Freyenstein castle ruins

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Freyenstein castle ruins
Freyenstein Castle - Engraving by Matthäus Merian (1649)

Freyenstein Castle - Engraving by Matthäus Merian (1649)

Alternative name (s): Freienstein ruins
Creation time : around 1200
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: ruin
Construction: Cuboid, quarry stone
Place: Neustadtl on the Danube
Geographical location 48 ° 12 '29 "  N , 14 ° 57' 9"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 12 '29 "  N , 14 ° 57' 9"  E
Height: 360  m above sea level A.
Freyenstein castle ruins (Lower Austria)
Freyenstein castle ruins

The castle ruin Freyenstein , also spelled Freienstein, is the ruin of a hilltop castle in the Strudengau about four kilometers northeast of the town Neustadtl an der Donau in Lower Austria , to which Freienstein is a cadastral community . The plant has its roots in the time around 1200 and has often been a deposit in the course of its history. Today their remains are under monument protection .

location

The castle ruins are located on a narrow, densely wooded rock ridge high above the municipality of Freienstein on the right bank of the Danube . The Burgplatz slopes down in a west-east direction towards the Danube valley. The remains of the core castle stand on a mountain spur , which is why Freyenstein is one of the spur castles . The strategically favorable location of the castle made it possible to control shipping traffic on the Danube in the past. A hiking trail leads from the valley up to the ruin, which is freely accessible all year round.

history

Residents and owners

Around the year 1000 the area around Ybbs and Freienstein was owned by the Counts of Ebersberg . According to a document dated 1037, they are said to have transferred Freyenstein to the Geisenfeld monastery they founded, but the document is a forgery from the end of the 13th century. Already in the late Babenberg era , the complex was owned by the sovereign. Around 1268 a Gaidemarus de Vrienstain was mentioned who had his seat at the castle.

King Rudolf I subsequently lent Freyenstein to Konrad von Sommerau , who had also received Werfenstein Castle from him as a fief . Konrad received the loan as thanks for the service rendered, because he had supported the king in his efforts to return goods and rights that had been alienated from the empire; including in 1278 in the decisive battle on the Marchfeld against Rudolf's greatest adversary, the Bohemian King Ottokar II. Přemysl . Because the Sommerauer allegedly attacked merchants on the Danube, Rudolf's son, Duke Albrecht I , attacked Freyenstein Castle in 1284 and conquered it. After the lord of the castle took part in an uprising against the sovereign, the complex was destroyed by the authorities in 1295 as a punitive measure, and Konrad had to flee to Adolf von Nassau .

In 1298 Albrecht I pledged the castle to Emicho , the Bishop of Freising . This was the first pledge in a long series of contracts in which Freyenstein served as a guarantee and as a result of which the plant carried out numerous changes of ownership. Among others, Friedrich VI appeared as pledger . von Walsee , from 1381 the Lords of Dachsberg and from 1435 to 1441 the Eitzinger . In 1453 Pankraz von Plankenstein received the castle as a fief. He is reputed to have been a robber baron , because he demanded a special "road toll" from ships that were loaded with barrels: An unmolested journey was only granted after he had been drinking as much wine as he and his squires could, had granted. This practice went down in history as “crying”. Pankratz's son Hans bequeathed Freyenstein to the Lords of Toppel, who were vouched for as feudal takers around 1500.

Lithograph of the ruin by Adolph Kunike, 1826

In 1522 or 1525 Gabriel von Salamanca , Count von Ortenburg and General Treasurer of Austria, received the Freyenstein Castle from Archduke Ferdinand I as a free property in addition to Karlsbach and Waasen . In 1598 the Barons von Althan acquired the facility. In 1604 it passed to Johann Linßmayr zu Weinzierl, who was raised to the nobility in 1608 as Baron von Greiffenberg . His son Johann Gottfried sold the property to baron Hans Joachim von Zinzendorf in 1612 , before Albrecht von Zinzendorf finally sold the castle on to Konrad Balthasar von Starhemberg in 1657 . After his family moved the administration to Karlsbach , the castle was abandoned for tax reasons and fell into disrepair.

In 1933 the facility was sold due to financial difficulties of the home guard leader Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg . Today the ruin and its surroundings are owned by the Hatschek family and a popular destination in the Strudengau region.

Building history

The keep was built before the middle of the 13th century.

Freyenstein Castle was probably built around 1200 on an old Celtic cult site. The individual phases of its complex building history cannot be assigned to specific owners with certainty. Of the structure of the first complex, only the remains of a residential tower and a piece of the circular wall are preserved today. In the first half of the 13th century the castle was extended by a small kennel , of which only sparse remains are left. Before the middle of the 13th century, there was a large-scale expansion in which the keep and the elongated surrounding walls were built. This work was followed by a largely new construction of the residential tower and the construction of the hall in the main castle around 1300 . The measures could be related to the damage caused by the capture in 1284 and the destruction of the castle in 1295. In the early 14th century, further modifications and renovations were made, for example on the Bering. Major construction work can again be recorded for the 15th or early 16th century. A thick mantle wall made of quarry stone was built north of the main castle. According to tradition, when Pankraz von Plankenstein came into possession of the castle, it was partly rebuilt between 1453 and 1463. The construction of the mantle wall could also be traced back to the repeated urging of King Ferdinand I to equip the castle with modern firearms in 1522.

description

Floor plan of the castle ruins

The castle complex consists of a core castle on an isolated rock spur and a higher keep to the northwest of it. The area in between is surrounded by walls.

The main castle is badly dilapidated and occupies an area of ​​about 20 × 30 meters. It is separated from the mountain by a mostly buried ditch . The existing structure is heavily overgrown by bushes. In the far south are the remains of the hall building, some of which has crashed. Foundation walls may still be preserved under its rubble. Together with other buildings, it framed a rectangular inner courtyard, to which an arched entrance at its northeast corner leads. In the courtyard there is still a shaft made of ashlar, about ten meters deep, which was either a well or a cistern . Also only partially preserved is a residential tower that belonged to the first castle complex from around 1200 and had a clear width of only four meters. Remains of the south wall and a 7.8 meter long piece of the east wall can still be seen today. The former ring wall of the main castle still exists at a length of 20 meters.

In the 15th or 16th century, a 2.2 meter thick mantle wall was built in front of the inner castle in the north. Its flanks have largely collapsed today, which is why it is often incorrectly referred to as the shield wall . In the middle of this defensive wall, which is still six to eight meters high, there is a segment arch portal with a house framing . There are also wide artillery slots . The mantle wall is joined to the north by the area of ​​the former outer bailey , of which only the remains of a building with a rectangular floor plan are left. It lay in an elongated area about 100 meters long, which is only 15 meters wide on average. Most of its 1.4 meter thick enclosing walls have been preserved.

The terrain within this area rises to the northwest and reaches the highest point of the system at its northwest tip. There is the pentagonal keep, the outer walls of which are three meters thick and still ten meters high today. Its bow-shaped tip points to the mountain side, from which it is separated by a deep ditch . In addition, it is surrounded on three sides by a circular wall, which, like the mountain side of the defense tower, is equipped with a largely preserved crenellated crown . The area between the wall and the tower also served as a kennel. The keep was not habitable, but had its own water supply, which was fed from a hidden spring about 350 meters away. Its rectangular high entrance with house framing is five meters above ground level and could previously be reached via a wooden corridor from the battlement corridor . This entrance can be seen on an engraving by Matthäus Merian , which is otherwise not very realistic. Due to its construction, the keep - like the two enclosing walls of the elongated intermediate area - can be dated to a time before the middle of the 13th century. At its longest point the tower measures 12.60 meters, its three walls standing at right angles to each other are 7.5 and 9.5 meters long. At the moment it cannot be climbed.

  • Keep

  • Kennel at the keep

  • Overgrown inner castle

  • Well or cistern

literature

  • Wilfried Bahnmüller: Castles and palaces in Lower Austria. 2nd Edition. Kral, Berndorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-99024-001-4 , pp. 20-22.
  • Gabriele Biró: Freyenstein castle ruins. In: Office of the Lower Austrian Provincial Government, Department III / 2, Culture Department (Ed.): Castles and Ruins. About cuboids and walls (= preservation of monuments in Lower Austria. Volume 12). Vienna 1994, p. 41 ( PDF ; 5.9 MB).
  • Rudolf Büttner: Castles and palaces between Ybbs and Enns (= castles and palaces in Lower Austria. Volume II / 4). Birken, Vienna 1979, ISBN 3-85030-009-9 , p. 55 ff.
  • Rudolf Büttner: Castles and palaces on the Danube. 2nd Edition. Birken, Vienna 1977, ISBN 3-85030-017-X , p. 52 ff.
  • Peter Aichinger-Rosenberger (arr.): Dehio manual . Lower Austria, south of the Danube. Volume 2: M-Z. Berger, Horn / Wien 2003, ISBN 3-85028-365-8 , p. 1565.
  • Marina Kaltenegger, Thomas Kühtreiber , Gerhard Reichhalter, Patrickschicht, Herwig Weigl: Castles - Mostviertel. Freytag & Berndt, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7079-1041-4 , pp. 179-182.
  • Otto Piper : Austrian castles. Volume 4. Alfred Hölder, Vienna 1905, pp. 26–30 ( digitized version ).
  • Gerhard Stenzel: From castle to castle in Austria. 2nd Edition. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1973, p. 174.

Web links

Commons : Burgruine Freyenstein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ List of monuments for Lower Austria. Status: January 26, 2019 ( PDF ; 1.2 MB)
  2. ↑ Information on the castle ruins in the Lower Austria Culture Atlas , accessed on January 18, 2020.
  3. ↑ a b c d Entry about the castle ruins Freyenstein in Burgen-Austria
  4. ^ Gerhard Stenzel: From castle to castle in Austria. 1973, p. 174.
  5. ^ Otto Piper: Austrian castles. Volume 4. 1905, p. 30.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l NÖ-Burgen online , accessed on January 18, 2020.
  7. ^ Wilfried Bahnmüller: Castles and palaces in Lower Austria. 2011, p. 20.
  8. ^ Franz Karl Wißgrill : scene of the rural Lower Austrian nobility. Volume 3. Schuender, Vienna 1797, p. 389 ( digitized version ).
  9. ↑ Johann Schwerdling: history of ancient and for centuries to sovereign and country highly deserved, sometimes handsomely, partly Count's house Starhemberg . Jos. Feichtingerʼs widow , Linz 1830, p. 417 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  10. ↑ Information on the castle ruins on the website of the market town of Neustadtl / D , accessed on January 18, 2020.
  11. ^ Entry by Patrick Layer on the Freyenstein castle ruins in the " EBIDAT " scientific database of the European Castle Institute
  12. ↑ a b c Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages. Floor plan lexicon. Flechsig, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-88189-360-1 , p. 197.
  13. ^ Otto Piper: Austrian castles. Volume 4. 1905, p. 26.
  14. ↑ a b c Gabriele Biró: Freyenstein castle ruins. 1994, p. 41.
  15. ↑ Information according to the Lower Austrian Castles online , accessed on January 18, 2020. Krahe states the wall thickness is only 1.2 meters. See Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages. Floor plan lexicon. Flechsig, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-88189-360-1 , p. 197.
  16. ↑ According to the information on the castle ruins in the Lower Austria Culture Atlas , accessed on January 18, 2020. Krahe states a height of 21 meters. See Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages. Floor plan lexicon. Flechsig, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-88189-360-1 , p. 197.
  17. ^ Otto Piper: Austrian castles. Volume 4. 1905, p. 29.
  18. ^ Wilfried Bahnmüller: Castles and palaces in Lower Austria. 2011, p. 22.