Dansker
A Dansker (also Danzker ) is a toilet facility in a castle , which is housed in a tower over flowing water. The tower is connected to the castle by a bridge on which there is a closed or covered walkway. The origin of the word, which was first used in 1393, probably goes back to the city of Gdansk and is an architectural feature of the 13th and 14th centuries.
Otherwise served in castles and houses garderobe as toilet facilities. If, however, many people stayed at the castle permanently, they were no longer sufficient, and a separate drain over flowing water was more appropriate. That is why Dansker can be found mainly at German order castles , which were constantly manned by a large number of knights .
A famous example is the Dansker of the Ordensburg in Marienwerder , which was reconstructed in the 19th century and no longer corresponds to the medieval condition. Here, the size of the Dansker clearly shapes the overall picture of the castle, which is why research has discussed whether it was really just a toilet or not also had other functions such as a redoubt or an upstream defense post. The use of the term Dansker by contemporary writers, as well as their architectural design without battlements or loopholes, speak against it. Only three cases - in 1361 Eckersberg , in the same year and 1366 Johannesburg - have come down to us, in which besieged castle garrisons withdrew to the Dansker. The besieged were able to escape from the tower twice.
Castle complexes with a dansker
- Marienwerder Castle , Poland
- Stolberg Castle , North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
- Thorn Castle , Poland
- Marienburg (Ordensburg) , Poland
- Fellin Castle , ruin, Estonia
- Tarwast Castle , ruin, Estonia
- defunct Eckersberg Castle , Poland
- Outbound Castle Lochstedt , Russia
- defunct Johannesburg Castle , Poland
literature
- Horst Wolfgang Böhme : Dansker, Danzker. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme, Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (Hrsg.): Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses . Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1 , p. 108, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.535 .
- Walther Huber: Dansker. In: Real Lexicon on German Art History. Volume III. 1954, col. 1050-1052 ( online ).
- Otto Piper : Castle studies. Ackermann, Munich 1895, pp. 505-510 ( digitized in the Google book search).
- Dansker. In: Ernst Seidl (Hrsg.): Lexicon of building types. Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-15-010572-6 , pp. 115-116.
