Electoral Cologne state castle Zülpich

Electoral Cologne state castle Zülpich
Kurkölnische Landesburg Zülpich, aerial photo (2016)
Alternative name (s):	Zülpich Castle
Creation time :	14th Century
Castle type :	Niederungsburg
Conservation status:	Received or received substantial parts
Standing position :	Clergy (Archbishops of Cologne)
Construction:	Brick
Place:	Zülpich
Geographical location	50 ° 41 '24.8 "  N , 6 ° 38' 48.7"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 41 '24.8 "  N , 6 ° 38' 48.7"  E

The Kurkölnische Landesburg Zülpich is the landmark of the North Rhine-Westphalian city ​​of Zülpich , whose origins can be found in a Roman " castrum ". The current facility was built at the end of the 14th century as a symbol of sovereignty and outpost of the Archbishops of Cologne against the then County of Jülich .

Burned down by French troops at the end of the 17th century, the ruins of the Niederungsburg became private property in 1741. The Sieger family of manufacturers from Zülpich ran a schnapps distillery in the castle from 1870 , which continued to produce into the 1980s. In the Second World War badly damaged, it was rebuilt in the 1950s in part and is now used among other things as tourist information and clubhouse of Zülpicher Historical Society.

history

Beginnings

At the site of today's castle there was a "castrum" that served the Merovingians as a royal palace in Roman times . The Carolingians also continued to use this fortified complex and made Zülpich with its Franconian royal court the capital of the Zülpichgau . During the Norman attack in 881, the complex shared the fate of the entire settlement: it was destroyed. Subsequently, the Aachen Count Palatine took power in Zülpich and built a castle in the 10th century.

In the fight between Cologne and Jülich

In 953 , the later Emperor Otto the Great enfeoffed the Archbishop of Cologne in his capacity as imperial prince with Zülpich. An exception was the so-called Palenz (also Pellenz ), a Franconian farm with its own church, which is known today as the former Marienkirche. These Palenzgüter gave the Count Palatinate together with the patronage over the Marienkirche and the Vogtei with the High Court at the end of the 12th century as an after-fief to the Counts of Jülich, who fought with the Archbishopric of Cologne about rule in Erftraum. In the struggle for power, Kurköln had the city and its castle re-fortified from 1255. As early as 1254, the "permanent castle" was mentioned as a Cologne fief in an arbitration award between Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden and Count Wilhelm IV. Von Jülich . It was also mentioned in the Pingsheim Peace Treaty of 1279, in which Kurköln was expressly granted the right to expand and fortify the castle. Archbishop Siegfried von Westerburg subsequently made use of this.

After the defeat in the Battle of Worringen in 1288, Cologne had to pledge the castle and city in 1299 to Count Gerhard V of Jülich . He then had the Cologne fortifications laid down and a new one built around 1350. But after the pledge had been redeemed in 1369, Archbishop Friedrich III. von Saar, the "Jülich Castle" will be torn down again and the current facility will be built in its place.

Modern times

With the end of the disputes between Jülich and Cologne, the castle - like the entire city - lost its strategic importance. After severe destruction in the Thirty Years' War , it was also set on fire in 1689 during the War of the Palatinate Succession by soldiers of the French King Louis XIV . Repairs were made to the complex during the 17th and 18th centuries, for example in 1664 under the Elector Maximilian Heinrich of Bavaria , but it increasingly fell into disrepair.

Clemens August von Bayern donated the useless ruins to his Zülpich waiter and mayor Joseph Eberhard Wachendorff in 1741 . He built the former palace on the northwest side and the north tower to residential purposes. A baroque , two-story building, which was closed off by a mansard roof, and some farm buildings were created.

East tower of the castle towards the end of the 19th century

Through the marriage of the heiress Margaretha Katharina Wachendorff to Heinrich Xaver Sieger , the plant came to her husband in 1847. He had the farm buildings erected by his father-in-law demolished in 1869 and instead built a factory building on the northeastern outside of the castle in 1870, because the new owner set up a schnapps distillery on the site, which was operated there until the 1980s.

From the 20th century

Inner courtyard, 2019

On Christmas Eve 1944, the complex was badly damaged by Allied bombs. About half of the building was destroyed. The war damage was repaired after 1950 and the castle was rebuilt in a simplified form, partly with the existing building materials. This included the restoration of the outer walls, but not the baroque house. A simple factory building was built in its place in the inner courtyard of the facility.

The Sieger family sold the castle and distillery in 1979 to Maywerke, which shut down the business after a while. For 25 years the facility was empty and unused, which resulted in renewed deterioration. After it had been sold to private investors in June 2003, they had it restored in stages from 2007 in order to then put the buildings to a new use. Today commercial and service companies are located there. In addition, the Zülpich history association has been running the Zülpich history workshop and an information point for tourists in part of the castle since 2009 together with the city .

In February 2010, as part of the redesign of the moat for the 2014 State Garden Show, excavations took place at the castle, during which the remains of supporting pillars for a bridge were discovered.

description

Zülpich Castle is a simple brick complex on an approximately rectangular floor plan with tall towers at the corners. It is one of the classic fort castles and thus follows the late medieval ideal type. The sober-looking defense system almost completely dispenses with architectural accessories and thus underlines its fortress character , which it was due to its location on the southwest corner of the medieval Zülpich and its inclusion in the former city fortifications.

The castle portal towards the end of the 19th century

The closed four-wing complex was originally surrounded by a moat up to twelve meters wide . At their south, west and east corners there are round towers , all of which were once four storeys high. The southern one, however, was shortened by two stories in the 19th century due to its disrepair. In the north there is an over-corner, 10 × 10 meter square tower with corner blocks, which is the only remnant of an older system. Its shape suggests that it probably only got its present appearance in the 17th century. The two round towers that are still in full height are closed off by projecting, open weir platforms with brick battlements . In the corbels come trachyte as a material for use, while the pointed arch located above fries from Tuff consists. All of the round corner towers once had habitable rooms with chimneys and toilets . There are spiral stairs in the walls, which are up to three meters thick . The western tower facing away from the city also served as a dungeon .

The four wings used to consist of two-story residential buildings with high vaulted cellars . Only the strong outer walls remain of them today, which also functioned as defensive walls with projecting battlements . The rest of the building structure of the current wing comes from a later time, because the original roofs and inner walls have not existed since the 17th century. The outer facade of the south-west wall is divided into regular axes by narrow, high, Gothic cross-story windows with light house surrounds , which are only interrupted by two toilet bay windows.

The best-preserved outer front is on the southeast side with the main portal made of carefully worked colored sandstone blocks, to which a drawbridge previously led. This is evidenced by a deep blind niche that frames the pointed arch of the gate and which used to hold the drawbridge, as well as the remaining roller holes for the chains. Above the portal there are two inclined coats of arms, the details of which were probably destroyed by French soldiers in 1794. They used to show the coat of arms of Friedrich von Saar Werden and probably that of the Archdiocese of Cologne.

In addition, there was another drawbridge on the southwest side, which allowed access to the castle without the user having to walk through the city. For the pillars of this bridge, building material from the "Jülich Castle" built around 1350 on the same site was used.

literature

• Paul Clemen (ed.): The art monuments of the district of Euskirchen . L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1900 ( Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz . Volume 4, Section 4), pp. 223–228 ( online ).
• Harald Herzog: walls, towers and ruins. A hiking guide to castles and palaces in the Euskirchen district . Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-7927-1153-2 , pp. 10-14.
• Dirk Holterman, Harald Herzog: The Euskirchen Castle Tour. Cycling between Erft and Eifel . Rau, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-7919-0750-6 , pp. 98-99 ( online ).
• Robert Janke, Harald Herzog: Castles and palaces in the Rhineland . Greven, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-7743-0368-1 , p. 67.

Web links

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

• Site of the castle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} D. Holterman, H. Herzog: Die Euskirchener Burgenrunde , p. 98.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Walther Zimmermann , Hugo Borger (ed.): Handbook of the historical sites of Germany . Volume 3: North Rhine-Westphalia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 273). Kröner, Stuttgart 1963, DNB 456882847 , p. 682.
3. ↑ P. Clemen: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreis Euskirchen , p. 223.
4. ↑ P. Clemen: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreis Euskirchen , p. 224.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} P. Clemen: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreis Euskirchen , p. 225.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} zuelpich.net , accessed on August 26, 2010.
7. ^ Website of the Zülpich history association. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 16, 2009 ; Retrieved August 26, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ ^{a b} Kölner Stadtanzeiger: Digged in the old moat. (No longer available online.) February 15, 2011, archived from the original on March 20, 2011 ; Retrieved February 15, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ^ R. Janke, H. Herzog: Burgen und Schlösser im Rheinland , p. 67.
10. ↑ ^{a b} D. Holterman, H. Herzog: Die Euskirchener Burgenrunde , p. 99.
11. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages. Floor plan lexicon . Flechsig, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-88189-360-1 , p. 688.
12. ↑ P. Clemen: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreis Euskirchen , p. 228.
13. ↑ ^{a b} H. Herzog: walls, towers and ruins , p. 12.
14. ↑ ^{a b} P. Clemen: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreis Euskirchen , p. 227.