Pregrad castle ruins

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pregrad castle ruins
Pregrad.JPG
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Construction: Natural stone
Place: Feldkirchen
Geographical location 46 ° 41 '28 "  N , 14 ° 4' 39"  E Coordinates: 46 ° 41 '28 "  N , 14 ° 4' 39"  E
Castle ruin Prägrad (Carinthia)
Pregrad castle ruins
View of the castle ruins from the valley - the locality of Prägrad and Graphite Moor

The Prägrad Castle is the ruins of a hilltop castle in the village of Prägrad the municipality of Feldkirchen in Carinthia on a rocky ledge above the lead instead .

The name "Prägrad" is of Slavic origin and means something like "area in front of the castle" or "Vorburg" ( pre = "before"; grad = "castle"). It is possible that the fortification was originally intended as a preliminary to a larger facility.

The sovereignty of the diocese of Bamberg emerges from a document from 1166 , and in 1258 it was in sovereign possession. In 1456 the castle and rule went to Friedrich III. Pregrad later passed to the Ernauer and in 1628 to the Ossiach monastery .

In terms of location, it is a hillside castle . From the founding system from the 12th century, the parts within the worm tower-like expansion of the 15th century are still preserved. Remains of a kennel from the 15th century can be found in the southeast of the castle complex.

The late Gothic-early Renaissance castle building at the foot of the castle rock - the so-called Pflegerhaus, commonly known as castle builder - was demolished in 1967.

In Valvasor's Topographia Archiducatus Carinthiae antiquae & modernae completa from 1688 there is a copper engraving of the castle and palace.

geography

The Prägrad castle ruins are located in close proximity to the village of Prägrad. The municipality of Feldkirchen in Carinthia is also to the northeast of the ruin and Glanhofen is to the southeast .

Building history

The expansion of today's core castle is essentially due to the high medieval foundation construction of the small castle complex. Significant remains of the wall of the foundations have been preserved, especially on the southwest corner. The high medieval masonry is characterized as quarry stone masonry, strictly committed to the individual layer, using shell technology with flat orthostats in the corner. The thickness of the preserved parts of the wall in the south on the attack side is only 0.90-0.95 m. In a late Gothic construction phase (around 1450/1500), the small castle complex was rebuilt and the high medieval core castle was converted into a late Gothic residential tower. The main gate to the main castle or to the residential tower was secured by a retracted gate protruding to the east. The gate tower-like annex extending over all floors is interlocked with the residential tower in the foundation area. The longitudinally rectangular commercial building placed across the neck ditch is included in the north of the Zwingerbau and could formerly be entered via a gate on the ground floor and a door on the upper floor of the north wall. The ground floor, illuminated by funnel notches, was divided into two sections by a secondary internal wall. The masonry of this construction phase is characterized by a net-like spandrel masonry without clearly recognizable working or compartment heights. The oldest parts of the wall refer to an architecturally undemanding small castle from the decades before it was first mentioned in 1140. The remnants of the wall that have been preserved and which were affected by later construction phases take up an area of ​​around 14.5 × 12.5 m. Towards the south there is a relatively weak mantle wall, which formerly towered over the other outer walls of the castle by at least one storey height. According to the building findings, the small castle complex was expanded or redesigned in the period around 1450/1500. This period also seems historically well secured, as the castle came into the possession of the influential and powerful lords of Ernau in 1468. The high medieval core castle was expanded into a residential tower with at least four floors, the northern front of which is now completely lost. The south wall was almost completely rebuilt, with only the southwest corner of the high medieval core castle remaining.

literature

  • Dehio Carinthia . Verlag Anton Schroll & Co, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-7031-0712-X , p. 646.
  • Oliver Fries and Ronald Kurt Salzer, The Prägrad Castle ruins near Feldkirchen. Results of a building history study. In: Carinthia I. Journal for historical regional studies of Carinthia, vol. 206 (2016), pp. 157–176.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Prägrad, castle ruins. Retrieved July 17, 2010 .
  2. The date 1456 leads to the assumption that the castle had belonged to the Cillians until then .