Burgstall in the Eibental

Burgstall in the Eibental
View of the northern side of the castle rock (April 2012)
Creation time :	High medieval
Castle type :	Höhenburg, summit location
Conservation status:	Burgstall, only leftover mortar preserved
Standing position :	Ministerial Headquarters
Place:	Betzenstein - Eibenthal - "Burgstall"
Geographical location	49 ° 38 '52.4 "  N , 11 ° 25' 52.1"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 38 '52.4 "  N , 11 ° 25' 52.1"  E
Height:	550  m above sea level NN

The small cave in the castle rock (April 2012)

The Burgstall in the Eibental is the remnant of an abandoned high medieval hilltop castle . It is located 750 meters east of the Eibenthal wasteland in the Eibental valley of the same name on a "Burgstall" called 550  m above sea level. NN high rock summit in the Upper Franconian municipality of Betzenstein in Bavaria , Germany . Very little historical data is known about the castle, which also comes from the time after its destruction. No building structure has been preserved from the complex, only remains of mortar and ceramic shards are still on the castle site.

history

The only news about this castle comes from the years 1366/68 with the entry in the New Bohemian Salbuch : “item the castle stable in the Eibental and the Hagholz, belongs to Strahlfels and is a fiefdom of the landgraves and that is what Dietrich and a king of Bohemia carry Heinrich the Wildensteiner to the Rothenberg ”. As can be seen from this, the castle was already destroyed at that time and was therefore called Burgstall. We also learn that the castle was owned by the Landgraves von Leuchtenberg , who made it a fiefdom for the Bohemian king . The king gave it to Dietrich and Heinrich von Wildenstein, together with Hagholz, which belongs to the Strahlfels Castle about four kilometers to the west, as an after-fief . This noble family also owned the castles Rothenberg and Wildenfels , in addition to the castle Strahlfels , their ancestral seat was the castle Wildenstein in the Altmühltal near Dietfurt an der Altmühl .

The former castle is registered as a ground monument D-4-6334-0068 "Medieval castle stable and cave with finds from prehistoric and medieval times" by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation .

description

The castle site lies on a dolomite cone that drops steeply to the north (title picture) and several meters vertically on the remaining sides. There are no traces of building left on the hilltop, only remains of mortar and ceramic shards can be found. On the north side of the cliff there is a small cave that was probably used as a cellar by the castle residents. Medieval ceramic fragments were also found there, which are in the Archaeological Museum in Bayreuth, as well as ceramics from prehistory .

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 , pp. 135 and 141.
• Hellmut Kunstmann : The castles of eastern Franconian Switzerland . Commission publisher Ferdinand Schöningh, Würzburg 1965, p. 482.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Location of the Burgstall in the Bavaria Atlas
2. ↑ Source history: Hellmut Kunstmann: The castles of eastern Franconian Switzerland , p. 482
3. ↑ List of monuments for Betzenstein (PDF) at the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (PDF; 138 kB)
4. ↑ Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation: Excavations and finds in Upper Franconia , Volume 4, 1983–1984, p. 25