Thaur castle ruins

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thaur castle ruins
Thaur castle ruins (2014)

Thaur castle ruins (2014)

Alternative name (s): ad Tarane, ad Tauru, Toura, Tovr, Tore, Tawr, Tauer
Creation time : 1232 (first documented mention)
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Place: community Thaur
Geographical location 47 ° 18 '4.3 "  N , 11 ° 27' 57.4"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 18 '4.3 "  N , 11 ° 27' 57.4"  E
Height: 812  m above sea level A.
Thaur castle ruins (Tyrol)
Thaur castle ruins
Thaur castle ruins today

The Thaur castle ruins (there are numerous alternative names, from the 14th century mainly Tawr , Taur and Tauer ) is located in the municipality of Thaur near Hall in Tirol in the Innsbruck-Land district of Tirol (Schloßgasse 17).

location

The ruins of the hilltop castle are around 250 m above the valley floor of the Inn Valley and almost 200 m above the village center of Thaur on a sparse 812  m above sea level overgrown with oak and linden trees . A. high elevation on the slope of the Nordkette . About 150 m to the east is the Romedikirchl , a pilgrimage church that may have served as a castle chapel and is the starting point of the Romedius pilgrimage .

history

The castle seems to have been built at the end of the 12th century, but it was not until 1232 that the castle and the Thaur saltworks became the property of Count Albert III. officially named by Tyrol , although the Lower Inn Valley was in the hands of the Counts of Andechs as a Brixen fief at that time . The Ministerials trading as Herren von Thaur probably came from not one, but several families. After the death of the last Andechser Otto II , the possessions in the Lower Inn and Puster Valley fell to Albert III. Since he remained without a male heir, his possessions passed through his daughters to his two sons-in-law, Count Meinhard I. von Görz (married to Adelheid) and Count Gebhard VI. von Hirschberg (married to Elisabeth). Gebhard had got the northern part of the country with the castles Thaur, Vellenberg and Questionsstein . But even before Gebhard's death († 1281, he also died without a male heir) Thaur seems to have come into the possession of Meinhard II , Meinhard I's son. In 1284, however, a transfer fee for the Tyrolean property had to be paid to the Hirschberg heirs.

A Heinrich von Thaur was married to an illegitimate daughter of Meinhard II named Adelheit. The marriage has two sons (Konrad and Heinrich) and two daughters (Sophie and Mechtild). In 1325 Katharina Tauerin, daughter of Konrad von Thaur, received a fiefdom letter from King John of Bohemia on the Burggsäß zu Thaur and all of her paternal fiefdoms. The Aufenstein , the Kamerer von Thaur , an Ulricus Helbinger and an Aurdorferius appear on Thaur in the 14th century as burgraves of the sovereign . However, the castle and court were pledged at this time, for example to Engelmar von Villanders (1340), Heinrich Schnellmann (1350), Friedrich Flednitzer and his wife Gertraud Schnellmannin (1399). The property then passed to Hans vom Ems via inheritance. Since the latter joined an aristocratic union directed against Friedrich IV , he had to return his pledge and in 1425 Marx von Getzens was appointed as the new caretaker on Thaur. The resulting legal dispute was finally settled by Duke Sigismund , who exchanged the income from the Ems pledge to the brothers Hans and Jakob von Ems for those from Thaur and Hall. In the 15th century, 13 different nurses are mentioned here, the last of which (1505) was Duke Erich von Braunschweig . He was married to the second wife and widow of Sigmund, Katharina von Sachsen . Although Duke Erich had saved the life of Emperor Maximilian I at the Battle of Wenzenbach , near Regensburg, he too had to take over from his predecessor, Bartelme Käsler. In 1511 Thaur is pledged to the city of Hall. In 1515, Margarete von Edelsheim (1497–1537), illegitimate daughter of Emperor Maximilian I, was the new mistress of the castle. She was married to Johann von Hilla (or von Hillen), Imperial Councilor and Forest Master of Tyrol, and after his death received his previous possessions instead now Thaur. She and her second husband, Count Ludwig Helreich von Helfenstein, had to borrow money from Hall several times. Therefore, in 1525, the income from them was transferred to court, care and administration Thaur of the city of Hall. Ludwig von Helfenstein himself then went against rebellious farmers in Swabia and was executed by the farmers in the same year in the Weinsberg bloodshed . Katharina did not return to Tyrol, but her children from her first marriage, Barbara and Franz von Hilla, took over the inheritance, but had to transfer Thaur to Christoff Walthauser in 1536, who was followed by Beatus Widmann , Chancellor of Tyrol, and after his death (1556) Georg Fieder redeemed the pledge, but Thaur exchanged it for the rule of Imst back to the sovereign Archduke Ferdinand II . Thaur signed this over to his second wife Anna Katharina von Mantua. As she ended her old age in a monastery in Innsbruck, Thaur came to this monastery. In 1649 it was pledged again as a pledge to Carl and Johann Franz Fieger zu Hirschberg. In 1696 it was redeemed by the Finance Chamber and confiscated as Kammergut . The last pledge holder was Franz Andre Wenzel Freiherr von Sternbach in 1706 and this family received the rule as a fief. In 1877 Thaur was transferred to the Sternbach family as a free property . In 1967 it was bought by the current owner, Bernhard von Liphart.

Anna Katharina von Mantua was the last princely resident of Thaur Castle in 1592, and she was also the last to invest in the castle's maintenance. In the centuries before, princely visitors and residents have been to Thaur again and again (such as Meinhard II., Margarete Maultasch and her second husband Ludwig von Brandenburg , Duke Sigmund and Emperor Maximilian I). In 1525, a fire caused by rebellious peasants in the castle caused great damage. In 1537 the gun chamber burned out and had to be refurbished by 1542. After the castle bridge collapsed in 1550 and a tower in 1564, the kitchen vault collapsed in 1578. The curtain wall was also dilapidated. At the end of the 16th century, the complex seems to have been left to decay. Since 1616 the nurses no longer lived here either. The Thaur prison remained in use until 1684. After a series of earthquakes in 1670 , the castle was largely in ruins.

Arx (Burg) Thaur from 1699 after an engraving by M. Rivoli after J. di Rossi
Thaur castle ruins: masonry
Thaur castle ruins

Thaur castle ruins then and now

The remains of the once huge castle complex are about 100 meters above the village of Thaur. The floor area of ​​the castle is approx. 3,000 m². The main castle from the first half of the 13th century has a floor plan that forms an equilateral triangle with the tip against the slope, the opposite side is bent several times. Of these, only two larger sections of the wall have survived: a wall tooth about 5 meters long and 10 meters high on the north side and the northeast corner. They show carefully prepared limestone blocks , the corner was reinforced with blocks made of the same material, the wall thickness is around 1.5 m. A building with the dimensions of about 8 × 8 meters can be assumed within the Berings . The eastern corner of the Bering was subsequently provided with tuff stone blocks. The castle had two towers: an actual keep and a free-standing burgrave tower. The keep will probably be located at the tip of the triangle on the field side. The Burggrafenturm stood about 10 meters from the west side of the triangle and has been preserved in a greatly modified form. On the first floor of the Burggrafenturm there is a pointed arched gate with brick walls , which was once connected to the barbican via a bridge .

In 1307 the residential wing of the castle ( domus in castro ) was renewed. H. At the beginning of the 14th century, only the palace , the keep and the burgrave tower formed the fortress. The water supply did not come from a cistern , as is usually the case , but from its own water pipe, which is, however, susceptible to repair. Archduke Sigmund and Emperor Maximilian I used the castle as a hunting lodge. Both invested relatively large sums in their expansion in the 15th century, whereby emphasis was also placed on comfort. The number of living rooms was increased, a large hall (1484–1489) was built and the farm buildings expanded. In 1500 the palace chapel was consecrated to St. Maximilian under Emperor Maximilian .

In the northwest, the entrance was protected by a barbican with up to 2.3 m thick stone walls . This was built by order of Archduke Sigismund at the end of the 15th century; it represents a forward tower that could control the entire apron and through which the Burgweg also led. It has the shape of a semi-oval with five wide loopholes and a gate opening that could be closed with a drawbridge . The gate is built from hewn Nagelfluh . In the barbarque, the gateway made a 90 degree curve to the left (as protection against the new firearms) and led on a bridge over the approximately 15 meter wide moat into the castle. An upstream ditch had to be crossed over a drawbridge. Between the barbican and the stronghold to the east there was a neck ditch , which is now largely filled in . It is bridged by two wide round arches that connected the two buildings. The beam holes of a former battlement can still be seen above the two arches. The Burggrafenturm is connected to the medieval main castle by two walls, of which the one facing east is late medieval. To the east lies an extensive outer bailey , which was once enclosed by a circular wall, of which only a low lining wall remains .

In the last quarter of the 20th century, the Thaurer Schützenkompanie arranged for the remaining wall remains to be secured; in 2003 this work was supported by the State of Tyrol, the Federal Monuments Office and the municipality of Thaur. Further restoration work has been carried out since 2008, financed by the municipality of Thaur and the CHRONOS association.

Today there is an open-air stage on the castle grounds. In addition, the “Association for the Promotion of Urban Archeology and City History in Hall in Tirol” has been promoting interest in the former castle for several years through “archaeological children's excavations”.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oswald Trapp, 1982, p. 192.
  2. ↑ Oswald Trapp, 1982, p. 196.
  3. ↑ Reconstruction work on the castle ruins, notification from August 8, 2008
  4. ↑ Event location "Thaurer Schlossruine"
  5. ↑ Archaeological children's excavation on the Thaurer castle ruins

Web links

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