Burgstall Spies

Burgstall Spies
Burgstall Spies - View of the rock that supported the main castle
Creation time :	Before 1187
Castle type :	Höhenburg, summit location
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Standing position :	Ministeriale
Place:	Betzenstein - Spies - "Schlossberg"
Geographical location	49 ° 38 '20.6 "  N , 11 ° 24' 2.1"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 38 '20.6 "  N , 11 ° 24' 2.1"  E
Height:	616.4  m above sea level NN

At the Burgstall Spies there was an old high medieval aristocratic castle above the village of Spies in the municipality of Betzenstein in the Upper Franconian district of Bayreuth . Only very few remains of the wall are evidence of it.

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

Geographical location

Schlossberg and Spies from the east

View of the field side of the castle with the main castle rock. The former and present access to the castle was in the hollow in the left half of the picture

Area map of the Burgstalls Spies

The former hill fort is located in the northern Franconian Jura at 616.4  m above sea level. NN high summit of the free-standing conical Spieser Schlossberg , the summit of which is about 50 meters above the village. The Burgstall is located immediately north of the village of Spies and about five kilometers south of Betzenstein.

Nearby are other former medieval castles, about 1.5 kilometers east of the Riegelstein castle ruins and another castle stables on the Schweinsberg. In a north-westerly direction are the Wildenfels castle ruins and the Strahlstall castle stables . In the southwest there was a former castle, today's castle in Großengsee, a castle stables in Sankt Helena and the unknown castle Spitzenberg on the 582-meter-high elevation of the same name. A little north of the former Spies Castle, there was another lost castle on the Hühnerstein. The Hohenstein castle ruins can also be seen from the summit rocks .

History of the castle

The name Spies first appeared with “Pertholt Spiez” in 1187. In 1189 a “Heinrich Spiez” was named, Ministeriale of the Dukes of Andechs-Meranien . Ulrich I. Spies was probably one of the close followers of the last Duke of Meran , Otto , who died in 1248 , because he was mentioned as a documentary witness in 1245 and 1248. In 1254 he was one of the arbitrators in the Meran succession dispute. It is not known whether the Lords of Spies also built Spies Castle. They sold their free castle before 1346. The Spies noble family died out around 1475.

In 1346 the castle appeared in the documents as the property of Hartmann von Waizmannsdorf. He had given the imperial city of Nuremberg the right to open for four years . After 1350 the castle was sold to Heinrich von Berg, who in 1354 gave it to the Crown of Bohemia as a fief .

Heinrich's sons, Eberhard and Heinrich von Berg, were in constant feud with Nuremberg at the end of the 14th century. They had become robber barons. The imperial city moved King Wenzel to destroy the Raubburg Spies and other castles. The Berger sold a third of the castle to the Nuremberg burgrave Johann III. hoping to save the castle. On September 23, 1397, Wenceslaus stood in front of the castle, besieged it for seven days and captured it on the eighth day. Of the 24 men who defended the castle, 22 escaped by abseiling over the rocks. Only Hans von Aufseß and Georg von Wichsenstein were taken prisoner , they were in the service of the Berger brothers. Hans von Aufseß was soon released, but Georg von Wichsenstein was executed in Nuremberg.

The brothers Heinrich and Eberhard had to swear primal feuds on October 13, 1397 . Shortly afterwards, King Wenceslas forbade the reconstruction of the destroyed Spies Castle. As a result, Heinrich had to sell the Burgstall in 1404 to Heinrich Harsdorfer , a citizen of Nuremberg . Excluded from the sale was the third, the burgrave Johann III. bought. In 1421 he enfeoffed Konrad von Aufseß with it. Despite the ban, Konrad rebuilt the castle until 1426; then King Siegmund imposed the imperial ban on Konrad. In 1427 Konrad sold the castle to Margrave Friedrich, who pledged it to Kunz Stör zu Neuhaus in 1431. Spies Castle became a margravial office. In 1469 a Fritz Stör and in 1482 his son Kunz Stör is recorded as a carer . In 1482 the castle burned down by lightning, but was rebuilt.

The Stör were guilty of various crimes, whereupon Margrave Friedrich took the castle in 1491 after a short battle. The destruction at that time is unknown. In 1492 Thomas von Kühedorf was a bailiff at the castle.

The castle was stormed, plundered and finally destroyed by the Nuremberg people on May 26, 1553 during the Second Margrave War.

In 1562 the castle was referred to as "an old ruined castle", in 1618 only as a "pile of stones". At that time it probably served as a quarry.

Today the site of the former castle is wooded, only the summit rocks are free from vegetation and offer a wide view of the Franconian Jura. Only the flattened moat with outer wall and two remains of walls have survived from the castle . The Burgstall can be reached from the village of Spies by walking north in the village. When you pass a playground, you are already at the entrance to the former castle complex.

The ground monument registered by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments as "Burgstall of the Middle Ages" bears the monument number D-4-6334-0005.

Description of the castle stables

A rocky reef on the summit of the Spieser Schlossberg at 616.4 meters stretches about 120 meters from south to north and is 10 to 15 meters wide. At the northern end of the reef there are three larger rock towers, the northernmost of which was the only one that was not built on. The north and east side of the castle area drops vertically around 10 meters, the west side steeply by around 7 meters, only the south side rises gently from the village. There was also the entrance to the castle.

The castle complex consisted of an upper castle on the rocky reef, a lower castle west of the reef and an outer castle south of the lower castle.

On the south side of the castle, a ditch with a wall was built to secure the most endangered side. The trench is about 15 meters long, five meters wide and one meter deep from east to west. It ends in the east at the foot of the rocky reef and in the west at a larger rock that was most likely included in the fortification. At the entrance to the castle, right next to the rock, the moat and the wall are leveled. There was probably a gate building there. After the moat, the Burgweg runs north through the gently sloping terrain of the outer bailey. A rectangular depression can be seen west of the path, presumably the location of a building.

The lower castle stood about five meters above the outer castle on a 30 × 20 meter triangular terrace. In the north of the lower castle there is a cistern with a diameter of 0.70 meters, a depth of 1.50 meters and filled with water. At the entrance to the lower castle you can see a wall, the rest of the fallen curtain wall , and in the east an indentation of the rock reef with several small caves, probably a building stood there.

How the ascent to the upper castle went is not entirely clear, today you can climb steep steps from the south of the lower castle. The upper castle probably consisted of two larger buildings on the rocks. All that can be seen from the upper castle is the remains of a staircase leading to the southern rock and the remains of a wall.

Since there are hardly any stones left from the castle, they were probably removed by the villagers and used to build houses. The leveled neck ditch speaks for it.

At the foot of the northernmost rock tower, which was not built on and was therefore outside the castle complex, there is a small cave, the foxhole. It is unclear whether it was used as a cellar by the castle residents, but it is quite possible.

In 1792 Johann Christoph Stierlein published a true-to-scale topographical map of the castle ruins and their immediate surroundings. On his drawing, the area of ​​the outer bailey with the moat and wall is clearly visible. The main castle, shielded on the other sides, is marked with several wall sections, plus a place where he suspected the main building.

and display information about the image

View of the rear rock towers of the castle stable, the two towers on the right were not built on.

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. 136.
• Robert Giersch, Andreas Schlunk, Berthold Frhr. von Haller: Castles and mansions in the Nuremberg countryside. Published by the Altnürnberger Landschaft, Lauf an der Pegnitz 2006, ISBN 3-00-020677-9 , pp. 417-418.
• Walter Heinz: Former castles in the Rothenberg area. 1st chapter. Published by Heimatverein Schaittach eV, Schnaittach 1992, pp. 49–54 ( Vom Rothenberg and his surroundings, issue 15/1).
• Hellmut Kunstmann : The castles of eastern Franconian Switzerland . Commission publisher Ferdinand Schöningh, Würzburg 1965, pp. 493–503
• Hans Vollet, Kathrin Heckel: The ruins drawings of the Plassenburg cartographer Johann Christoph Stierlein . Kulturreferat der Stadt, Kulmbach 1987 ( Schriften zur Heimatpflege 39, ZDB -ID 846657-9 ), (exhibition catalog, Landschaftsmuseum Obermain on the Plassenburg ob Kulmbach, March 25 - April 24, 1987).

Web links

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

• Burgstall Spies on the page "Castles and manors in the Nuremberg countryside"

Individual evidence

1. ^ Topographic map 1: 25000, sheet 6534 Betzenstein
2. ^ The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
3. ↑ Grossengsee Castle on the Castles and Mansions page in the Nuremberg countryside
4. ↑ The Burgstall on the page castles and manors in the Nuremberg countryside
5. ^ The presumed Burgstall on the side of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
6. ^ Source history: Robert Giersch, Andreas Schlunk, Berthold Frhr. von Haller: Castles and mansions in the Nuremberg countryside, 2006, pp. 417–418.
7. ^ The Burgstall Spies on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation