Roßstein castle ruins

Roßstein castle ruins
Roßstein castle ruins - view of the residential tower ruins from a south-westerly direction
Creation time :	probably early 14th century
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	The upper castle of the ruin has been restored, the lower castle has gone
Standing position :	Ministeriale
Construction:	Quarry stone masonry, partly with corner hump square
Place:	Hohenburg- Spieshof
Geographical location	49 ° 18 '33.3 "  N , 11 ° 52' 23.3"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 18 '33.3 "  N , 11 ° 52' 23.3"  E
Height:	453  m above sea level NHN

The Roßstein castle ruin is a former late medieval aristocratic castle above the hamlet Spieshof in Markt Hohenburg in Upper Palatinate in the district of Amberg-Sulzbach in Bavaria , Germany .

The ruins of the Spornburg are freely accessible at all times.

Geographical location

The castle ruins are located in the eastern part of the Franconian Alb in the Hirschwald Nature Park , about 200 meters south of Spieshof or 5,650 meters east-north-east of the Catholic parish church Sankt Jakobus in Hohenburg on a mountain spur protruding northwest into the valley of the Lauterach tributary Taubenbach at 453  m above sea level. NN .

There are other former medieval castles in the vicinity, the Hohenburg castle ruins to the southwest , a castle stables on the Schlossberg near Markt Rieden to the northeast , and probably another castle stables north of Vilshofen.

history

There is still no precise information about the time of origin and the builder of Roßstein Castle; Konrad Erlheimer ( Chunrad der Oerlheimer ) may have built the castle on his own before 1331. There is evidence that he first named himself after Roßstein Castle in 1331.

The name of the castle comes from the Old High German "hros" as a general name for the horse, which in Middle High German changed to "ros" for the war horse of the knights . The basic word -stein is to be understood as "castle made of stone". Roßstein is therefore a rather recent castle name that shows the symbols of knightly virtues.

The task of Roßstein Castle may have been to monitor the intersection of two old streets , namely the Eisenstraße, which connected the Vilstal with Amberg , and the so-called Alte Straße, which led from Hohenburg via Rieden to Schwandorf . A second task could also have been to secure the border between the Regensburg rule Hohenburg, the Palatinate and Bavaria.

Around 1357 the castle came to the knight "Rüdiger von Punzinger" as a marriage property, he became a caretaker of the Palatinate in Hohenfels . His brother Georg was in a dispute with the Count Palatine Ruprecht and the city of Regensburg because he had recorded "schedliche Lewte" at his castle Roßstein, which the Palatine and Regensburg merchants attacked and robbed. In 1411 the castle was set on fire by the Regensburgen due to this feud between the Punzern and Regensburg. The Roßstein Castle was apparently badly damaged because Andreas Punzinger then had to fundamentally renew it.

However, a few years later the Lords of Roßstein lost their interest in the remote castle, as they held important positions as carers at Heinburg, Hofmeister to Duke Johann in Amberg and guardian of his son Christoph . In 1447 they also acquired the Hofmark Allersburg . In 1480 they called themselves “on the Taubenbach”, presumably they had built a more comfortable seat in the valley. Then, around 1499, they called themselves Allersburg.

After Mathes Punzinger's death, Roßstein Castle fell to the Electoral Palatinate in 1490, and a forester managed the castle until 1550. In the same year the castle burned down due to carelessness, but Lienhard Spieß, appointed as administrator in 1563, did not renew it, but used the castle as a quarry for the construction of today's Spieshof down by the Taubenbach .

The chronicler Christoph Vogel described the Roßstein Castle in 1600 as " An old broken Burckhstall apart from Grenitz [of the Burglengenfeld Office] in the Rieden Office ".

Today the site of the former castle is densely overgrown with forest, only the ruins of the residential tower and other remains of the walls of the main castle have survived, and only the ramparts and moats of the former buildings are evidence of the outer castle .

The ruin registered by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation as a building and ground monument has the monument number D-3-71-129-64

Description of the castle ruins

The ruin lies on a rock protruding to the northwest into the Tauberbach, which drops steeply on three sides. To the south, where the spur has a connection to the plateau, a deep ditch carved into the rock seals off the facility from the hinterland. There are also two stone walls in front of it.

The castle consisted of a tower-like residential building ( Palas ), to which a utility wing was attached. The south facade is completely missing from the residential building. The other walls with their beam holes show that the building had three floors. The western part of the building has a barrel vault . On the north side, at the level of the first floor, there is a doorway that led to a bay window. The extension on the east side rises directly above the moat. Its south wall is 1.6 m thick; since it has no windows, it looks like a shield wall . On the north side of the cliff there was a surrounding wall, the lower stone layers of which are still partially preserved. This also included a semicircular shell tower that stood on the rock ledge behind the residential building. At the foot of the mountain rock remains of the walls can still be seen, which are related to the weir system.

The masonry of the castle consists of dolomite chunks and lime mortar, the corners are made of ashlar, which suggests that it was built in the Gothic period. In places, components made of humpback blocks have been preserved, which point to a previous building from the Romanesque period.

literature

• Mathias Conrad: Roßstein ruins. In: amberg information , May 1992, pp. 6-9.
• Silvia Codreanu-Windauer : Hohenburg-Egelsheim: Roßstein castle ruins . In: Silvia Condreanu-Windauer, Uta Kirpal, Gabriele Raßhofer (eds.): Guide to archaeological monuments in Germany, Volume 44: Amberg and the land an Naab and Vils . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1877-3 , pp. 125–128.
• Stefan Helml: Castles and palaces in the Amberg-Sulzbach district . Druckhaus Oberpfalz, Amberg 1991, pp. 186–188.
• Verena Kaufmann: Archaeological investigations accompanying the construction of the Roßstein castle ruins, Gde.Hohenburg, district of Amberg-Sulzbach . In: Contributions to archeology in the Upper Palatinate and Regensburg, Volume 3 . Publishing house Dr. Faustus, Büchenbach 1999, ISSN  1433-433X , pp. 417-438.
• Ursula Pfistermeister : Castles of the Upper Palatinate . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1974, ISBN 3-7917-0394-3 , p. 94.
• Karl Wächter, Günter Moser: On the trail of knights and nobles in the Amberg-Sulzbach district - castles, palaces, noble residences, hammer estates . Buch & Kunstverlag Oberpfalz, Amberg 1992, ISBN 3-924350-26-4 , pp. 47-49.

Web links

• Burgruine Roßstein on the Burgenwelt.de page
• Burgruine Roßstein on the side , etc. page
• Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun

Individual evidence

1. ^ Topographic map 1: 25000, sheet 6637 Rieden
2. ↑ Location of the castle ruins on the map of the Bavaria Viewer
3. ^ The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
4. ^ The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
5. ^ Verena Kaufmann: Contributions to archeology in the Upper Palatinate, Volume 3 , p. 422
6. ↑ About castle names, see: Hellmut Kunstmann : Mensch und Burg - Castle and Castle observations on East Franconian fortifications , p. 18ff
7. ↑ Silvia Codreanu-Windauer: Hohenburg-Egelsheim: Roßstein castle ruins . In: Guide to Archaeological Monuments in Germany, Volume 44: Amberg and the Land an Naab and Vils , pp. 125 ff.
8. ^ Karl Wächter, Günter Moser: In the footsteps of knights and nobles in the district of Amberg-Sulzbach , p. 48
9. ^ Roßstein castle ruins on the site of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation