Honor gate
The Ehrentor was one of the new arches built around 1250, which were built in the ring wall of Cologne as part of the last medieval city expansion . The name and location of the new city gate of the fortification , which was pushed forward to the west, was a successor to the old Roman "Ehrenpforte" of the ancient city, which was laid down around 1505 .
history
The maintenance of the medieval fortifications and all other protective measures for the population were originally a sovereign task; however, no detailed regulations have been passed down . In the case of the old gate of honor, besides other details about the fortifications or the defense costs, it is known that this was given to the burgrave by the Cologne church (the archbishop) as a fief .
The Roman "porta honoris"
The old first honor gate, the "porta honoris", was a wall passage in the western Roman wall at the level of St. Apern Street (platea s. Apri, also Afre, Apro, Aprum) and the old east-west running street of the Minorites - and Breite Straße - at that time still Ehrenstraße (“platea honoris”). A chapel dedicated to St. Aper was first mentioned in 1169 on St.-Apern-Straße.
The Breite Straße itself was one of the oldest streets of the ancient CCAA , along with the main axes, the cardo maximus (the north-south axis of the Hohe Straße ) and the decumanus maximus (the east-west axis of the Schildergasse ) and was named after the original "Ehrenstrasse" at that time. The street only lost its name in the Middle Ages due to its western extension leading out of town, today's Ehrenstraße. According to Keussen, Ehrenstraße is the namesake of the honor gate and the later honor gate. In his remarks, he criticizes the occasionally misunderstood designation "erea porta" (bronze or arch gate) as an inept Latinization of the German name for the gate.
150 years after the construction of the new outer ring wall, in 1499, six years before the demolition of the old gate of honor on the Roman wall, a form was used in the shrine entries when ownership of the properties on the old wall was changed, in which the additional designation "City towards" or "towards the field" were used. In a case of fraud it was said: One house of two, of four houses under one roof on Breitenstrasse, one of the two towards the field, the one towards the city: bought by Hupert von Syntzich (Sinzig) with stolen money… .
The fortification around 1250
As one of the twelve late Romanesque city gates, the new honor gate is said to have been built during the last fortification expansion of Cologne in the middle of the 13th century. It had a resemblance to the still existing Severinstor , which, however, has an asymmetrical hexagonal tower top and two conical-roofed side towers due to its central building, which is flush with the lower gate on the city side. The above illustration of Justus Vinkenbooms (1620–1698) shows the field side of the honor gate in the 1660s, the flank towers of which were flattened towards the gate side. The gate with its eight-sided three-storey tinned tower attachment was clearly offset in its axis towards the exit on the city side. As a typical double tower gate (like the Ulrepforte ), the gate of honor between the flank towers at the height of the base cornice above the archway had a wooden over room as a throwing gallery. At the time, the crenellated crown and arched windows of the northern three-storey flank tower were preserved, while the south tower had a reduced height and was covered with a conical roof. For a continued visible on the outer side of the north tower guards provided garderobe mounted, and a front of the gate input sentry positioned. On the upper floor of the tower tower, the gate bell can be seen on a beam, with which the closing of the gate or any attackers were announced.
A pedestrian gate next to the diagonally arranged gate passage, which could be seen in pictures shortly before the demolition in 1882, can still be seen as a bricked-up archway in the shadow on the lithograph by JA Wünsch in 1827. The building was now without a crenellated crown and looks even more compact. The city walls of different heights adjoining both sides of the Torburg are still there with their narrow openings, the loopholes . The research carried out by the art historian Udo Mainzer ( dissertation on city gates in the Rhineland) also confirmed the time when the honor gate was built.
Types of use of the Torburg
The gate castle served as a defense tower and part of the city wall to protect the city, was a traffic route, but no longer served as a station for collecting customs. The old customs houses at the country gates of the city wall from 1106, the one at the old Eigelstein gate , and the one at the previous Schafenpforte gate , had passed into private ownership in the 16th century. As the city gate, it was also the prescribed exit that those who had judged the high court had to take from the "Hach" (on the south side of the cathedral), who went to the place of execution accompanied by the executioners and the executioner. The entourage reached this via the Melatener Weg, which began in front of the gates of honor in the suburb of “Westenich” and led to the place of execution, the “Rabenstein” (today's Melaten cemetery ). On these occasions, too, the gate bell will have rung as a poor sinners bell. It was at the same time the important medieval route from Cologne to Jülich , which Arnold Mercator referred to in his Cologne cityscape from 1570 as "The Straß of Caster ".
A source from the beginning of the 18th century, the Visitationis Prothocollum of the towers and prisoners from May 1709, listed the gate building with three prison rooms , also known as the "Ehrenpforte", under the towers of the Cologne city wall.
19th century to the present
On the area of the bulwarks of the old Cologne city wall, which was razed in 1882 , the ring road sections in front of the old town with the connecting squares that led to the newly emerging city districts with their connecting roads were built around the old town of the city on the left bank of the Rhine. In June 1881 the demolition of the wall began. According to plans by Karl Henrici from Aachen and under the direction of the city architect Josef Stübben , the new ring roads were built in 1889/1892 . As a result of these measures, which were not yet affected by the current regulations on monument protection , the city lost, apart from a few preserved parts of the former curtain wall, the gate castle on the Ehrenstrasse, which was still known as Rue d'Honneur during the French period (1813) .
literature
- Ludwig Arentz, Heinrich Neu and Hans Vogts : Paul Clemen (eds.): The art monuments of the city of Cologne , Volume II, extension volume: The former churches, monasteries, hospitals and school buildings of the city of Cologne . Verlag L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1937. Reprint 1980. ISBN 3-590-32107-5
- Günther Binding : Cologne and Lower Rhine views in the Finckenbaum sketchbook 1660-1665 . Greven, Cologne 1980. ISBN 3-7743-0183-2
- Heinz Heineberg : Grundriß Allgemeine Geographie , Part X, Urban Geography / Geographical Urban Research, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1989, p. 63.
- Hermann Keussen : Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages , in 2 volumes. Cologne 1910. ISBN 978-3-7700-7560-7 and ISBN 978-3-7700-7561-4
- Gerd Schwerhoff : Cologne in cross-examination , Bouvier publishing house, Cologne 1991. ISBN 978-3416023320
- Adam Wrede : New Cologne vocabulary . 3 volumes A - Z, Greven Verlag, Cologne 1984, 9th edition. ISBN 3-7743-0155-7
Web links
Extension (including remaining Roman systems) from 1106: Old Kahlenhausen Gate | Old Eigelstein Gate | Cube gate | Lion Gate | Old Hahnentor | Old Schaafentor | Eifelpforte | Greek gate | Old stream gate | St. John's Gate | Next Alley Gate
Extension from 1180: Kunibertsturm | Wake-up snap * | Kahlenhausen or Judenpforte | Eigelsteintorburg * | Gereonsmühle * | Gereonstor | Friesentor | Goal of honor | Hahnentorburg * | Schaafentor | Weyertor | Stream gate | Pantaleon Gate | Ulrepforte * | Severinstorburg * | Bottmühle * | Bayenturm *
Rhine side: Dreikönigenpforte | Lead wicket | Next Alley Gate | Small Witschgasse Gate | Holzmarktpforte | Great Witschgasse Gate | Filzengrabentor | Flour Gate | Rheingassentor | Hasenpforte | Wash gate | Markmannsgassentor | Forge gate | Velpforte | Salzgasse Gate | Lintgasse Gate | Fish gate | Mill Lane Gate | Neugassentor | Fire gate | Frankenturm | Drinking alley gate | Kostgassentor | Blomengasse Gate
* preserved building
Individual evidence
- ^ Adam Wrede, Volume I, p. 176
- ^ Hermann Keussen , Volume I, page 65, with reference to: Reitschel, Burggrafenamt, p. 150
- ^ Arentz: Cistercian convent St. Apern, p. 317
- ^ H. Heineberg, Urban Geography
- ↑ Hermann Keussen, Volume I, pages 10, 13
- ↑ Hermann Keussen, Volume II, page 297, Col. 2
- ↑ Günther Binding, page 150
- ↑ Hermann Keussen, B.1 p. 137
- ↑ Gerd Schwerhoff, page 96
Coordinates: 50 ° 56 '17.8 " N , 6 ° 56' 26.4" E