a document in 1061. The Lords of Wolfershausen had sat there since the early 13th century . Her coat of arms , shown for the first time in 1259, shows a wolf running heraldically to the right and three rings in the lower field, which symbolize the family's origins from Rengshausen. By Wolfershausen were a branch line of the knightly family of those of Rengshausen , starting with Hermann von Rengoldehusen . This was probably in 1219 or soon after, succeeding Albert V. of Schauenburg , the Archbishopric of Mainz with several producers comprehensive high court "Ditmelle" in Kassel belehnt been, but was soon - no later than 1225 - of the Ludowinger Landgrave Heinrich Raspe IV. , Who claimed the feudal right for himself, ousted from this office and replaced there by the Kassel mayor . He evaded to Wolfershausen, where he received the Wolfershausen court as a Mainz feudal man and delivered his tithe to the Petri pen in Fritzlar, Mainz . In Wolfershausen he moved into a small castle, which he either already found or built himself. He was followed by his sons Hermann and Heinrich, who until 1275 called themselves partly after their old and partly after their new residence, but later only called “von Wolfershausen” or “von Wulfeshusen”. The two pursued a fickle policy between the archbishopric on the one hand and the landgraves on the other, which ultimately led to the total destruction of their castle.

After the Ludowinger Landgrave Konrad von Thuringia besieged and damaged the Mainz Heiligenburg, only 6 km south of Wolfershausen, on his campaign against Fritzlar in Gensungen in 1232 , the brothers, who were probably Burgmannen there, were taken over by Archbishop Siegfried III. tasked with their reconstruction. While they were still busy, they suddenly switched to the landgraves' side, possibly in the hope of getting back the dishes that had been wrested from their father. The angry archbishop then sent troops against the not yet completed Heiligenburg, which caused great damage to the Lords of Wolfershausen and their rear passengers. When the last Ludowinger Landgrave Heinrich Raspe IV died in February 1247 , the brothers again switched to the Mainz side. Archbishop Siegfried came in very handy, as he could use vassals resident in this area in his subsequent dispute about the Hessian legacy of the Ludowingers with Duchess Sophie von Brabant and her little son Heinrich . As early as March 24, 1247, he left the von Wolfershausen brothers not only with the courts that had been confiscated from their father by the Thuringian landgraves, partly under feudal law , partly as pledge , but also promised to compensate them for the damage caused by his troops on and near the Heiligenberg . In addition, he paid them 20 marks to buy land for their castle.

Despite their oath of loyalty to the Archbishop, the two von Wolfershausen later joined the Duchess and, subsequently, their son, Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse - although the timing of this change of sides is not entirely clear. In 1270 they still had a Mainz castle seat on the Heiligenburg, in 1272 they were in Fritzlar with peaceful intent and in spring 1273 they defended the Heiligenburg against an attack by landgraves' troops until it was completely destroyed. By the summer of 1273, however, they found themselves in a grim feud with the city and the St. Petri-Stift Fritzlar, which they inflicted heavy damage with raids, looting and devastation in their areas. As a result, the city sent an armed contingent to Wolfershausen that same summer, which destroyed the castle of the knights so completely that they - who subsequently appeared as landgrave vassals and until 1454 as Hessian castle men to Melsungen - a reconstruction no longer seemed opportune. A document dated March 19, 1292 already mentions two farms in Wolfershausen where the castle and its outer bailey (“preurbium”) had previously been. In 1274 the city of Fritzlar waived the reimbursement of costs incurred in the destruction of the castle to the St. Petri-Stift.

literature

• Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 .
• Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , pp. 77–79.

Footnotes

1. ^ Wolfershausen Castle, Schwalm-Eder district. Historical local lexicon for Hesse (as of February 27, 2013). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on September 25, 2018 . 
2. ^ Georg Landau: Description of the Electorate of Hesse. Fischer (Kriegersche Buchhandlung), Kassel 1842, pp. 276–277
3. ^ Messages to the members of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Born 1918/19. Kassel, 1919, pp. 49-50
4. ↑ ^{a b} Gustav Eisentraut : Wolfershausen Castle and the Blackbird on Lotterberg. In: Hessenland, Hessisches Heimatsblatt, magazine for Hessian history, folklore and local studies, literature and art, 33rd year, No. 5/6, March double issue, 1919, pp. 47–49.
5. ^ Gustav Eisentraut: Wolfershausen Castle and the Blackbird on Lotterberg. In: Hessenland, Hessisches Heimatsblatt, magazine for Hessian history, folklore and local history, literature and art, 33rd year, No. 5/6, March double issue, 1919, p. 41
6. ↑ Today "Ditmold", part of the Kassel districts of Kirchditmold and Rothenditmold .
7. ↑ Kirchditmolder data - a chronological district history ; Retrieved September 25, 2018
8. ^ Gustav Eisentraut: Wolfershausen Castle and the Amsel am Lotterberg (conclusion). In: Hessenland: Hessisches Heimatblatt, magazine for Hessian history, folklore and local history, literature and art, 33rd year, No. 9/10, May double issue 1919, pp. 92–95
9. ↑ Georg Landau: The Heiligenberg. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies, eighth volume, Bohné, Kassel 1860, p. 81
10. ↑ Georg Landau: Historical-typographical description of the desert places in the Electorate of Hesse and in the Grand-Ducal Hessian parts of the Hessengaue, the Oberlahngaue and the Ittergaue Fischer, Kassel 1858, p. 161
11. ^ Carl Bernhard Nicolaus Falckenheiner: History of Hessian Cities and Donors , Volume II, Krieger'sche Buchhandlung, Kassel 1842, pp. 179–180