Arnstein Castle Stables (Weismain)

Arnstein Castle Stables
Drawing of the Arnstein castle ruins in the state around 1850 with towering rock sections and larger remains of the wall
Alternative name (s):	Veste Arnstein
Creation time :	around 1100
Castle type :	Höhenburg, rocky location
Conservation status:	Burgstall: moats, ramparts and very little remains of the foundation wall
Standing position :	Initially lower nobility (1100–1244 Arnsteiner) , then high nobility (1244–1248 Andechs-Meranier , 1248–1394 Truhendinger ) , later prince-bishop's property (1394–1525 Hochstift Bamberg )
Place:	Arnstein (Weismain)
Geographical location	50 ° 2 '38.6 "  N , 11 ° 12' 5.8"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 2 '38.6 "  N , 11 ° 12' 5.8"  E
Height:	465  m above sea level NN

The Burgstall Arnstein , also called Veste Arnstein, is the remainder of a medieval rock castle at an altitude of 465  m. NN high rock group on the north-western outskirts of Arnstein in the Lichtenfels district in Upper Franconia in Bavaria . It is considered the headquarters of the Edelfrei von Arnstein family.

history

The castle was founded by the nobles von Arnstein

Arnstein Castle is considered to be the ancestral seat of the Edelfrei von Arnstein. Probably the first member of the sex to be mentioned was a "Haremann" without a family name in a letter dated February 17, 1079, in which Pope Gregory VII complained that seven nobles from the Bamberg monastery had received church property from the king. If they kept this, they should be excommunicated . Arnstein Castle was built around 30 years later, around 1100.

The family became tangible in 1118 when "dominus Hermannus de Arnstein", who named himself after the castle, appeared in an undated document from the period between 1118 and 1136. Altogether eight people, including three clergymen, are known from the Arnstein. Four ministerial families were in their service. At the time of Dominus Hermannus de Arnstein, the castle already had an extensive high court - Sprengel , which extended from Weismain , bounded in the east by the Kleinziegenfelder valley, to the upper Wiesent . Some possessions reached as far as the Itzgrund .

Fall of the Arnsteiner and change of ownership

Already before 1239 the castle and court were probably given to the dukes of Andechs-Meranien as fiefs . When the Arnstein family died out with Hermann IV at the beginning of 1244, the castle passed to the Andechs-Meranians. A few months later, in August 1244, Otto I von Meranien bought the castle for 800 silver marks together with the villages "Rodewanstal" ( Rothmannsthal ) and "Zaphindorf" ( Zapfendorf ) to Eberhard Förtsch and his son Albert von Waldinrode the Förtsche of Thurnau pledged. Between 1244 and 1248 a member of the Rauschner family was employed as a castle man . After the death of Otto I, the last male Andechs-Meranier at Niesten Castle , Otto's sister Margarete von Andechs-Meranien , who was married to Friedrich I von Truhendingen , inherited Arnstein Castle. It came into the possession of the Counts of Truhendingen .

Rule of the Truhendinger, transition to church property and destruction

After several pledges , Count Johann von Truhendingen, impoverished and indebted, had to sell the castle to the Bamberg Monastery, which set up an office there. After the destruction in the Peasants' War in April 1525, it was not rebuilt despite the fine of 2000 guilders paid by the farmers .

Scientific investigations

In the middle of the 19th century, the Bamberg painter Adam Friedrich Thomas Ostertag made one of two well-known drawings of the Arnstein castle ruins in the state before 1936. A mistake was that he had taken over the coat of arms of the Arnstein dynasty from Arnstein in Lower Franconia in the upper left corner, which had died out in 1464 , but to which there were no family ties. The coat of arms of the Upper Franconian Arnstein is not known. The second drawing on a card by Christoph Augustin Hannbaumb dates from 1798.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Burgstall consisted of several towering rocks, larger wall remains and a brick cellar vault, which was popularly known as the " dungeon ". To 1936/1937 the rocks and the remains of walls for "rich important things" were demolished and for construction of autobahns and for the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg used.

The castle stable currently consists of relatively low rock areas and negligible traces and remains of the foundation wall. An arched hollow could be the remains of a neck ditch . The Franconian castle researcher Hellmut Kunstmann found further evidence of the former castle around 1950 in the form of shards of vessels and broken bricks at the site of the former rock castle Arnstein.

literature

• Ingrid Burger-Segl: Archaeological forays into Meranierland am Obermain . District of Upper Franconia, Bayreuth 2006, ISBN 3-9804971-7-8 , pp. 133-136.
• Alois Dechant, Gerhard W. Peetz: hiking guide Weismain . Marie Link Verlag, Kronach 2010.
• Georg Söhnlein: 2nd encounter with Franconia . Heinrichs-Verlag, Bayerische Verlags-Anstalt, Bamberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89889-132-5 , pp. 10-11.
• Willy Plank: End of an early medieval duke dynasty - The Meranians in Franconia and at Niesten Castle . In: Martin Kuhn (Colloquium Historicum Wisbergense): History on the Obermain . Volume 1., Colloquium Hist. Wirsbergense, Lichtenfels 1951 [1978], without ISBN, pp. 15-18.
• Gustav Voit, Walter Rüfer: A castle tour through Franconian Switzerland - In the footsteps of the draftsman AF Thomas Ostertag . 2nd Edition. Verlag Palm & Enke, Erlangen 1991, ISBN 3-7896-0064-4 , pp. 25-28.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Söhnlein (2008), p. 10
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Dechant (2010), p. 52
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r} Voit (1991), pp. 25-28
4. ↑ ^{a b} Entry on Burgstall Arnstein in the private database "Alle Burgen"., Accessed on September 12, 2015
5. ↑ Plank (1951), p. 16
6. ^ The Lindenberg Castle Stables near Kasendorf , Landschaftsmuseum.de, accessed on December 28, 2012
7. ^ Johannes Mötsch: Langenstadter Spruch, December 14, 1260 . In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria
8. ↑ Voit (1991), p. 11
9. ↑ Burger-Segl (2006), p. 133