Hammer Wolfsbach

Hammer Castle Wolfsbach (2016)

The Hammer Wolfsbach was located in the district of the same name , which now belongs to the Upper Palatinate municipality of Ensdorf . The iron hammer was powered by the water of the Vils .

history

In the Middle Ages, Wolfsbach belonged to the Office of Rieden and the Vogtei Ensdorf. After the Treaty of Pavia of 1329 the area remained in Upper Bavaria, so that the Vizedom of Lengenfeld , Heinrich von Ettenstett 1332 even could prevent a country judgment in Wolfsbach. In 1337 Rieden came with the Vogtei Ensdorf under Ruprecht I in a further division of the state to the Electoral Palatinate and was not rejoined with the Duchy of Bavaria until 1628.

The first documentary mention of Wolfsbach goes back to May 6th, 1119, at that time a Wignandus de Wolfspach appears among the witnesses of the foundation deed of Ensdorf Abbey . When the Galching estate (now part of Schmidmühlen ) and the Dasholmen farm were handed over to the monastery in 1122 , this Wignandus de Wolfspach appears again with his brother Rapoto von Wolfsbach . A Bruno von Wolfsbach gave a property ("Mansum") in "Vihtahe" (Viechtach, probably a desert in the Hirschwald west of Ensdorf) to the Kastl monastery . When the Ensdorf Monastery acquires a farm near Welbitstorf (Willsdorf), Chunrad von Wolfespach is named as a witness , who also appears with his brother Gottschalk when a farm is pledged in Thonheim (probably Thanheim near Ensdorf ).

In 1282 Albrecht the Puochberger , Edler von Haselbach, sells his property in Wolfsbach (fields, forests, fish pastures, village court, church patronage and church bailiff) for 60 pounds (Regensburg pfennigs) to the Ensdorf monastery. His brothers Ulrich and Wignand agree to the sale. The Wolfsbach hammer mill probably already existed at that time. The history of the hammer mill can therefore be traced back to the 13th century. Ulrich der Smit and Pertold der Smit appear in 1356 and 1364 as respected men from Wolfsbach. In 1387 the previously independent parish of Wolfsbach was handed over to Ensdorf, but then sank into a branch church.

From 1515 to 1559 the hammer was in the hands of the Portner , a well-known Upper Palatinate hammer family. According to the hammer letter from Lent Sunday 1515, Peter Portner becomes hammer master of Wolfsbach and Leidersdorf . The Schienhammer was in operation in 1527 and 1557. In 1532 Peter Portner bequeathed the hammer to his son Hans . The Portners also converted the mill into a tin hammer . In 1579 the Regensburg citizen Martin Z (r) ennerfels is named as the owner of a mill, a cutting saw and a rail hammer in Wolfsbach. In 1579/80 the hammer master there was Hans Zennefeß . 1587 worked here as hammer master Wolf Jacob Oberstetter , who had apparently married the widow of Martin Zennerfels ; Hans Jacob Oberstetter still operated the plant in 1594/95 . After his death, another Andreas Zennerfels is named as the owner, who bought the Hammer zu Wolfsbach and the Hofgut zu Garsdorf (today a district of Ursensollen ) from his stepfather.

Even before the Thirty Years' War the hammer was in operation. In 1612, the Endres (Andreas) Zennefelser was granted the freedom of the landed people , but in the event of war he had to serve the sovereign with an armored horse. From 1629 Hammer Wolfsbach was leased for three years by the sovereign Elector Maximilian . The aim was to revive the iron industry after the resumption of mining in Amberg, from where the ore for Wolfsbach was obtained. The work was under the supervision of the electoral mountain official Umbseh , the Hüttkapfer was a Hans Arnold . In December of the same year, 1,129 quintals of iron were produced, equivalent to around 50 pounds of rail . An account made during this period shows that a "Zerenne" (smelting process) costs for ore, ore wages, kiln coal, mining coal, maintenance and wages 3 guilders 29 kreuzers, the income for the 12 rails produced in the process was between 4 guilders and 4 guilders 37 Kreuzer. In one week 24 courses were processed; this results in a weekly profit of between 3 guilders and 8 kreuzers or between 4 guilders and 32 kreuzers.

As invoice documents between 1630 and 1632 show, after the death of Endres Zennefelser the estate was under guardianship. According to a survey initiated by the sovereign around 1633 about the devastation during the Thirty Years' War, Hammer Wolfsbach was in good condition, but not in operation because the owner was looking for a new tenant. In 1650 Egid Stirner (or Striner or Stainer) became a hammer master. In 1661 he is mentioned again as the honorable and gracious Egidi Stirner . He had the ore ("Artzt") brought from Amberg and Sulzbach. From 1650, the hammer began to produce regularly and on a larger scale. In a list of the debtors against the city of Amberg from 1653 one finds the remark: Georg Steiner zu Wolfsbach, apologizes as a servant, the master of the hammer has rotten and died, 160 fl. The attempt by Egidi Stirner and other hammer masters to revive the hammer cleaning of the Upper Palatinate on April 21, 1655 , but failed. Egidius Steiner was also among the hammer masters who proposed a trial smelting to the Amberg government in 1656 in order to get an acceptable wage for the disruptors; these had made ever higher wage demands and brought the hammer lords into difficulties as a result, but also through negligence in smelting iron. Although this trial smelting was successful (125 pounds of iron could be smelted instead of the previous results of 57 pounds per Seidel of ore), an agreement was not reached and complaints about the negligent work of the disintegrators continued. On July 30th and 31st, 1670, this Egidius Steiner , hammer master of Wolfsbach , was also found in a commission to assess the newly discovered ore sites near Rieden . The sampling and smelting attempts with the newly discovered ore did not produce satisfactory results, the ore content of the rock was low and no good ore could be melted and so mining came to a standstill in the spring of 1671.

The heirs of Egidi Stirner sold the hammer on September 18, 1674 to Michael Riss from Griesdorf (Grisslhof). Previously, the Ensdorf Monastery had acquired the Hammergut on January 16, 1665, but sold it back to Michael Riss on May 15, 1665 . On July 31, 1676, Michael Riss sold his property to Michael Knapp , local master carpenter for 3,000 florins . On May 12, 1681, the prior and vicar administrator of the Ensdorf monastery, Father Bernhard Drigl , sold the deserted Hammergut to Philipp Pauer , hammer master at Böhmischbruck for 2700 fl.He was followed by his son Martin Pauer , and on March 11, 1718 his eldest son came Johann Salomon Pauer took possession of the hammer. After his death on May 19, 1756, his widow Maria Theresia Pauer handed over the property to Johann Lorenz Benedikt Pauer for 7500 florins on July 9, 1756. After his death on April 4, 1786, the property passed to his widow Walburga , a née Lehner from Kastl . This remained the local owner until April 13, 1810. Then she handed over the Hammergut to her son Johann Evangelist Pauer ( Paur ) for 18,000 florins. He died on July 10, 1845 at the age of 80. Shortly thereafter, on November 1, 1845, his widow Sophie Pauer blessed the temporal. The couple had five daughters but no male heir. The Pauers were ennobled in 1790 and subsequently called themselves by Paur .

The daughters managed the estate jointly until 1852, when Clemens von Hartung , the estate manager and husband of the third daughter, put it up for sale. Ultimately, after several attempts to sell, on December 26, 1853, the wholesaler Bernhard Lilienthal from Regensburg, the landowner Florian Dorfner von Hirschau and the privateer Franz Winkler von Amberg were able to acquire the property for 43,000 fl. Then Bernhard Lilienthal was able to take over the entire property. The iron hammer had already died in the second half of the 18th century. What remained was a cutting saw, a three-speed grinder, the fishing rights on the Vils and 300 days of land ownership. On May 11, 1860, Michael Holler , son of Leonhard von Holler , acquired this remnant from Bernhard Lilienthal for 39,000 fl and handed it over to his son Leonhard on January 12, 1861 . On May 31, 1890, the property passed to his son-in-law Joseph Widenau von Ebermannsdorf and from this again to his son Leonhard .

Leonhard Chapel in Wolfsbach

Small hydropower plant in Wolfsbach

Hammer Wolfsbach today

The two-story, two-winged Hammergutshaus or hammer castle (Hammerbergweg 2) is still preserved from the factory. This complex dates from around 1600, it has a polygonal stair tower with a domed roof; the formerly profiled window reveals have come off. At the site of the former hammer mill you can also find a small hydropower plant today.

The Leonhard Chapel is also part of the work, as Saint Leonhard was considered the patron saint of the hammer people. The chapel was built in 1830 by the hammer mill owner Johann Baptist Pauer as the "Johannes Nepomuk Chapel". A thorough renovation of the chapel was carried out in 1988/89 by the sawmill owner Hermann Senft . How the name change came about is not known.

literature

• Götschmann, Dirk: Upper Palatinate iron. Mining and iron industry in the 16th and 17th centuries. Ed. Association of Friends and Patrons of the Mining and Industry Museum in East Bavaria (= volume 5 of the series of publications by the Mining and Industry Museum in East Bavaria), Theuern 1985, ISBN 3-924350-05-1 , pp. 76-82.
• Reinhard Dähne, Wolfgang Roser: The Bavarian Iron Road from Pegnitz to Regensburg. House of Bavarian History, Volume 5, Munich 1988.
• Georg Widenbauer : The Hammergut Wolfsbach. Die Oberpfalz , 47, 1959, pp. 10-12 and 30-33.
• Altbayern row I issue 24: Landrichteramt Amberg (Historical Atlas of Bavaria).
• Hans Zitzelsberger: Chronicle of Ensdorf. Ensdorf municipality 1991.

Web links

• History of the Wolfsbach community

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Emma Mages: Oberviechtach . In: Historical Atlas of Bavaria , part of Old Bavaria . Series I, issue 61. Komm. Für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7696-9693-X , p. 20 ( digitized version ).
2. ↑ Reinhard Dähne & Wolfgang Roser, 1988, p. 24.
3. ↑ Zitzelsberger, Hans, 1991, p. 174.

Coordinates: 49 ° 21 '58.5 "  N , 11 ° 55' 8.5"  E