Helfenberg castle ruins (Ilsfeld)

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Helfenberg castle ruins
Helfenberg castle ruins (aerial photo, 2017)

Helfenberg castle ruins (aerial photo, 2017)

Alternative name (s): Upper Helfenberg Castle
Creation time : around 1250
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Remains of the shield wall / residential tower have been preserved
Place: Helfenberg
Geographical location 49 ° 3 '48 "  N , 9 ° 18' 43.6"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 3 '48 "  N , 9 ° 18' 43.6"  E
Height: 335  m above sea level NN
Helfenberg Castle Ruins (Baden-Württemberg)
Helfenberg castle ruins

The Helfenberg castle ruins are the ruins of a medieval hilltop castle above the town of Helfenberg, part of Ilsfeld, in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg .

Helfenberg castle ruins seen from the northeast

geography

The ruin is 335  m above sea level. NN east of Abstatt and southwest of the Wildeck castle there and northeast of Auenstein on a ridge extending from west to east. The hamlet of Helfenberg, which historically belongs to the castle, is located south of the castle hill . The castle hill is used for viticulture today, except for the high plateau around the castle and a small wooded cut in the area in the west .

history

The castle was built at the time of the Staufer around 1250 and was first mentioned in a document in 1259 with the Baden servant Albertus de Helfenberg. Other representatives were Hartmann called Bruche de Helfenberg (1293) and Albrecht von Helfenberg (1310). The Helfenberger ceded property in the early 14th century, such as a property in Siglingen to the Schöntal monastery and in 1344 a share of the forest in Talheim to the Lords of Neipperg . The last representative was a Hans von Helfenberg, who sold a tenth share in Lauffen am Neckar in 1354 .

The Helfenberg inheritance was shared by the Lords of Sachsenheim and the Messrs. Sturmfeder , who presumably descended from the Helfenbergers or are related to them because of their coats of arms. From 1339 to 1370 Werner Sturmfeder was the lord of the castle, around 1400 Hans Sturmfeder. At that time, the Sachsenheim part went to Heinrich von Hohenriet.

A Konrad von Hohenrieth later owned the entire castle and in 1456 sold the Helfenberg Castle with goods and people, the Alt Helfenberg castle stables behind the castle, goods and people in Helfenberg and a forest as well as goods and tithes in Abstatt , tithe, gilt and goods and people in Ostheim , in Ilsfeld and Beilstein as well as a fiefdom with forest in Söhlbach , Gülten in Oberstenfeld and Etzlensendung with the forest Farnersberg , the Abstetter Hof and serfs in 13 nearer and distant places in Württemberg .

Portal with Gaisberg coat of arms, dated 1579
Castle and place Helfenberg in the Kieser forest map from 1685

As a Württemberg fiefdom , the castle was owned by various noble families from 1457. Dieter von Weiler gave the castle to Hans von Talheim in 1464 as a sub-fief and this or his heirs sold the property to Werner Notthracht in 1482 , who had the old barren tower at the eastern tip of the castle hill demolished. A part of the castle went from Daniel Notthphia to Wolf Ruch von Winnenden in 1521, who had further construction work carried out and was murdered by farmers in 1525 during the Peasants' War in the Weinsberg bloodshed .

In 1527 the castle came into possession of Conrad von Wittstatt. Philipp von Wittstatt expanded the castle in 1579. The coat of arms of the Lords of Gaisberg, which was attached later, is emblazoned above the portal of the preserved residential tower.

The remains of the building that are preserved today come from the residential tower built on the former shield wall . The rest of the castle complex once extended to the east over an area of ​​around 40 × 25 meters. There were probably farm buildings and the castle chapel there.

To 1625 in lying below the castle site was Finkenbach another mansion, the place was probably in the course of the construction of the castle under Helfenberg named after the castle hill. The castle on the mountain was called Oberes Schloss or Oberhelfenberg to distinguish it from the castle in the village . 1625 was sitting on Oberhelfenberg Philipp Christoph von Hoheneck (son-in-law of Philipp von Wittstatt), on Unterhelfenberg Johann Christoph von Buchholz (son-in-law of the daughter of Philipp von Wittstatt).

The castle was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War and then restored under the colonel and councilor from Württemberg, Peter von Pflummer, who had been enfeoffed by Duke Eberhard with Hoheneck's share in the castle and who at that time also owned the neighboring Wildeck castle . The castle chapel dates from that time. After Pflummer's death, the castle went to his daughter Elisabeth, who was married to Claus Jacob Böcklin von Böcklinsau. After his death in 1681 the property went to their daughter Maria Dorothea, who had been married to Wolf Ernst Horneck von Hornberg since 1671, so that the property at the castle passed to the Horneck von Hornberg family. In 1702 there is talk of partial demolition of the Upper Castle in the case of a succession , instead of which a vineyard was created.

In 1746, through the marriage of a Horneck daughter, the rule of Helfenberg came into the possession of the von Gaisberg family , who were represented in the knight canton of Kocher and who took their seat in the Lower Castle . The castle, on the other hand, was already in ruins when ownership was transferred to von Gaisberg, from which stones were broken for buildings in the village of Helfenberg. In 1817 the castle chapel was demolished. The Lower Castle in the village of Helfenberg was destroyed by an air raid in 1945, and the parish hall is located in its place today.

The ruins of Helfenberg Castle are still in the possession of the von Gaisberg family, were repaired with the help of the monument office , the district of Heilbronn and the then community of Auenstein and are open to the public.

literature

  • Eugen Härle : From the story of Helfenberg . In: Ilsfeld in past and present. A home book for Ilsfeld, Auenstein and Schozach . Ilsfeld municipality, Ilsfeld 1989
  • Alexander Antonow: Castles of southwest Germany in the 13th and 14th centuries - with special consideration of the shield wall . Konkordia publishing house, Bühl / Baden 1977, ISBN 3-7826-0040-1 , pp. 163-165

Web links

Commons : Burgruine Helfenberg (Ilsfeld)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files