Burgstall Keystone

Burgstall Keystone
Photo 1: The location of the main castle
Alternative name (s):	Burgstall on Kreuzberg
Creation time :	probably during the second half of the 12th century
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Standing position :	Unknown
Place:	Ebermannstadt
Geographical location	49 ° 46 '24.5 "  N , 11 ° 11' 55.2"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 46 '24.5 "  N , 11 ° 11' 55.2"  E
Height:	489.6  m above sea level NN

On Postal Keystone a was Outbound , probably late medieval nobility castle above the town of Ebermannstadt in the Upper Franconian district of Forchheim in Bavaria ( Germany ).

The castle stable is freely accessible and serves as a lookout point.

Geographical location

Photo 2: The north side of the Schlüsselstein castle stable

Image 3: View of the outer section of the trench from the outer bailey

The spur castle was located in the western part of the Franconian Switzerland-Veldensteiner Forest nature park on a rocky mountain spur of the Kreuzberg that protruded to the southwest into the valley of the Wiesent at  489.6  m above sea level. NN , about 1300 meters southeast of the parish church Sankt Nikolaus in Ebermannstadt and about 12 kilometers northeast of the city of Forchheim .

A few more castles stood near the Schlüsselstein castle stable: the Dietrichstein castle stables to the south, the former Wolkenstein castle in a south-easterly direction, to the north a presumed castle near the hamlet of Rothenbühl, a castle stables in the area of ​​the cemetery in Niederfellendorf, a section fortification from early medieval times on the Hummerstein via Gasseldorf and tower hill castles in the area of ​​the sports field in Ebermannstadt and in Rüssenbach.

The castle Reifenberg , in the place of which stands the Vexierkapelle, and the unexplored castle stables above Ebermannstadt on the opposite side of the valley, lay within sight of the lost Schlüsselstein Castle ; the  Burg Feuerstein and the castle Greifenstein still exist.

History of the castle

There is no documentary evidence of the former castle on the keystone; archaeological investigations are still pending.

The mountain named after the cross on the Spornspitze was originally called the Keystone. In 1487, Bishop Heinrich Groß von Trockau gave the Ebermannstädtern collegiate wood around the "Slusselstein". The mountain is also marked with a keystone in the cadastre .

Due to the name keystone, one can assume that the noblemen of Schlüsselberg founded it , who named some of their foundations with the term key , such as the Schlüsselau monastery , the town of Schlüsselfeld and the Schlüsselburg near Markgröningen in Baden-Württemberg . However, the Schlüsselstein Castle was neither mentioned in a Schlüsselberger document nor in the Treaty of Iphofen of 1349, with which its possessions were divided among the victors after their violent extinction in 1347. It was probably given up earlier, perhaps in favor of Neideck Castle .

Another reference to the Lords of Schluesselberg is the great similarity of the Schluesselstein Castle with their ancestral castle Schlüsselberg .

According to its design, i.e. the division into the main castle and the outer bailey, it is likely that it was founded during the second half of the 12th century.

Except for the spur tip with the cross (Fig. 1), the castle site is densely forested and partly overgrown with bushes. It is accessible via a hiking trail and serves as a resting place and a lookout point to Ebermannstadt and the lower Wiesent valley. Remnants of the walls of the former castle have only been preserved as dry masonry in the area of ​​the outer neck ditch . An information board was set up in the area of ​​the outer bailey.

The ground monument recorded by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments as a "medieval castle stables and presumably prehistoric hilltop settlement" has the monument number D-4-6233-0026.

description

General plan of the Schlüsselstein castle stable

The former castle was about 200 meters above the Wiesent valley on a 150-meter-long mountain spur facing south-west that protrudes from the plateau to the east. On its south side the spur drops steeply into a small side valley, the north side is protected by a steep drop into the Wiesent valley. The tip of the spur (Fig. 1) drops vertically a few meters and then also turns into a steep slope.

The east side, on the other hand, merges almost flat into the plateau, so that a ditch had to be dug there. This section trench (Fig. 3) was about 35 meters long and 13.5 meters wide. Its outer trench edge to the plateau is 1.9 to 2.3 meters above the base of the trench, the inner one is much higher, around 2.7 to 3.8 meters above the base (Fig. 4). The ditch, from which no overburden mound can be seen, runs in a flat arc around the outer bailey and ends in the slope at both ends, which are slightly drawn inwards. In the northern area of ​​this trench, remnants of dry stone walls are still 1.5 meters long .

The area of ​​the outer bailey is roughly rectangular and has a length of 48 and a width of 35 meters on the side facing the outer moat and narrows to about 28 meters. On its north side it falls, in places rocky, a few meters vertically; towards the moat, a wall can still be seen that protrudes 0.6 meters over the area of ​​the outer bailey, the rest of the former outer wall. The access to the castle was probably at the point of today's path to the Spornspitze, it crosses the outer section ditch shortly before its southern end. No traces of former buildings have been preserved on the flat area of ​​the outer bailey. A flat wall can also be seen towards the inner ditch.

The main castle area is separated from the outer castle by an arched section ditch with drawn-in ends. It has a length of about 25 and a width of 7 meters and is still 1.7 meters deep. The main castle had the shape of an elongated triangle with a length of about 50 meters. It was 20 meters wide, at the top only 7 meters wide. It fell a few meters vertically along the entire length of the north side (Fig. 2), the south side only shows a vertical rock drop towards the tip of the spur. The area of ​​the main castle is relatively flat and rises slightly to the top. There are no traces of building there either.

and display information about the image

Image 4: View of the castle hill from the northeast. In the foreground the ditch separating the spur from the rock ridge can be seen

literature

• Hans Losert, Björn-Uwe Abels u. a .: Guide to archaeological monuments in Germany, Volume 20: Franconian Switzerland . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8062-0586-8 , pp. 144-145.
• Hellmut Kunstmann : The castles of south-western Franconian Switzerland . 2nd edition, Kommissionsverlag Degener & Co., Neustadt an der Aisch 1990, pp. 98-99.
• Klaus Schwarz: The prehistoric and early historical monuments in Upper Franconia . (Material booklets on Bavarian prehistory, series B, volume 5). Verlag Michael Lassleben, Kallmünz 1955, p. 74.
• Hellmut Kunstmann: Castles in Upper Franconia, ownership, building history and fates. Part 1: The castles of the noble families in the Wiesent area . Verlag EC Baumann, Kulmbach 1953, pp. 40-44.

Web links

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

• Information board about the Burgstall Schlüsselstein on the page Kulturerlebnis Fraenkische Schweiz.de (PDF; 216 kB)
• Historical reconstruction drawing

Individual evidence

1. ^ Topographic map 1: 25000, sheet 6233 Ebermannstadt.
2. ↑ Kunstmann 1990, pp. 88 ff.
3. ^ The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation.
4. ↑ Guide to Archaeological Monuments in Germany , Volume 20: Fränkische Schweiz , pp. 149 ff.
5. ↑ Kunstmann 1990, p. 94 ff.
6. ↑ Kunstmann 1990, p. 99 ff.
7. ↑ Kunstmann 1990, p. 96 ff.
8. ↑ Kunstmann 1990, pp. 98 ff.
9. ↑ Information board at the Burgstall
10. ^ Burgstall Schlüsselberg on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation.