Guttenberg Castle (Haßmersheim)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Guttenberg Castle
Guttenberg Castle

Guttenberg Castle

Creation time : after 1225
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Received or received substantial parts
Construction: Quarry stone
Place: Neckarmuehlbach
Geographical location 49 ° 16 '50 "  N , 9 ° 8' 4"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 16 '50 "  N , 9 ° 8' 4"  E
Guttenberg Castle (Baden-Württemberg)
Guttenberg Castle

The Guttenberg Castle is a late medieval hilltop castle on Neckarmühlbach , a district of Haßmersheim in Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis in Baden-Wuerttemberg . The castle was never destroyed and has been continuously inhabited for almost 800 years, from the Gemmingen-Guttenberg line of the Barons of Gemmingen since the middle of the 15th century . The facility houses the German Greifenwarte as well as a castle museum and a restaurant.

location

Guttenberg Castle is located near Horneck am Necker - across from Gundelsheim with Horneck Castle and north of Bad Wimpfen - on a mountain spur between the Neckar and Mühlbachtal valleys .

history

Ground plan of Guttenberg Castle

On May 1, 1393, Archbishop of Mainz, Konrad II von Weinsberg , founded a new chapel prope castrum nominatum Gutenberg in Mühlbach , near Guttenberg Castle. This is where the castle, which, according to archaeological findings, dates from the first half of the 13th century, is mentioned for the first time. As a fief of the bishops of Worms , it belonged to the Lords of Weinsberg . Presumably the von Weinsberg had also built the castle on behalf of their liege lord. The Bishop of Worms was concerned with securing the customs income on the long-distance routes in his territory. Guttenberg Castle was not founded by the Staufers ; the presumed function of the castle as part of a defensive ring around the Palatinate Wimpfen is not proven by sources and also not likely because of the legal relationships.

With a document dated December 2, 1449, the Bishop of Würzburg confirmed that he was the guardian of the sons of the deceased Imperial Treasurer Konrad IX. von Weinsberg sold Guttenberg Castle, located on the Neckar, with the associated villages, including all rights, uses and affiliations, for 6000 Rhenish guilders to Hans the Rich von Gemmingen . With this purchase, Hans von Gemmingen, known as Hans the Rich, became the founder of the Gemmingen-Guttenberg line, which still owns the castle today. With the partition contract of February 1, 1518, Hans' grandson Dietrich von Gemmingen († 1526) inherited the family's new headquarters. Under him, the castle played a role in the Reformation period, including a place for a religious conference in the Eucharistic controversy of the reformers.

There is no evidence of a siege in the Middle Ages, and the castle was not damaged in the German Peasants' War either. During the Thirty Years' War , the Catholic troops under Lieutenant General Johann T'Serclaes von Tilly defeated the Protestant army under the Margrave of Baden in May 1622 in the costly battle of Wimpfen (1,500 to 2,000 dead on each side). In the Palatinate War of Succession , King Louis XIV of France systematically devastated the Electoral Palatinate and the adjacent areas in 1689. Although troops always moved through the region, Guttenberg Castle was spared in all wars due to fortunate circumstances.

The castle passed through the hands of various branches of the lords of Gemmingen-Guttenberg. Philipp von Gemmingen (1702–1785), who was favored in an inheritance division, survived his only son, so that the castle came to the branch Bonfeld-Unterschloss and in it, beginning with the sons of Ludwig Eberhard von Gemmingen-Guttenberg (1750–1841), owned one was an existing condominium of several shareholders until 1932 .

In 1825 Wilhelm Hauff (1802–1827) stayed at the castle. Behind the name Schloss Thierberg in his novella The Image of the Emperor hides Castle Guttenberg.

The tourism to the castle was founded by Gustav von Gemmingen-Guttenberg (1897–1973), who had taken over the forestry business of the castle in 1923 and founded the sawmill in Neckarmühlbach. In 1949 he set up the castle museum and in 1950 the castle tavern, which was expanded the following year, in the porch. The arrival of the German police station in 1971 also goes back to Gustav von Gemmingen-Guttenberg . After the Greifenwarte moved in, tourism to the castle increased immensely, so that the castle tavern was expanded again in 1972 to include a self-service restaurant. Gustav von Gemmingen's son Christoph von Gemmingen-Guttenberg (1930–1999) and his wife Gabriele born. von Lersner (* 1935) continued the administration and expansion of the castle.

Building history

Outer bailey and castle

Guttenberg Castle
Mountain side view
Southwest gatehouse

On the street leading west of the castle through the outer bailey, there are buildings from the 15th to 17th centuries. The long, two-storey quarry stone building from the 15th century is the main building. The adjoining low, partly half-timbered building directs the view to the gate with the two towers, the entrance gate to the outer bailey in the old days. The path still leads past the castle chapel into the valley. The pointed arched gate, secured by a thrower , dates from the 2nd half of the 15th century and was closed by two wooden rotating leaves. The second gate opposite, through which one can get to the castle today, also had its rotating wing on the side facing the outer bailey. The outer bailey behind its wall was therefore lockable and did not serve to protect the inner bailey . The wall surrounding the outer bailey was only opened in modern times because of the driveway on both sides.

On the way to the main gate of the castle, the mighty shield wall and the 40 m high keep are impressive . They are located behind the Zwingermauer with its late Gothic round arch frieze that surrounds the entire inner castle. In front of an invisible, older wall - probably from the 13th century - it was built with its five round towers in the 2nd half of the 15th century, therefore already under the Lords of Gemmingen. The quarry stone shield wall, a section of the old curtain wall that was renewed in the 14th century , was raised at different intervals.

In its basement, made of roughly hewn humpback ashlars, the keep dates from the 2nd quarter of the 13th century. A short flight of stairs leads from the battlement above the shield wall to the entrance floor. The room with an toilet niche and traces of a fireplace was habitable for a gate guard. The defense level above has window niches on all four sides with closable openings for a small gun. The two unused floors below the entrance floor had no other function at the time of construction than to raise the tower. This dungeon also never served as a dungeon . The keep with its high entrance was not a place of retreat in the event of a defense, but was a place of observation for the castle guard. The two floors above the cornice were added in the late 15th century, after the castle passed to the Lords of Gemmingen.

The stone bridge over the neck ditch leading to the main gate , which bears the year 1572, originally ended a few meters in front of the gate and was lengthened in old times by the drawbridge , which has now disappeared . The not very well fortified main gate was built in the late 16th century into the outer wall of the 15th century. The second gate was added in the 15th century to the older Zwinger wall, which is still visible at this point. The narrow inner courtyard is bounded in the south by the shield wall , in the east and west by the residential buildings.

Soon after 1449, a four-story residential building was built behind the western curtain wall. This building, preserved in its outer walls, was modernized in the 16th century and received a baroque portal in 1741. The former residential building, which now houses the castle museum, is still in this condition today.

In the place of a smaller previous building, probably from the 14th century, the new eastern residential building was built in the 16th century. The masonry of the building, which was modernized in the Baroque period , comes partly from these old buildings. A new wing was added to the building in the 18th century with the baroque staircase from 1776. The stone balustrade that surrounds the roof of the keep also belongs to the late 18th century . Since then, the lords of the castle have been using the keep as a representative observation tower with a view over the Neckar valley to Hornberg Castle and Horneck Castle. Modernized again and again, the medieval hilltop castle with its keep from the Staufer era is still a center of the extensive family of the lord of the castle.

Castle chapel

Castle chapel, south side
Castle chapel, north side with epitaph for Dietrich von Gemmingen

The Archbishop of Mainz, Konrad von Weinsberg, founded a chapel with a chaplain on May 1, 1393 below Guttenberg Castle in honor of the Holy Eucharius . The right of patronage lay with the mother church in Heinsheim . Hans von Gemmingen, the new lord of the castle since 1449, raised the chapel to the parish church of Mühlbach in 1469. The patronage right for the new parish was now “for all time” with the gentlemen zu Guttenberg. In the place of the old chapel, Hans der Reiche had a new building built, which is identical to the choir of today's parish church in Neckarmühlbach .

In 1501 this small castle chapel and church was extended to the west by Pleikard von Gemmingen with the construction of today's nave. The two late Gothic ciboric altars next to the triumphal arch were also made during this time. Presumably Pleikard also commissioned the two winged altars that are still preserved today , a cross altar with a carved crucifix and a Marian altar with a Madonna in a protective cloak in a shrine richly decorated with carved tracery . The wings of this altar are painted and show scenes from the life of Mary. Both retables are in the castle museum today.

Dietrich von Gemmingen, Pleikard's son, was one of the first supporters of Luther in the Kraichgau . In 1522 the made has Weinberg sold Lutheran preacher Erhard Schnepf later reformer Württemberg - - in the Guttenberger chapel and Neckar Mühlbacher church preached.

In the nave there is a cenotaph , an empty tomb, in memory of Friedrich Christoph von Gemmingen , who died in the Battle of Friedlingen in 1702 in the War of Spanish Succession . On the northern outer wall of the church is a large epitaph for Dietrich von Gemmingen, his wife Ursula von Nippenburg and their six deceased children. Philip the Wise had it designed for his parents and siblings in 1550. South of the church there is a small cemetery with recent burials of members of the von Gemmingen family.

Todays use

While the private rooms of the castle owners are in the eastern residential building, the castle museum is located in the western one. Here the visitor receives explanations about knighthood and medieval jurisdiction. In addition to many other exhibits, he sees the famous Guttenberg wooden library by Carl von Hinterlang from around 1790 and the two late Gothic altarpieces that stood on the side altars of the castle chapel for many centuries.

The keep can be climbed during the opening hours of the museum and offers a wonderful view over the Neckar valley.

Guttenberg Castle is widely known for the accommodation of the German Greifenwarte , which attracts many visitors with its flight demonstrations. In the kennel are aviaries set up, and in the former castle garden on the valley side of the castle the free-flight area is located to the theater. Outside the castle, in front of the main gate, the castle tavern is operated in an outbuilding.

From May 2011 to the end of 2012 Guttenberg Castle was the seat of the German Environmental Foundation .

Panoramic view of Guttenberg Castle

Individual evidence

  1. ^ According to: Andermann, documents no.26.
  2. GLA 43/48 Guttenberg; Andermann: Nikolaus and Eucharius p. 55.
  3. Großmann, Häffner pp. 4 and 7.
  4. Heitland 1991, p. 89.
  5. Heitland 1991, p. 90.
  6. a b see flyer "Helm, Horn & Feder" on the Guttenberg Castle website (PDF; 642 kB)
  7. Großmann, Häffner p. 46.

literature

  • Georg Ulrich Großmann, Hans-Heinrich Häffner: Guttenberg Castle on the Neckar . 1st edition. Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7954-1957-8 (castles, palaces and defensive structures in Central Europe, 16).
  • Gerhard Kiesow: Of knights and preachers. The Lords of Gemmingen and the Reformation in Kraichgau. regional culture publisher, Ubstadt-Weiher 1997, ISBN 3-929366-57-6 .
  • Kurt Andermann : The documents of the baronial von Gemmingen archives at Guttenberg Castle above the Neckar (Regesten) 1353–1802 . Sinsheim 1990 ( Heimatverein Kraichgau , special print No. 6).
  • Kurt Andermann: Nikolaus and Eucharius. On the history of the castle chapel of Guttenberg and the parish church of Neckarmühlbach . In: Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv (FDA) 105 (1985) pp. 47-66.
  • Reinhold Bührlen: History of the Gemmingen family and their possessions . [Neckarzimmern] 1977 (copied by typewriter).
  • Maria Heitland: Family chronicle of the barons of Gemmingen. Continuation of the chronicles from 1895 and 1925/26 , Elztal 1991.

Web links

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