Grafenburg (Lauffen am Neckar)

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Count castle in Lauffen am Neckar
View from the Regiswindiskirche over the Neckar to the Grafenburg

View from the Regiswindiskirche over the Neckar to the Grafenburg

Creation time : early 11th century
Castle type : Niederungsburg, island location
Conservation status: Receive
Standing position : Count
Place: Lauffen am Neckar
Geographical location 49 ° 4 '35.1 "  N , 9 ° 9' 23.8"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 4 '35.1 "  N , 9 ° 9' 23.8"  E
Grafenburg (Baden-Wuerttemberg)
Count castle
historical view before the construction of the Neckar Canal

The Grafenburg in Lauffen am Neckar is a residential castle from the early 11th century. It is located on an island on the Neckar and was built by the Counts of Lauffen . The Grafenburg now serves as the town hall of Lauffen and is the only island castle on the Neckar.

location

The Grafenburg was built on an island on the Neckar. Opposite it is the Regiswindiskirche on the western bank of the river . The castle is connected to the east bank of the Neckar by a bridge, while the Lauffen Neckar Bridge spans the river further south .

history

The castle was likely built in the early 11th century. The builders were the Counts of Lauffen , who had the castle built, possibly as a reaction to the foundation of a monastery planned in 1003, within the old castle on the left bank of the Neckar. The first reliable documentary mention is in the year 1127. The original complex from the Salier period consisted of a residential tower with outbuildings, which was supplemented by a keep in the 13th century .

The Counts of Lauffen died out between 1216 and 1219, after which the Staufers pledged the Count's Castle to the Margraves of Baden in July 1219 . In 1346 Hofwarth the Younger von Kirchheim acquired the Lauffener Burg, in 1361 it passed into the possession of the Counts of Württemberg . In the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) the castle was destroyed, but then rebuilt. Towards the end of the war, the town's bailiff moved his seat from the Upper Castle to the Count's Castle . In 1818 the Lauffen city administration finally moved into the castle, since then it has served as the town hall. Since 2006 there has been a museum in the tower dedicated to the history of the castle.

architecture

construction

Former residential tower with keep

The entire complex of the castle is about 100 × 30 m in size. The core of the complex is a rectangular former residential tower measuring 13 × 10.30 m in area, with the Romanesque keep protruding from the northern gable . The original masonry of the residential tower is 12.50 m high, whereby the floor level of the building was 30 cm lower when it was built, and is 2.40 m thick at the thickest point. At the beginning, the first floor of the residential tower could only be reached via the floor above and in all probability only had narrow light slits and a ceiling height of 5.50 m. The upper floor could be entered through a 7 m high staircase on the east side. It had three arched windows above head height. Above the upper floor there was probably still a wooden structure that formed a third floor; it was replaced by the construction of the keep. This almost doubled the height of the tower to 24 m.

Tower base Romanesque

The tower is followed by an almost square extension with a floor area of ​​4.5 × 5.0 m. It is the same height as the original residential tower and also comes from the same construction phase. On the ground floor of the extension there was a 2.3 × 1.5 m room with passages to the east and west. There was initially a vault between the ground floor and the first floor, which could be reached from the first floor of the residential tower through a round arched door. A staircase led from the first upper floor to the second floor of the building. In the northern outer wall of the extension there is a shaft 40 cm wide and 1.7 m long; possibly an abortion . It probably lost its function with the construction of the keep and was no longer used. At the time of its greatest expansion, the entire castle complex probably took up the entire rock plateau of the Neckar Island.

After the Thirty Years' War , the castle was rebuilt, although the tower and annex were retained, but the rest of the complex was replaced by contemporary buildings. These are now connected to the old core of the castle in the east and west.

Position within the castle architecture

The Grafenburg Lauffen is a typical representative of the early stone castles in the Rhine-Neckar region. The residential tower with extension is particularly characteristic of these buildings from the Salier period. Due to the size and subdivision of the extension, the Grafenburg is a special case that cannot be found anywhere else in southwest Germany. It is also the only island castle in the entire Neckar.

literature

  • The Counts of Lauffen and their castle. (PDF; 15.8 kB) www.pro-region.de, 2006.
  • Nicolai Knauer: Die Grafenburg Lauffen am Neckar (= Zabergäuvereins magazine, issue 3/4, year 2007), Güglingen 2007
  • Nicolai Knauer: The castles of the Counts of Lauffen in the Neckar Valley . In: Christhard Schrenk , Peter Wanner (eds.): Heilbronnica 5 . Sources and research on the history of the city of Heilbronn 20. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 2013, p. 79–85 ( heilbronn.de [PDF; 2.9 MB ; accessed on February 21, 2014]).

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hansmartin Schwarzmaier : The Reginswindis tradition of Lauffen. Royal politics and aristocratic rule on the central Neckar . In: Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine / NF Volume 131 , 1983, ISSN  0044-2607 , pp. 186 f . ( mgh-bibliothek.de [PDF; 2.6 MB ; accessed on February 21, 2014]).
  2. ↑ a b c The Counts of Lauffen and their castle. (PDF; 16 kB) www.pro-region.de, 2006. Retrieved on May 2, 2010.
  3. ^ Nicolai Knauer: Excursus: Types of castles in north-western Baden-Württemberg. www.schule-bw.de. Retrieved May 7, 2010.