Burgstall Oberailsfeld

Burgstall Oberailsfeld
Burgstall Oberailsfeld - view from the south
Creation time :	High Middle Ages
Castle type :	Höhenburg, summit location
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Place:	Ahorntal- Oberailfeld
Geographical location	49 ° 48 '40.8 "  N , 11 ° 21' 6.2"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 48 '40.8 "  N , 11 ° 21' 6.2"  E
Height:	360  m above sea level NN

The Burgstall Oberailsfeld is the remainder of an abandoned high medieval hilltop castle , which once stood at 360  m above sea level. NN high rocks in the valley floor of the Ailsbach . The Burgstall is located in the western part of the church village Oberailsfeld in the municipality of Ahorntal in the Upper Franconian district of Bayreuth in Bavaria , Germany . The castle is completely gone, the castle area is partially built over.

Geographical location

Location of the castle stable in the Ailsbach valley

The site of the former castle is in central Franconian Switzerland , part of the Frankenjura low mountain range , on a small, free-standing 360  m above sea level. NN high rock dome which rises from the flat valley floor of Ailsbaches. It is located about 220 meters south-southwest of the Catholic parish church of Sankt Burkard in Oberailsfeld and about 23.5 kilometers northeast of Forchheim .

In the vicinity there are other former medieval castles and further castle stables in the southwestern villages of Unterailsfeld and Moschendorf. Upstream of the Ailsbachtal lies the Alte Veste castle stables , a little further on Rabenstein Castle and opposite another lost castle.

A little further on, at the site of today's Klausstein chapel, there was the former Ahorn Castle , of which remains were built in the chapel. Opposite her on the opposite side of the valley stood another castle.

History of the castle

Nothing precise is known about the early history of the former castle in Oberailsfeld. The noble knights "Otto and Uolrich von Egilsvelt" were only mentioned in a document in 1240, but they are probably out of the question as builders of the castle. The castle was first documented in 1348 in Urbar B of the Bamberg diocese , at that time it was mentioned as being in the village.

From 1366 a branch of the noble family Groß von Trockau was named after (Ober) Ailsfeld. In a document from the archives of the Trockau Castle , “Fritz Groß zu Ailsfeld” became known as the first bearer of his name who called himself after Oberailsfeld.

In the years 1439, 1446 and 1449 a "Rudolf Groß zu Ailsfeld" was attested, in 1460, 1465, 1476 and 1488 his son was named "Eberhard Groß zu Ailsfeld". According to the Nuremberg castle researcher Hellmut Kunstmann, the village of Oberailsfeld was burned down in 1462 by the Margrave Marshal Kunz von Lüchau, but the castle was probably not spared. Previous destruction by the Hussites is also conceivable, but cannot be proven. With Eberhard's son Christoffel Groß, the line of Groß zu Ailsfeld died out in 1522, he was often mentioned between the years 1490 and 1515. Kunstmann assumes that the castle was owned by the Groß zu Ailsfeld at that time.

After the Groß zu Ailsfeld family died out, the castle came into the possession of the Lords of Gottsfeld, the exact time of acquisition is not known. However, it must have been before 1525, possibly 1513, because in that year the castle was burned out by the rebels during the Peasants' War . It was mentioned in the list of castles destroyed in the Peasants' War, its owners at that time were the Lords of Gottsfeld and Vestenberg. The damage caused by the destruction of the castle amounted to 490 guilders . The brothers Wolf and Georg von Gottsfeld zu Bühl owned a quarter of the castle at the time, a quarter belonged to Kunigunde, Abbess von Birkenfeld, born von Gottsfeld. Veit von Vestenberg zum Fürstenforst and the brothers Christoffel and Hans Wolf von Vestenberg owned the two remaining quarters.

Wolf von Gottsfeld gave up the free seat of the Bamberg diocese as a fief on March 11, 1530 , after which he was the main owner of the castle. Three years later, Wolf sold Ailsfeld Castle to his brother-in-law Christoph Stiebar zu Rabeneck , and in the same year and on August 3, 1556, he was enfeoffed again by the diocese.

In 1535 the castle was restored after it was destroyed in the Peasants' War and served as the seat of the bullfish bailiff . Due to heavy indebtedness, Christoph had to cede his goods in Ailsfeld to the Bamberg Monastery on February 22, 1558 , and Bishop Veit pledged the seat to the Waischenfeld bailiff Hans von Breitenstein on February 22, 1569 . The Vogt lived in the castle until around 1590.

The final destruction of Ailsfeld Castle probably took place during the Thirty Years War , it only appeared intact until the end of the 16th century. According to an official invoice from 1587/88, an oak tree was to be felled in Schönholz near Oberailsfeld to renew the castle bridge. In 1692 it was said that there was no aristocratic seat in Oberailsfeld, it had been ruined. Even in a Waischenfeld fiefdom from 1744 there is only talk of a ruin: “Where anizo the rectory is, there are still some rudera [rubble] to be seen”, in 1801 Roppel also only saw a few remains of the castle building. The last remains of the castle, a small section of wall between the rocks on the south side of the castle stable and a kennel on the north and west side, were still preserved in 1938, but were partially lost when a property was built in the west.

Today the rock of the former castle is overgrown with trees, hardly any remains of it have survived. The castle stable is located on private property and cannot be entered.

The ground monument registered by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments as "Burgstall of the Middle Ages" has the monument number D-4-6134-0044.

description

The lost castle was located on a cone-shaped, rising cliff, the east and south sides of which drop a few meters perpendicular to the valley. Since the two remaining sides of the summit are only moderately steeply sloped and run out into flat terrain, a kennel was placed in front of the castle for protection . There was also a neck ditch around the endangered sides, it was mentioned in documents in 1556 and 1587/88. Today nothing is visible of the ditch, it was probably filled in when the surrounding houses were built.

The castle is likely to have been a rather small tower castle , as the small amount of space on the cliff did not allow larger or multiple buildings to be built. When it was sold to the Hochstift in 1558, a cattle house, a barn and a cellar house were mentioned as ancillary buildings that belonged to the headquarters, but they were probably not in the area of ​​the rocky hilltop.

At that time, a small spring was used to supply the castle with water, which originated under the "old castle", as reported in the Waischenfeld tax register from 1731. The spring served as a community well at the time.

literature

• Rüdiger Bauriedel, Ruprecht Konrad-Röder: Medieval fortifications and low-nobility mansions in the Bayreuth district . Ellwanger Druck und Verlag, Bayreuth 2007, ISBN 978-3-925361-63-0 , p. 152.
• Hellmut Kunstmann : The castles of eastern Franconian Switzerland . Commission publisher Ferdinand Schöningh, Würzburg 1965, pp. 185–188.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Topographic map 1: 25000, sheet 6134 Waischenfeld
2. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation )
3. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation )
4. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: The presumed Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation )
5. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Burgstall Ahorn on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation )
6. ↑ Hellmut Kunstmann: The castles of eastern Franconian Switzerland, p. 220ff.
7. ^ Rüdiger Bauriedel, Ruprecht Konrad-Röder: Medieval fortifications and low-nobility mansions in the Bayreuth district, p. 152
8. ↑ Source history: Hellmut Kunstmann: The castles of eastern Franconian Switzerland, p. 185ff
9. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Burgstall Oberailsfeld on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation )
10. ↑ Source description: Hellmut Kunstmann: The castles of eastern Franconian Switzerland, p. 187ff