Burgstall Welden

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Burgstall Welden
Creation time : probably 12th century
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: Left, trenches preserved
Standing position : Ministerial seat of the Margraves of Burgau
Place: Welden - "Theklaberg"
Geographical location 48 ° 27 '32 "  N , 10 ° 39' 53.3"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 27 '32 "  N , 10 ° 39' 53.3"  E
Height: 500  m above sea level NN
Burgstall Welden (Bavaria)
Burgstall Welden

The high to late medieval Burgstall Welden is located north of the Votive Church on Theklaberg above the market in Welden in the Augsburg ( Swabia ) district. Only features of the terrain and moats have survived from the former Ministerialenburg .

history

The fortress over the Laugna valley was probably built in the 12th century as the seat of a family of servants belonging to the Margraves of Burgau . The " Lords of Welden " appear for the first time in 1126 in the written sources. An alleged noble origin of this family is not clearly verifiable in the sources. Such lower aristocratic families are usually only documented in the 12th or 13th century.

In 1396 Uz von Welden was enfeoffed with the rule. Six years later (1402) Welden received market rights . The lords were awarded the low and the high courts (criminal court) on this occasion, the date the front Austrian bailiff to Burgau had been subordinate. As many as thirteen executions can be documented between 1484 and 1747 . Three women died as witches at the stake . One of the unfortunates is said to have been heavily pregnant. Anna Mörz from Wörleschwang was the last delinquent to be judged by the sword. The young woman allegedly killed her newborn child.

Some members of the Welden family reached high positions in the surrounding courts. For example, Albrecht von Welden was made an inheritance gift from the Augsburg bishopric around 1520 . His descendants, the barons of Welden, held this office until secularization .

In the 16th century, however, the family's economic decline began. In 1596 the family council therefore forced the indebted Messrs Michael and Karl von Welden to sell the property. On May 19, 1597, the market and the castle went to the Barons Fugger von Kirchberg and Weißenhorn for 140,000 guilders. A year later, Emperor Rudolf enfeoffed the sons of Markus Fugger with the rule of Welden.

During the Thirty Years War, the castle was so badly damaged that it was not rebuilt. Systematic demolition of the complex began under Leopold Fugger in 1659. In 1662 the castle stones were used for the new building of the brewery. The local ruler sold larger quantities of the demolition material to the citizens of the market for the reconstruction of the residential and commercial buildings destroyed in the war. The keep was preserved at that time. As feudal lords, the Margraves of Burgau had forbidden the demolition of the tower and a barn. The large tower only disappeared around 1755, when Count Joseph Maria Fugger von Wellenburg (1714–1764) had the keep exploited as a welcome quarry for the construction of the nearby Votive Church of St. Thekla . In 1860, material was taken again for the construction of the cemetery wall in the west of the village.

The district doctor Dr. Lauk reported in 1861 that the ruins of the castle should have served as a backdrop for secular folk theater until 1849. After the last remnants of the wall had been demolished, the venue was relocated to the market's brewery hall.

In 1976 the area was measured and topographically recorded by Otto Schneider and Horst Gutmann from the Working Group for Prehistory and Early History of the Augsburg District.

description

The Burgstall is about 500  m above sea level. NN height on the Theklaberg above the market in Welden. In the north-west, the modern elevated water tank pushes up to the neck ditch of the core castle. The walled monastery area with the votive church connects to the southeast.

The former castle complex is protected in the west by the steep slope of the Laugnarrand heights. The difference in altitude to the valley is around 30 to 35 meters . In spite of the later changes in the terrain, the approximately rectangular and approximately 30 by 20 meter core castle is still cut out of the hill plateau by a wide, U-shaped moat . The trench depth is about five, at the trench outlets up to 8.5 meters. The main castle cone is not raised compared to the hinterland. The plateau is badly churned and disturbed. The keep may have been in the northeast corner. However, no remains of the wall can be found above ground.

To the south of the main castle, a tongue of land created by the moat certainly marks a former outer castle . Today's stairway to the south of this outer bailey follows the former castle driveway, for which a natural erosion channel has been artificially reworked. The path has led directly to the Votive Church of St. Thekla since the 18th century. The former trenches of the outer bailey are completely leveled here in the southeast.

The access to the earth cone of the main castle was probably via a berm on the western slope. This berm flows into the core castle in the northwest. A potential attacker had to pass a long gate lane between the outer and main castle.

The Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments lists the ground monument as a "medieval castle stable" under monument number D 7-7529-0023.

literature

  • Ludwig Langenmair: Markt Welden - a market with a rich past . Welden 1986.
  • Horst Gutmann: Burgstall on the Theklaberg in Welden . In: Hermann Endrös (Hrsg.): Guide to archaeological monuments in Swabia, Volume 1: Archaeological walks around Augsburg . Konrad Theiss Verlag , Stuttgart and Aalen 1977, ISBN 3-8062-0185-4 , pp. 124-128.
  • Wilhelm Neu and Frank Otten: District of Augsburg Bavarian Art Monuments, Brief Inventory, Volume XXX. Munich 1970.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Location of the Burgstall in the Bavaria Atlas
  2. ^ Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation: Entry ( Memento from March 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive )