Burgwartsberg

The Burgwartsberg in Freital

Map of Pesterwitz from 1821 with the Burgwartsberg in the lower center of the picture

The Burgwartsberg lies on the corridor of Pesterwitz , a village in the area of the city of Freital in the district of Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains in the Free State of Saxony . The field name did not emerge until the 19th century, when the mountain was accepted as the location of a castle in the center of Burgwards Bvistrici , first mentioned in 1068 . The historian Manfred Kobuch recently questioned the existence of a “Burgwards Pesterwitz” . However, the spur carried a high medieval castle, the remains of which were preserved in the form of moats and ramparts. Today the Burgwartsberg is mostly regarded as the location of Thorun Castle , which was razed in 1206 .

description

Remains of the Castell Thorun on the Burgwartsberg

The Burgwartsberg is a steep, elongated valley spur above the Weißeritztal . The spur was sealed off with a fortification, the remains of which appear today as a wall. At the southern tip a double wall has been preserved, which is a simple wall that runs slightly downhill along the northern slope. Originally it was likely to have cordoned off the spur to the plateau at the north-west end of the castle, but the situation has recently been greatly changed and leveled. Only the remains of a neck ditch can still be seen here. No wall remains can be seen on the south-eastern slope. Either they crashed or no additional protective measures were taken on the very steep slope.

So far, no archaeological excavations have taken place on the Burgwartsberg and no remains of any stone buildings that may have existed are known.

Historical meaning

Burgwartsberg landscape protection area

Since the 19th century the fortified center of a Burgward has been assumed to be on the Burgwartsberg. One such appears under the name " Bvistrici " only in a document issued by King Henry IV in 1068. The name is of Slavic origin and often appears as Bystritza or its derivatives as a water, field and place name in East Central Europe. In this context it appears with a probability bordering on certainty as the name of the river Weißeritz. Although the subsequent localization of the Burgward center on the castle wall in the Pesterwitz corridor was very uncertain, this attribution solidified over time and also led to the naming of the mountain and adjacent streets. The new field name was already taken a little later in the local tradition as evidence of the correctness of this assumption.

At the place of the Burgward center, which was already created with the introduction of the Burgward organization in the second half of the 10th century, Thorun Castle should probably have been built in the 1190s by the Burgraves of Dohna , which had to be razed again in 1206 as a result of a court hearing.

It was noticeable, however, that there were no archaeological finds from the 10th, 11th and first half of the 12th centuries. In 1997, the Saxon state historian Manfred Kobuch spoke out against the localization of the Burgward center of " Bvistrici " on the Pesterwitz Burgwartsberg. Since then, the remains of the fortification are only associated with Thorun Castle, which was occupied in the short time around 1200.

During the Second World War there was an air raid shelter in Burgwartsberg.

Burgwartschänke Freital

The so-called Burgwartschänke is located directly below the mountain and the fortifications in the Freital Burgwartstraße. It was built in 1912/1913 by the architect Kretschmar for the operator Emil Mensch as a restaurant with two dining rooms. A hall was added in 1927/28 under the owner Wilhelm Böhmer. After 1945 the house was used as an officers' mess for a short time . After 1961 the restaurant was then leased to the GDR trade organization (HO) and operated by various managers. In 2001, the modernization of the building began, which was reopened on May 1, 2002 as a Burgwartschänke by the Bunge family.

Individual evidence

↑ MGH D HIV p. 270 f. No. 212. Online edition: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00000450/image_372
↑ Codex Diplomaticus Saxoniae Regiae II 1, pp. 70-72 No. 74. Online edition: http://codex.isgv.de/codex.php?band=cds2_01&f=&a=b&s=070

literature

Gerhard Cheap , Heinz Müller: Castles. Witnesses of Saxon history , Verlag Degener Co. Neustadt ad Aisch, 1998, p. 186. ISBN 3-7686-4191-0 .
Manfred Kobuch: The Burgward Pesterwitz - a mistake. In: New Archive for Saxon History. Vol. 86, 1997, pp. 313-326.

Web links

Commons : Burgwartsberg - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Website Burgwartschänke Freital