Burgstall Alte Bürg (Eschenfelden)

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Burgstall Alte Bürg
Burgstall Alte Bürg - The rocky reef around which the castle was built

Burgstall Alte Bürg - The rocky reef around which the castle was built

Alternative name (s): Altenburg, Ratzenberg
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: Burgstall
Construction: Ashlar masonry
Place: Hirschbach- Eschenfelden
Geographical location 49 ° 34 '20.7 "  N , 11 ° 37' 22.3"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 34 '20.7 "  N , 11 ° 37' 22.3"  E
Height: 572.8  m above sea level NN
Burgstall Alte Bürg (Bavaria)
Burgstall Alte Bürg

The Postal Old Bürg , also called Altenburg is an Outbound , probably late medieval nobility castle that once located on a cliff above the parish village Eschenfelden in the municipality Hirschbach in Upper Palatinate Amberg-Sulzbach in Bavaria rose. Almost nothing is left of the castle's buildings; apart from trenches, only a small remnant of the wall remains.

Geographical location

View of the southeastern side of the Wachtberg

The hilltop castle stood at 572.8  m above sea level. NN on the Wachtberg, which extends from northwest to southeast, in the eastern part of the Hersbrucker Alb , which belongs to the Franconian Alb . It is located about 11.5 kilometers northwest of the center of Sulzbach-Rosenberg and about 830 meters south-southeast of the Evangelical-Catholic simultaneous church Corpus Christi in Eschenfelden. The Wachtberg towers over its surroundings by about 100 meters. At its highest point in the southeast, the castle was built on and around a long and narrow rocky reef.

There were other castles in the area in the Middle Ages: about 2.60 kilometers to the northwest lies the Ratzenberg castle stable or Altes Haus near the hamlet of Ziegelhütte near Achtel, the Hauseck castle ruins to the southwest and the Breitenstein castle ruins on the Mühlberg northeast of Pruihausen and the castle stables in the old house to the northwest .

History of the castle

The last remnants of the curtain wall
Badly collapsed remains of the curtain wall

There is no historical information about the lost castle on the Wachtberg. It was not mentioned in a document, so that neither the builder nor the time of construction of the castle are known. In older literature, the Burgstall is also identified as Burg Ratzenberg, but it was more likely to be the Burgstall Altes Haus over Ziegelhütte at Achtel. Only about one kilometer east of this castle stable is the hamlet Ratzenhof, probably the former farm yard of Ratzenberg Castle.

The name Alte Bürg does not necessarily have to be associated with the establishment of the complex in the High Middle Ages, but may indicate older, early medieval roots of the castle on the Wachtberg. The linguistic form Bürg was created by umlaut from the Old High German dative burgi , this speaks from a linguistic point of view for the development of the term no later than the 10th century during the early Middle Ages . In 1121 a ministerial of the Counts of Sulzbach appears in the sources, named after the nearby Eschenfelden. It is unclear whether there is a connection with the Alte Bürg.

On the lower slopes of the castle hill, striking edges of the terrain stretch over several hundred meters, which could be remnants of an early medieval or prehistoric fortification. However, due to a lack of archaeological evidence, this remains an assumption.

Small remains of the wall and two section trenches have survived on the ridge, which probably indicate that the facility was still used in the high Middle Ages. The Burgstall, which is freely accessible at all times, can be reached on a hiking trail over the ridge of the Wachtberg from Eschenfelden.

The ground monument registered by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments as "Medieval Burgstall Alte Bürg" has the monument number D-3-6435-0074.

The Altenburg has been designated as an important geotope (geotope number: 371R020) and natural monument by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment .

literature

  • Ferdinand Leja: Forgotten castle stables on the Franconian Jura - or where was the “Ratzenberg” castle? In: Contributions to archeology in the Upper Palatinate and Regensburg, Volume 5 . Publishing house Dr. Faustus, Büchenbach 2002, ISSN  1617-4461 , pp. 233-256.
  • Stefan Helml: Castles and palaces in the Amberg-Sulzbach district . Druckhaus Oberpfalz, Amberg 1991, p. 179. (Here, however, incorrectly referred to as Ratzenberg Castle)
  • Armin Stroh : The prehistoric and early historical monuments of the Upper Palatinate . (Material booklets on Bavarian prehistory, series B, volume 3). Verlag Michael Lassleben, Kallmünz 1975, ISBN 3-7847-5030-3 , p. 88. (Also here, however, incorrectly referred to as Ratzenberg Castle)
  • Walter Heinz: Hikes through the seasons - Walter Heinz leads through the Franconian Alb . 2nd edition, Seifert + Wiedemann Druck und Verlag, ISBN 3-9807795-0-5 , p. 17.

Web links

Commons : Burgstall Alte Bürg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Topographic map 1: 25000, sheet 6435 Pommelsbrunn
  2. ^ The Burgstall Alte Bürg on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
  3. ^ Bavarian State Office for the Environment, Geotop Altenburg SE von Eschenfelden (accessed on October 16, 2017).