Haldenburg

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Haldenburg
Haldenburg - View from the top of the outer bailey to the mighty front wall of the main castle

Haldenburg - View from the top of the outer bailey to the mighty front wall of the main castle

Alternative name (s): Burghalde, Wannberg
Creation time : 9/10 century
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: Burgstall
Place: Schwabmünchen - Schwabegg
Geographical location 48 ° 10 '41.3 "  N , 10 ° 40' 52.9"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 10 '41.3 "  N , 10 ° 40' 52.9"  E
Height: 617.6  m above sea level NN
Haldenburg (Bavaria)
Haldenburg

The stockpile Castle is an Outbound hilltop castle at 617.6  m above sea level. NN about 800 meters southwest of the Schwabmünchener district Schwabegg ( Augsburg district , Swabia ) on the edge of the Augsburg nature park - western forests . The large rampart is a typical example of an early medieval Hungarian fort .

history

The castle complex around 950 (Roger Mayrock, 2001). Reconstruction on an information board in the castle area

The Burgplatz bears traces of settlement from the Middle Bronze Age (approx. 1600–1300 BC) and the urn field culture (1200–800 BC).

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the eastern cavalry people of the Hungarians threatened southern and southwestern Germany. The cavalry warriors were feared archers who could fire their weapons at full gallop, but avoided foot combat if possible.

As a reaction to the threat, numerous ramparts , some of them huge, were built as military bases and refuges for the population. A characteristic of such Hungarian walls is often a huge, up to 15 meters high main wall with in front of approach obstacles, for example long earth bolts - planted with thorn bushes or reinforced with pointed stakes. These two typical features of a large Hungarian fortress have been well preserved on the Haldenburg.

After the battle on the Lechfeld , which was fought in the immediate vicinity, the Hungarian threat was eliminated. For a short time the castle served as the seat of the grand bailiffs of the bishops of Augsburg. The bailey was presented to another, moderately deep ditch. At the beginning of the High Middle Ages , however, the bailiffs moved their seat north to the town of Schwabegg, the new castle on the vineyard is still partially preserved as a large tower hill ( Motte ) ( Kalvarienberg Schwabegg ). The Haldenburg - like most of the other Hungarian fortifications - was then abandoned, which is why the earthworks in these structures are mostly still in good condition.

In the year 954, the Augsburg bishop is said to have fled to his castle near Schwabmünchen ( Mänchingen ) in the turmoil before the great Hungarian battle on the Lechfeld in front of the Baiern . This Castellum Mantahinga probably means the Haldenburg, with the former Schwabmünchener Wasserburg Giegenburg there are no references to an early medieval predecessor complex . The episcopal castle withstood the siege by the rebels until relief troops loyal to the king arrived .

The rampart was topographically recorded in 1965 by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation . The castle area can be experienced through a circular path and is equipped with some information boards. The circular route was expanded at the beginning of 2008 and provided with new information boards. Since then, a short branch has led to the small plateau of the Hauptwalles, the dimensions of which are now easier to see again.

In 2001 Roger Mayrock (Kempten) created an artistic reconstruction of a typically larger Hungarian fortress for the Bavarian state exhibition "Bavaria-Hungary a thousand years". The painting is based on the findings and preserved earthworks of the Haldenburg.

The reconstruction also served as a template for the computer animation of a large Hungarian fortress in the first episode of the ten-part ZDF documentary “The Germans” (2008). In the game scene, however, an attack on the royal palace Werla in today's Lower Saxony is shown.

description

Information board on the outer bailey
The main wall of the outer bailey to the north
The rampart of the outer bailey to the east

The large, three-part castle complex consists of the egg-shaped main castle (105 × 90 meters), which is separated from the roughly rectangular outer bailey (130 and 100 × 75 meters) by the mighty main wall and the neck ditch (height difference between the bottom of the trench and the wall crown about thirteen meters) . South of the outer bailey still a trapezoidal is Vorwerk upstream.

The plateau of the main castle and the high Hungarian Wall are now planted with dense young forest and are largely inaccessible. Only the extensive outer bailey is easily accessible and visible, with its wall about nine meters high on the outside, which rises about three to four meters above ground level on the inside. Behind the upstream Spitzgraben the long, low earth ribs of the former rider approach obstacles have been preserved. These earthworks will be cut through by a later second trench, only about two meters deep.

The ramparts of the outer bailey and the Hungarian Wall were at least in their last expansion phase in wood-earth construction - perhaps with stone facades (remains of tuff) - fortified, the steep slopes of the main castle to the Wertach level, however, may only have supported palisades . A pit on the plateau of the main wall is interpreted as a tower location, this tower would certainly be assigned to the castle of the grand bailiffs.

The complex had at least two gates, the main gate is in the northwest of the outer bailey next to a deep, natural erosion channel and leads directly to the main castle plateau. The southwest gate is the entrance to the Vorwerk, but another gap in the rampart is led back to a later wood removal route.

The "Reitergassen"

The Haldenburg is of particular importance due to the good preservation of the earth ribs heaped up vertically in front of the moat of the outer castle of the Hungarian approach obstacles, which are only disturbed by the later outer moat. These "Reitergassen" extend about 30 meters into the area and should originally have been planted with thorn bushes or reinforced with pointed stakes. The attackers could not ride right along the trench and take the defenders under arrow fire, but had to shoot from a greater distance or even dismount. These "riding lanes" can also be found in some other Hungarian fortifications, but often only preserved as flat bumps or largely leveled. Similar earthworks are also in front of the foreworks of the nearby “ Buschelberg ” near Fischach .

The State Office for Monument Preservation lists the ground monument as a medieval castle stable with settlement finds from the Bronze and Urnfield Ages under the monument number D 7-7830-0028.

literature

  • Otto Schneider: Early “Haldenburg” castle complex near Schwabegg (also known as “Burghalde” or “Wannberg”) . In: Hans Frei, Günther Krahe (Ed.): Guide to archaeological monuments in Swabia, Volume 1: Archaeological walks around Augsburg . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart and Aalen 1977, ISBN 3-8062-0185-4 , pp. 54-58. (at the same time as: contributions to home maintenance of the Augsburg district 8).
  • Wilhelm Schneider: The southwest German Hungarian walls and their builders . W. Schneider, Tübingen 1989, ( Work on Alemannic Early History, Issue 16).

Individual evidence

  1. Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation: Entry ( Memento from December 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )