Altenburg castle ruins (Felsberg)

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Altenburg
The Altenburg near Felsberg

The Altenburg near Felsberg

Creation time : before 1322
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Standing position : Vice count (?)
Place: Felsberg
Geographical location 51 ° 7 '8 "  N , 9 ° 24' 20"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 7 '8 "  N , 9 ° 24' 20"  E
Height: 160  m above sea level NHN
Altenburg Castle Ruins (Hesse)
Altenburg castle ruins
Altenburg castle ruins

The Altenburg near Felsberg is the ruin of a medieval hilltop castle at 160  m above sea level. NN near the Felsberg district of Altenburg in the Schwalm-Eder district in Hesse . It stands on a basalt knoll on the north, left bank of the Eder directly opposite the confluence of the Schwalm . The Altenburg is the older and smaller sister castle of the Felsburg about 2 km northeast of the old trade route Frankfurter Landstrasse .

Current condition

The slim, high keep with parts of its crenellated crown , parts of the circular wall and a remainder of the walls of the former residential wing in the upper courtyard and two cellar rooms with barrel vaults on the right side of the castle entrance are preserved today . The ruin is to be renovated.

history

The Altenburg was probably the first residence of the Counts von Felsberg ( Velisberc ), first mentioned in 1060 , who lived in the nearby Felsburg from 1072/1090 and until 1286. Members of a previous dynasty or vice-count of an unknown name are assumed to be the alleged builders. The Landgraves of Thuringia held this important checkpoint at the crossing of Frankfurter Strasse over the Eder. The Altenburg was probably of greatest importance in the time after Archbishop Konrad I of Mainz built the Heiligenburg on the opposite bank of the Eder as a base against the landgraves.

The castle was first mentioned in documents as Aldinburg in 1322 , when the widow Katherina of the knight and ministerial Werner von Besse and her sons and other heirs gave the castle with the associated water mill and the fishing to Landgrave Otto I of Hesse against 4 Hufen in front of the town of Felsberg exchanged. In the following the lords of Elben , von Holzheim and von Linne are named as landgrave castle men on the Altenburg.

Landgrave Heinrich II renewed the Altenburg in 1333 in order to strengthen his position in relation to Kurmainz . In 1352 he gave half of the castle to the brothers Hermann and Gottschalk von Holzheim as pawns , and soon afterwards the majority of it passed into their possession with the acquisition of the share of those from Elben as a hereditary castle loan. The brothers erected the mantle wall and between 1388 and 1392 built the keep, which is still preserved today. In the course of a serious feud , the mighty knight Konrad II von Spiegel zum Desenberg defeated a force of Abbot Berthold II von Hersfeld in a bloody battle near Altenburg on September 21, 1367 . Landgrave Hermann II strengthened his position in Hesse by hitting Pope Urban VI. and in March 1388 gave the Altenburg and the goods belonging to it to the Roman-German King Wenzel . The Altenburg was then raised to an aristocratic village in 1390. In addition to the lords of Holzheim with five eighths, Thiele von Elben and Werner von Gilsa were also partners in the castle fief at the beginning of the 15th century . In 1428 the wooden nobility also acquired a share in the castle due to their hereditary brotherhood with those of Linne, and in 1489 Thiemo von Wildungen also received a castle seat.

During the Peasants' War in 1525, a Franconian peasant troop pushed forward to Altenburg, captured it and burned it down. In 1527, Landgrave Philip I of Hesse transferred the entitlement to the castle and the associated goods in Böddiger , Maden , Rhünda etc. to his former tutor and guardian ruler , as compensation for the insults, property and income losses caused by his mother Re-appointed court judge and governor on the Lahn, Ludwig I. von Boyneburg zu Lengsfeld (1466–1537), combined with the obligation to rebuild the castle. Then the castle and its accessories came to the Boyneburg zu Lengsfeld in 1537 after the death of Heinrich von Holzheim, the last of his line to live in the Altenburg. Ludwig's son Ludwig (III.), Born in 1535 from his second marriage to Elisabeth von Meysenbug - an older half-brother of the same name had already died in 1529 - inherited the Altenburg and the family property in and near Felsberg. His half-brother and initial guardian Georg von Boyneburg-Lengsfeld (1504–1564), landgrave privy councilor, rebuilt the two-storey east wing of the Palas (the Georgenbau) for 800 guilders in 1540; the western residential wing remained in ruins.

Ludwig III. never lived on the Altenburg, became landgrave bailiff in Homberg an der Ohm and Borken and died in Homberg in 1568. His son Heidenreich (also Heiderich; † 1612) became the owner of the Altenburg . When the latter was exiled from Hesse in 1594 after having served two years in prison because he had stabbed his friend Friedrich von Baumbach in a dispute on August 20, 1592 , he sold the Altenburg to his younger brother Urban I. von Boyneburg (1553– 1639), since 1585 under Landgrave Wilhelm IV. of Hessen-Kassel landgräflicher Hofmarschall and then under Landgrave Moritz Privy Council, 1608 bailiff in Schmalkalden , 1623 the war Department, 1626 bailiff on the Werra, 1626 war colonel, 1631-1634 governor of Fulda and finally in command of the Ziegenhain Fortress . However, he never lived in the castle himself, as it was plundered by Tilly's troops during the Thirty Years' War in 1631 and heavily devastated; only his widow Anna Elisabeth, née von Beuren, moved into her widow's residence there in 1639. Both son, Johann Friedrich († 1647), married to Elisabeth von Geyso , did not live in the Altenburg either, but had the eastern residential wing built by Georg von Boyneburg demolished in 1640 and replaced by a two-story, mostly wooden hall.

His son Johann Urban was the first of his family to live in the Altenburg. In addition to various farm buildings, he had the so-called manor house, completed in 1721, built at the northern foot of the castle hill, made it his wife's widow's residence and died in 1721 on the Altenburg. The gradually decaying residential wing was at least partially inhabited until 1760, but the main residence was the manor house built below the castle. Johann Urban's son, the Oberstallmeister Carl von Boyneburg, died unmarried at the castle in 1764 and after a long inheritance dispute with those of Butler zu Wildsprechtroda and a 1801 settlement with the Allodial heirs , she fell to the imperial baron Georg August Adelbert Wilhelm von Boyneburg-Lengsfeld, a descendant of Ludwig III, who died in 1568. from Boyneburg to Lengsfeld. The castle, no longer inhabited and neglected due to the long inheritance dispute, continued to fall into disrepair, and the residential buildings there were demolished in 1811 due to disrepair.

In 1816 new barns, stables, a brandy distillery and a tenant apartment were built on the grounds of the estate. The castle gate, which was still on the former castle building in 1833, was later relocated to the manor, and the keep was provided with a wooden staircase and used as a lookout tower.

In 1911 the manor house was expanded by the imperial count and baronial von Boineburg-Lengsfeld'sche Rentamt; the coat of arms of the imperial counts of Boineburg and Lengsfeld was attached to the gable.

In 1943, after the destruction of the Edertalsperre ( Operation Chastise ) on the night of May 16-17 , numerous Altenburg residents sought refuge from the floods in Altenburg. In 1945 the ruins suffered further damage from American tanks.

After the end of the Second World War , the former lieutenant general of the Wehrmacht, Hans Freiherr von Boineburg-Lengsfeld, lived on the estate, where he died in 1980 as the last male offspring of the Boyneburg-Lengsfeld tribe in Germany. Gut and castle ruins came to his two daughters.

The castle ruins are still privately owned by the von Boineburg family and are not open to visitors. It can only be viewed once a year at the open house.

literature

  • Georg Landau: The Hessian knight castles and their owners. Second volume, Luckhard, Kassel, 1833, pp. 187–198
  • Eduard Brauns: Hiking and travel guide through North Hesse and Waldeck , A. Bernecker, Melsungen, 1971, p. 278
  • Greaves Volume 230, Oberhessen, Kurhessen, Waldeck , Verlag Karl Thiemig, Munich, 1981, p. 102
  • Karl E. Demandt: History of the State of Hesse , Johannes Stauda, ​​Kassel, 1980, p. 194
  • Ernst Happel: History and description of the Felsberg ruins, Altenburg and Falkenstein (Hessian castles, volume 3), Vietor, Kassel, 1902
  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , pp. 77-78.
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 112 f.

Web links

Commons : Altenburg Castle Ruins  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ It can be proven that the Counts of Velisberc sat on the Felsburg from 1090 to 1286, but then withdrew to their possessions in the Hessisch Lichtenau area and soon went out.
  2. ↑ The von Besse sitting on the rock castle, which they held as a landgrave's fief, sometimes called themselves “von Felsberg”.
  3. ↑ Landgrave Regesten online No. 729 (The von Besse family exchanges goods with the Landgrave). Regest of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  4. ↑ Landau, Ritterburgen, p. 193
  5. ↑ According to ADB , this happened on March 2, 1368 ( ADB: Spiegel zum Desenberge, Konrad )
  6. ↑ Landau, Ritterburgen, p. 193
  7. ↑ Landau, Ritterburgen, pp. 193–194
  8. ↑ Landau, Ritterburgen, p. 194
  9. ↑ Landau, Ritterburgen, p. 194
  10. ↑ In 1556 Landgrave Philipp renewed the enfeoffment of George and Ludwig III. and their descendants with the Altenburg and its accessories along with all other goods that had fallen back from Heinrich von Holzheim ( HStAM inventory document 109 no. 139 ).
  11. ↑ Ludwig von Boyneburg 1568, Homberg (Ohm). Grave monuments in Hesse until 1650. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  12. ↑ He died in 1612 as Holstein's Privy Councilor and Court Marshal on his Osterrade estate near Rendsburg .
  13. ^ Christoph von Rommel: Modern history of Hessen; Fifth book, main part II. Perthes, Kassel, 1837, p. 452.
  14. ↑ Landau, Ritterburgen, pp. 194–195.
  15. ↑ Visit to Altenburg on September 25, 2011
  16. ↑ Hundreds visited the Altenburg at the open day. HNA, September 17, 2012