Burgstall Wahlmich

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burgstall Wahlmich
View from the southwest of the castle hill with a deep moat (February 2016)

View from the southwest of the castle hill with a deep moat (February 2016)

Alternative name (s): Weilerburg, Wilerburg, Wilburg, Burg Wiler, Waldburg
Creation time : Medieval
Castle type : Höhenburg, hillside location
Conservation status: Burgstall
Place: Waldaschaff - "Flur Wahlmich"
Geographical location 49 ° 58 '28 "  N , 9 ° 16' 48.5"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 58 '28 "  N , 9 ° 16' 48.5"  E
Height: 210  m above sea level NN
Burgstall Wahlmich (Bavaria)
Burgstall Wahlmich

The Burgstall Wahlmich , also called Weilerburg or Wilerburg , is an abandoned medieval hilltop castle in the Wahlmich corridor west of Waldaschaff in the Aschaffenburg district in Bavaria . As the presumed first ancestral seat of the Lords of Weiler, the castle was the origin of the village of Waldaschaff.

Geographical location

Nothing remains above ground from the former castle complex. It was located about 1.5 kilometers west of the Waldaschaff church near today's Weiler Castle , today directly south of the A3 motorway next to the parking lot at 210  m above sea level. NN , on the northern slope side of a hill which in earlier times was called the " back wall of the Kaylberg in the Keul, bears the name Wilburg and is probably destroyed in the Peasants' War ". From here the Aschafal could be controlled in the Spessart .

description

Coat of arms of the Lords of Weiler with the stork (Weyler, Weyer) ( stained glass of the coat of arms window in the knight's hall of Mespelbrunn Castle )

In 1286 it was named as the ancestral castle of the hamlet, but it is probably decades older. The hamlets were vassals of the Counts of Rieneck . The castle was similar to the castle Kugelberg, which was also lost, between the Aschaffenburg territory of the Kurmainz and the rulers of the Spessarts, the Counts of Rieneck and the diocese of Würzburg and probably went under in the disputes between Rieneck-Mainz in the 13th century or was lost by the Men of Weiler leave later than this in the nearby hamlet of the German Peasants' war a new headquarters for Castle Weiler extensions. The hamlet family died out in 1655. The possessions were sold to Philipp Erwein von Schönborn as early as 1648 in a Mainz fiefdom letter . The Wahlmich (Waldburg) and the nearby Hockenhof are also mentioned.

The Burgstall is a ground monument according to the Bavarian Monument List , which was created on the basis of the Bavarian Monument Protection Act of October 1, 1973. Modern extraction (until the beginning of the 19th century) of clay in pits has further reshaped the area. A presumed outer bailey or a castle settlement northeast below the castle stables were removed when the A3 was expanded a few years ago.

  • The spur of the castle was separated from the higher mountain side by several deep moats (February 2016)

  • The tower hill looking towards the west (February 2016)

  • View from the outer bailey to the tower hill in south direction (February 2016)

  • View from the outer bailey into the Zwinger and the collapsed outer walls in north direction (February 2016)

Archaeological excavations

Restored mug tiles from an oven from the excavations at Wahlmich Castle next to fragments of similar mug tiles from Kugelburg Castle

Research into the castle site is one of the main projects for the Association for Homeland Care in Waldaschaff eV . The aim is an archaeological excavation that should provide new knowledge about the castle, its owners and the settlement of the valley. On May 3, 2016, the excavations began on the Wahlme; the work is carried out by the Archaeological Spessart Project and interested laypeople. In 2016, less than 2% of the listed area was then excavated in six excavation cuts. Three excavation cuts were made in the central and western area of ​​the castle hill.

A collapse (presumably undermining when the castle was laid down) in the western castle wall, a cellar of a building and several wall areas with larger stone blocks as well as a large number of finds from the 13th century could be proven.

In addition to an imperial coin (silver bracteate depicting the Hohenstaufen emperor Friedrich I and the minting location Altenburg ), filigree hairpins , a foretension , gilded remnants of bridle , arrowheads and crossbow bolts , fragments of ceramics , pottery and stove, e.g. B. relief floor tiles, thin flat and hollow glass fragments - which are among the oldest in the Spessart region, mica-containing pre- Spessartware and cup tiles with pinched feet, as well as remains of a horse-shaped aquamanile are found. A skewer completely preserved except for the wood, as well as bones and antler remains, which z. B. were processed for a nut of a crossbow, were next to the basement foundation of a house, the presumed Palas be excavated. One of the most interesting finds was an almost complete shoe last wedge , part of a woodworking tool in the Neolithic; in the castle it probably found its second use as a thunderbolt ( lightning protection ) and was built in the area of ​​the castle's buildings. Similar artifacts were found in the residential tower of the Ketzelburg and during excavations in the Elisabethenzell monastery .

Two more southerly excavation cuts were able to expose the foundation walls of the shield wall with the southeast corner, which secured the castle spur against the mountain. The few remnants of humpback cubes found allow the conclusion that only the polygonal edges of the castle wall were provided with humpback cubes. The southernmost cut of the excavation could open the pointed up to six meters deep trench to the south, which was filled with extensive collapse of the shield wall.

The archaeological excavations impressively showed that the castle was not, as previously assumed, only the remains of a tower hill castle , but a high medieval hilltop castle in the western Spessart , which, like several castles in the Aschaffenburg area, was probably abandoned in the conflict between Rieneck and Kurmainz in 1271 at the latest and was laid down as planned. Excavations have continued since May 2018 to dig the areas of the castle to the north. The defensive wall, which is just over two meters thick in the northern area, could already be followed in trains. At the same time, most parts of the 2016 excavation campaign will be backfilled under a cover layer; only parts of the castle wall are to be preserved or walled up to illustrate the size of the castle.

literature

  • Heinrich Habel and Helga Himen (arr.): Monuments in Bavaria - ensembles, architectural monuments, archaeological site monuments: Volume VI . Lower Franconia. Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (ed.). Munich 1985.
  • Björn-Uwe Abels : The prehistoric and early historical site monuments of Lower Franconia . (Material booklets on Bavarian prehistory, series B, volume 6). Verlag Michael Lassleben, Kallmünz 1979, ISBN 3-7847-5306-X , p. 70.
  • Wilhelm Büttner: History of the village Waldaschaff and the parish of Keilberg , Paul Pattloch Verlag, Aschaffenburg 1961, without ISBN, therein pp. 25–62.
  • Adalbert von Herrlein : Aschaffenburg and its surroundings . Verlag von Aschaffenburg 1857, p. 93 f.
  • Harald Rosmanitz: Destrui totaliter et subverti. Wahlmich Castle near Waldaschaff and its end in 1266 . In: The archaeological year in Bavaria 2016 . Theiss Verlag, Darmstadt 2017, ISBN 978-3-8062-3604-0 , pp. 136-138.

Web links

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

References and comments

  1. ^ Wilhelm Büttner: History of the village Waldaschaff and the parish Keilberg , Paul Pattloch Verlag, Aschaffenburg 1961, without ISBN, p. 39. Online
  2. ^ Wilhelm Büttner: History of the village of Waldaschaff and the parish of Keilberg , Paul Pattloch Verlag, Aschaffenburg 1961, without ISBN, p. 20 ff. Online
  3. ^ Wilhelm Büttner: History of the village Waldaschaff and the parish Keilberg , Paul Pattloch Verlag, Aschaffenburg 1961, without ISBN, p. 48 online
  4. ↑ Waldaschaff monument list of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation , No. D-6-6021-0029, Medieval Castle Stables , re-qualified (as of August 19, 2014)
  5. ^ Association for home care Waldaschaff eV
  6. ↑ Die Burg Wahlmich - Finds , on the ASP website www.spessartprojekt.de ; accessed on May 7, 2018
  7. ↑ As they were also found in the Old Castle in Kleinwallstadt (cf. The "Old Castle" - Finds: Aquamanile ).
  8. ↑ The Wahlmich Castle - Finds - Steinbeil , on the ASP website www.spessartprojekt.de ; accessed on August 10, 2018