Burgstall Altenschneeberg

Burgstall Altenschneeberg
Image 1: View of the southern part of the upper castle
Alternative name (s):	Schneeberg Castle
Creation time :	1st half of the 13th century
Castle type :	Two-part hilltop castle in a spur location
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Standing position :	Nobles
Place:	Tiefenbach - Altenschneeberg - "Schlossberg"
Geographical location	49 ° 26 '14 "  N , 12 ° 32' 51"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 26 '14 "  N , 12 ° 32' 51"  E
Height:	765  m above sea level NN

The Altenschneeberg Castle Stables , also known as Schneeberger Schloss , is a former high medieval to early modern aristocratic castle on a hilltop of the Schlossberg near Altenschneeberg , a district of the municipality of Tiefenbach in the Upper Palatinate district of Cham in Bavaria . The two-part hilltop castle has almost completely disappeared, only very few remains are evidence of it. The castle stable is freely accessible at all times and serves as a lookout point .

Geographical location

The former Altenschneeberg Castle is located in the eastern part of the Upper Palatinate Forest , just a few kilometers west of the border with the Czech Republic on a foothill of the Signalberg, the so-called Schlossberg. This foothill extends as a mountain spur in a southerly direction and rises at its top up to 765  m above sea level. NN at. The spur is bounded on the eastern side by the valley of the Schwarzach and on the western side by the valley of the Ascha. The Burgstall is located about 250 meters above the valley immediately southwest of the village of Altenschneeberg, about 2750 meters west of the Catholic parish church of St. Vitus in Tiefenbach and about 25 kilometers north-northwest of Cham .

Which are located near another former medieval fortifications, slightly north-northwest Frauenstein castle ruins on the same mountain, the castle ruins Treffelstein in the same locality Treffelstein and the ruins of the castle Hirschstein in the Czech Republic in the east, the ruins house Murach the west and the castle ruin Thanstein and the Burgstall Altenthanstein in a south-westerly direction.

history

Image 2: View of the mountain spur on which Altenschneeberg Castle stood

Not much is known about the time of origin and the oldest history of Altenschneeberg Castle. In 1180 a "Marquardus Snebergarius" was mentioned in Regensburg , but it is not known whether he can be associated with the castle. It was not until 1237 that a representative of the family was mentioned with "Dietricus iudex de Sneberc", who appeared again in 1238 and 1250 as a witness in documents of the Counts of Ortenburg . Altenschneeberg Castle was probably built by them in the first half of the 13th century. The appearance in Ortenburg documents indicates that Altenschneeberg belonged to the Ortenburg lordship of Murach.

Soon afterwards the castle was in fiefdom or completely owned by the Lords of Sigenhofen and became an object of dispute between Duke Ludwig II of Upper Bavaria and Duke Heinrich XIII of Lower Bavaria . After the Bavarian division of the country in 1255, Altenschneeberg actually belonged to Duke Heinrich's Lower Bavarian area, but a unification agreement between the two dukes in 1280 stipulated that Ludwig had to return the castle to the young Sigenhofer.

Nevertheless, the ownership structure at this time remained somewhat unclear, because in 1296, in an exchange contract, the castle and rule of Altenschneeberg were transferred from "Friedrich von Sigenhofen" to Duke Otto III. handed over by Lower Bavaria. This is also confirmed in a Straubing land register from shortly after 1301. There it says: "... the house ze Sneberch ... has chauffeured the hertzog with geriht von Fridreichen the Sigenhovener". In a later Straubinger Urbar from the years around 1311/12 it says, however: "Sneberch diu Purkh ... daz is the Sigenhovers good".

Idealized view of the castle from the second half of the 16th century

Image 3: View of the upper castle of Altenschneeberg

Even during the division of Bavaria in 1349 and 1392 , Altenschneeberg changed nationality several times. After 1339 it was in pledge possession of the Lords of Satzenhofen , from 1349 it belonged permanently to Lower Bavaria. The Satzenhofer had meanwhile also been enfeoffed with the castle and called themselves "ze dem Sneberch".

Probably around 1396 the lordship and castle Altenschneeberg was divided, as was Parzifal Zenger, the court master of the dukes Ernst and Wilhelm III. from Bavaria-Munich , was enfeoffed with rule and castle. They also called themselves "von Schneeberg" in the following. In 1429 the castle was probably attacked in the course of the ongoing feud between Tristram I. Zenger and the Bavarian dukes. In 1459 Tristram II declared the castle an open house opposite Duke Ludwig IX. from Bavaria-Landshut .

From 1488 the Zenger were among the Upper Palatinate Landsassen , the sovereignty had apparently passed to the Palatinate Wittelsbacher in the meantime . In 1489 the brothers Wilhelm and Hans Satzenhofer were given a fiefdom to Count Palatine Otto II. On July 10, 1489, the brothers Jörg and Jobst Zenger joined the Löwlerbund and a year later the castles became members of the union, including Altenschneeberg Castle, from King Wladislaw II. Of Bohemia placed under his protection.

The Zenger are attested to with Georg and Christoph at the castle until 1507, in the following time knight Thomas Fuchs von Wallburg or his son was able to gradually acquire the divided rule from the Zengers and the Satzenhofers, but they did not name themselves until 1526 after the Altenschneeberg Castle. In 1527, Thomas, as imperial governor for Schneeberg and his Bohemian fiefs Reichenstein and Schönsee , had received a comprehensive letter of freedom from Emperor Charles V , but had to face Count Palatine Friedrich II and his brother Elector Ludwig V , who feared alienation of the area , as early as 1530 , submit again. At that time, Altenschneeberg Castle had already been abandoned and the seat of the lordship was relocated to Tiefenbach.

In 1557 only one “old broken castle stable” was mentioned. The ruins served as a quarry at the time, and the tower of the church in nearby Heinrichskirchen was supposedly built from stones from Altenschneeberg Castle.

Today the site of the former castle is largely overgrown with grass and is accessible via a hiking trail. Only a few remains of the foundations of the castle remain above ground, as well as the neck ditch and the moat in the south. An archaeological excavation has not yet been carried out until today (2010), so that very little is known about the buildings. Today the upper castle serves as a resting place and a lookout point.

The ground monument registered by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments as "Medieval Castle Stables " has the monument number D-3-6541-0005.

description

The site of the former spur castle lies on a south-facing spur that protrudes from the southern end of the Signalberg (Fig. 2). On the south and west sides, the spur slopes down towards the valley, so that the system was superbly protected from attack on two sides. On the other hand, the north and east sides rise, so that a ditch had to be dug there for protection, and a moat had to be built in the south-east part (Fig. 4 and 5).

The area of ​​the lost castle is oval in shape and about 160 by 75 meters. It is divided into an upper castle and a lower castle, which served as an outer castle .

The lower castle surrounded the north and northwest sides and the entire east side of a rocky reef on which the upper castle once stood. Since the lower castle on the east side was on the attack side facing the enemy and also rises slightly, this part of the castle complex had to be secured by a ditch . This trench is U-shaped, about 13 to 20 meters wide and up to 6 meters deep. It is only weakly pronounced on its north side and hewn out of the rock, in the north-western part of the facility the ditch ends in the steep slope. From the middle of the trench, a weak outer wall is still preserved, which, since the pre-terrain slopes down in one step to the bottom of the trench, in the southern part continues as a 1.5 meter high wall to the south, then bends to the west and on the steep edge of the lower castle connects.

The up to 30 meters wide eastern lower castle slopes down to the south in one step and was thus divided into two areas (Fig. 8). In the north (Fig. 6) and east (Fig. 7) it is bounded by the ditch, in the south (Fig. 9) it drops about 5 meters in a steep terrain where it is additionally protected by the wall. On the north side of the castle complex there are still faint remains of an abandoned, presumably multi-room building of the lower castle. This part of the lower castle is heavily interspersed with rocks, the north-western part, on the other hand, is shaped as a roughly triangular terrace (Fig. 10), which also slopes down into a steep terrain.

The upper castle lay on a rock reef about 70 meters long and running from north to south, which forms a two-part plateau on its surface (Fig. 3). The reef rises about 10 meters above the lower castle and falls very steeply on all sides, sometimes even vertically. On the south side (Fig. 1) the reef then drops further as a rocky ridge. The plateau drops about 2 meters to the west and shows the remains of the foundation wall of a former building at the highest point. There was probably another building on the broad and flat southern part of the upper castle (Fig. 11).

• 

  Photo 4: The end of the moat on the south side of the castle complex

• 

  Photo 5: The moat on the southwest side of the castle complex

• 

  Image 6: The northeastern lower castle from the place of the upper castle

• 

  Photo 7: The eastern lower castle from the place of the upper castle

• 

  Image 8: The eastern lower castle from the place of the upper castle

• 

  Photo 9: The southeastern lower castle from the place of the upper castle

• 

  Photo 10: The northwestern lower castle from the place of the upper castle

• 

  Image 11: The southern part of the upper castle

• 

  Photo 12: The former entrance to Altenschneeberg Castle

literature

• Bernhard Ernst: Castle construction in the southeastern Upper Palatinate from the early Middle Ages to the early modern period, Volume 2: Catalog . Publishing house Dr. Faustus, Büchenbach 2003, ISBN 3-933474-20-5 , pp. 14-17.
• Ursula Pfistermeister : Castles of the Upper Palatinate . Friedrich Pustet Verlag, Regensburg 1974, ISBN 3-7917-0394-3 , p. 83.

Web links

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

• Entry on Burgstall Altenschneeberg in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute

Individual evidence

1. ↑ When Altenschneeberg Castle was abandoned is not known
2. ↑ Source history: Ernst 2003, p. 14ff.
3. ↑ Burgstall Altenschneeberg on the BLfD website ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Site plan of the Altenschneeberg castle stable
5. ↑ Ernst 2003, p. 14.