Ziesar Castle
| Ziesar Castle | ||
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 Aerial view of Ziesar Castle |
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| Creation time : | after 948 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg, swamp castle | |
| Conservation status: | Preserved essential parts | |
| Standing position : | Episcopal Castle | |
| Construction: | Field stone and brick | |
| Place: | Ziesar | |
| Geographical location | 52 ° 15 '45.5 " N , 12 ° 17' 12.6" E | |
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The Ziesar Castle is one of the few surviving bishop residences in Brandenburg . The Niederungsburg is located on the southern edge of the small town of Ziesar , on the eastern bank of the Kobser Bach . Ziesar Castle was the residence of the Prince-Bishop of the Brandenburg Monastery and Bishop of the Brandenburg Diocese .
history
Ziesar was first mentioned in the foundation deed of the Brandenburg diocese in 948 as civitas ezeri . The emperor transferred the places Pritzerbe and Ziesar together with the surrounding lands to the diocese he had newly founded . Since there was an uprising of the Slavs in 983 , in which Brandenburg and its surrounding areas and thus also Ziesar fell back into the hands of pagan Slavs, the bishops from this time lived formally in continuous occupation, but in exile in Magdeburg as titular bishops and had none Rule over their territories in the east. This condition existed for almost 200 years until 1157 Albrecht the Bear was able to recapture Brandenburg. The castle in Ziesar became the secondary residence of the Bishops of Brandenburg. From 1213, Bishop Balduin had the swamp castle in the boggy area south of the city rebuilt using brick . At that time, Brandenburg an der Havel , Pritzerbe Castle and Ziesar were changing residences of the prince-bishops. The place Ziesar and some other places did not belong to the Mark Brandenburg , but as episcopal territory to the Hochstift Brandenburg.
Under Bishop Ludwig Schenk von Neindorf , the castle Ziesar, located on the important trade route, the Heerstraße Brandenburg – Magdeburg , was further expanded and after 1327 the permanent residence of the bishops of Brandenburg and administrative center for the diocese and the bishopric. The most important renovation of the castle to date was carried out by Bishop Dietrich IV , who held the church office from 1459 to 1472. During his reign, the castle chapel St. Peter and Paul , consecrated in 1470, was built and the residential buildings were converted into castle-like structures. Around the year 1535 Bishop was Matthias von Jagow the dungeon set up a so-called miter over the castle as a sign of the Church's authority. Under the Elector Joachim II the ownership changed fundamentally. In 1539 he introduced the Reformation in the Electorate of Brandenburg and a few years later, in 1560, with the secularization of the church in Ziesar, the elector passed over. The castle became the widow's seat of the Brandenburg electoral family and the seat of the newly created electoral domain office Ziesar.
Since 1691, after the tolerance patent of the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of 1685, the so-called " Edict of Potsdam ", Calvinist religious refugees from France, the Huguenots, came to the area around Ziesar. These subsequently used the castle chapel for their services. They painted over the medieval paintings in the chapel with white lime paint. In this way, the Huguenots inadvertently preserved the medieval paintings over the centuries. After the Calvinists had moved out of the castle chapel in 1830 in the course of the Prussian church union in 1817 and now took part in the services in the town church of St. Crucis , the castle chapel served temporarily as a storage room.
In 1819 the castle was sold to private owners. In 1829 the already badly damaged buildings in the outer bailey were demolished. Only the so-called stork tower and a small side gate of the original entrance to the outer bailey remained. In 1917, Ziesar Castle and the surrounding lands were acquired by the secret warrior councilor Paul Schneider from the manor owner Sachsenberg and run as a farm until it was expropriated by the Soviet military administration in 1945.
After the Second World War, refugees were initially housed in the castle. From 1955 to 1993, a boarding school for the extended secondary school Ziesar was operated in the buildings. At the time of reunification , the state of preservation of the castle and the associated facilities, including a swimming pool privately financed by the Secret War Councilor Schneider, which was open to the public at the time, was extremely poor due to the lack of renovation measures. Initially, the boarding school was continued in the old rooms for a few years, regardless of the dilapidated building fabric. Eventually the boarding school was closed and the rooms were made available to the administration of the Ziesar office. In the following period, the repair of the plant was pushed ahead.
investment
The most conspicuous building of Ziesar Castle is the 35 meter high castle keep made of field stones, which stands in the southeast of the complex. It has a segmental arched entrance from the courtyard, five narrow rectangular or pointed arched windows in the staircase and a so-called bishop's cap, a guardroom on its top. The battlements of the old parapet can still be seen in front of this bishop's cap . The castle keep can be climbed as a lookout tower .
To the right of the chapel is the palas of the castle. This is three storeys. In the inner courtyard you can see the remains of several generations of windows. The windows on the lower two floors have segmental arches. Here, however, one recognizes pre-existing pointed arched window generations. The windows on the top floor are rectangular and you can see segment-arched previous constructions. The wall in the courtyard is not plastered. You can see the masonry made of field and bricks. After the renovation in 1728, the outer facade of the palace has a baroque appearance. It is plastered. The plaster was painted a yellowish shade during the last renovation. Two ornate side elevations are striking . To the east of this main building is a two-story wing that is now unplastered on the outside and inside. Here, too, both field stones and bricks were used. In the attic there is a bat dormer on the outside and inside . At the final gable you can see a half-timbered structure .
The connection between the wing of the building and the keep is made by a modern connecting structure in glass construction. The southern end of the upper courtyard is a former administration building, in which the administration of the Ziesar office is located today. The building is renovated. The original masonry can be seen on some surfaces. A modern south wing was added to this building. In the lower courtyard there are still some partially expanded stables and farm buildings.
Outside the main gate below the choir is a guardian figure of the chapel. This is a work from the studio of Alexander Calandrelli . Paul Schneider acquired four such figures in the 1920s and placed them at the entrance to the castle. Today there are only two figures left in the castle. A second is in front of the so-called stork tower. This medieval defensive tower made of bricks stands about thirty meters from the passage to the inner courtyard in the park around the castle. It was built in the 15th century and is the last remaining part of the former outer bailey.
Chapel of St. Peter and Paul
The castle chapel of St. Peter and Paul is on the left or above the main entrance to the upper courtyard. It forms the western part of the northern boundary of this courtyard. It was built from red brick in the Gothic style . The southern step portal is striking . This is ogival in the inner part, with the ogival arch in the upper part is decorated with a tympanum . The lower edge of the tympanum forms a segmental arch. Below the tympanum, the door was added a little more so that the double wing door is given a rectangular shape. The outermost arch of the step portal is a keel arch with a striking finial . There is a four-part pointed arch window above the portal. The high pointed arch window to the right of the portal is also divided into four. The window to the left of the entrance is divided into three pointed arches. Between the windows and to the side of them there are vertical decorative elements that decorate the wall like pilaster strips. The western end of the chapel roof was constructed as a stepped gable .
Inside the church there is a relief of saints behind the altar. The walls and the ogival vaulted ceiling are painted with rich decorations. A brick gallery extends on the western side and resting on round arches on the northern side. In the west wall there are two segmental veneers. The castle chapel of St. Peter and Paul has been used since 1952 by the Roman Catholic parish of Ziesar, which has grown from Silesian refugees and displaced persons.
In the years 2002 to 2008, extensive restoration work was carried out inside the castle chapel. The wall paintings inside the church were brought to light again under the lime paint. The description of the art historian Udo von Alvensleben shows that the wall paintings were already visible under the whitewash in the 1930s :
“At the castle of Ziesar, once a residence of the bishops of Brandenburg, I discover a late Gothic brick chapel, which is related to St. Stephan in Tangermünde and Brandenburg buildings. It is one of the most peculiar and beautiful interiors of the Nordic brick Gothic . Nobody ever comes to the very remote and completely unknown Ziesar. The chapel is completely empty, except for a bricked altar covered with a stone slab, above which a consecration relief with five saints from 1470 is embedded. The late Gothic painting is almost completely preserved - tracery ornaments, roses, fish-bubble patterns were shown - and covers the walls and vaults with an indefinite greenish tone. In addition, the warm, bluish red of the old brick and the strict, still original lead glazing of the windows. A narrow wooden cross of noble proportions completes the straight choir wall. This chapel could coexist with the most famous in Christendom. ... "
use
The buildings of the castle house, among other things, the seat of the Ziesar office , the museum for Brandenburg church and cultural history of the Middle Ages , the specialist library for church and cultural history , the official library and a café. The castle chapel of St. Peter and Paul is a church of the Catholic parish and is used for regular church services.
museum
After five years of renovation work , which cost around 5.2 million euros , the Museum for Brandenburg Church and Cultural History of the Middle Ages was opened in the old castle on May 14, 2005. The museum deals with the historical connections between Christianization and the formation of rule or the founding of a country in the Middle Ages .
Library
The specialist library for church and cultural history and the official library of the Ziesar office are housed in a former farm building in the lower courtyard. The specialist library has more than 50,000 books. It was established as a specialist academic library for the training of pastors in the former GDR . The thematic focus is on theology and church history . The facility was founded in 1953.
literature
- Clemens Bergstedt et al. (Ed.): Bishop's residence Burg Ziesar. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-936872-41-4 .
- Clemens Bergstedt, Heinz-Dieter Heimann et al. (Ed.): The bishop's residence Burg Ziesar and its chapel , be.bra Wissenschaft verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-937233-54-3 .
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- Cultural Land Brandenburg
- Ziesar Castle
- Romanesque routes in Berlin and Brandenburg - Ziesar castle and bishop's residence /
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sebastian children and Haik Thomas Porada (ed.): Brandenburg an der Havel and surroundings. 2006, p. 90.
- ^ Burg Ziesar in burgenarchiv.de
- ^ Ziesar stork tower . Accessed January 6, 2014
- ↑ Visits before the sinking, aristocratic seats between Altmark and Masuria , compiled from diary entries and edited by Harald von Koenigswald, Frankfurt / M.-Berlin 1968, p. 107