Hans Jakob von Ettlingen

Hans Jakob von Ettlingen , also the name forms Jakob Notlingen, Otlingen, Itlingen, Eptlingen and Etlingen are notarized for him, (* around 1440 probably in Württemberg ; † 1507 in Ziegenhain ) was the Hessian court architect in the service of the Landgrave Heinrich III. , Wilhelm III. (or his governors) and Wilhelm II.

Life

Much knowledge about this builder has been lost. This is partly due to the fact that earlier generations apparently considered planning and construction documents to be worthless, so that there are no longer any corresponding documents in the archives. The situation is different for invoices that are still available in large numbers. This essentially gives us our knowledge of Hans Jakob von Ettlingen today. Everything else can therefore only be determined through causal relationships and architectural comparison work.

Name and dates of life

One can only speculate about his place of birth. In 1499 another master builder with the surname “von Ettlingen” became a cathedral master builder in the service of the city of Frankfurt. This Jakob Bach von Ettlingen was also in the service of Philipp von Hessen for some time . Jakob Bach is known to have come to Frankfurt on the recommendation of Count Palatine Friedrich I , the city and the diocese of Worms. Analogously, it is assumed that this could also be the case with Hans Jakob around the year 1470.

The origin from the sphere of influence of the Count Palatine Friedrich I is therefore likely. If one assumes that the “von” in Ettlingen's name is to be understood as a designation of origin, it could be that Hans Jakob came from Ettlingen because he was in the service of Count Palatine Friedrich I there. This was then taken over in his name when he arrived in Hesse. Derived from his name Ettlingen, Otlingen (called Etlingen in the Middle Ages) near Kirchheim unter Teck is also a possible place of origin. His seal, on which a lying hip horn is depicted, could also be interpreted as a sign of origin. Here it would make sense to consider the cities of Neuffen and Urach .

But if Hans Jakob von (N) Otligen came from Otlingen, the “von” could be a nobility predicate and he could come from the local nobility documented there. He is mentioned several times in invoices with the title "Junker" and in the reverse of the appointment as builder and servant for life, from 1482, it was considered that he should receive Hauneck Castle as a fief. If he was a bourgeois, this was either due to his very high reputation at the landgrave's court, or it could point to his origins from the Swabian nobility.

His year of birth is also unknown, only the year of his death is known. At the estimated age of around 70 according to the sources, the year of birth is around 1440.

Biography in light of the circumstances of the time

Landgrave Heinrich III. von Hesse, who ruled over the "Land on the Lahn" , was in feud for a long time with his brother, Landgrave Ludwig II , who ruled in Lower Hesse . This feud was only settled in 1470 by a contract on the "Spieß zu Kappel" (today in Frielendorf ). Soon afterwards, Heinrich III began to expand his castles along the Lower Hesse border.

During this time Ettlingen came to Hesse. In 1471 he received money and natural goods from the Ziegenhain renting business for the first time . It is concluded that he was in the service of Landgrave Heinrich III around 1470. came from Hesse and was assigned a farm next to the Ziegenhain castle . At first he received an annual wage of 15 Albus a month.

In 1474 Ettlingen was in Deutz on behalf of the city of Cologne . At that time, Landgrave Hermann IV of Hesse was Archbishop of Cologne and thus involved in the Neuss feud . Henry III. ordered Ettlingen to go to Deutz for a few months, where he built the city fortifications. This is known because a letter has been received from the city of Cologne to the landgrave, in which Cologne asked that the master builder be left in the city's service for a while. This was probably rejected by Heinrich. According to a Neuss war bill, Ettlingen left for Friedewald in Hesse on September 3, 1474 . Ettlingen was then from 1474 to 1476 in Friedewald. According to a copy of an order from the Ziegenhain Renterei, he received a salary of 16 Albus and natural produce (grain, oats and poppy seeds) in 1476.

By marriage, Heinrich III came. in 1479 in the possession of the County of Katzenelnbogen and thus also received the Rhine tariff (St. Goar double tariff). From this time on he had the castles in Friedewald, Hauneck , Herzberg , Neustadt , Marburg , Wolkersdorf , Ziegenhain , Vacha , Schweinsberg , Hermannstein , Ockstadt and Friedberg built at the same time . During this time Ettlingen was busy at many of the castles mentioned above. Ettlingen's participation in the last four castles can only be assumed. He was busy planning the new buildings and conversions, so he was probably not present at every building. From 1479 Ettlingen received 20 Albus, plus 1 cow, 4 hammels, 1 pig, 4 geese and 10 chickens, 12 moth grain and 16 moth oats.

Ettlingen was often in the wake of the Landgrave, for example in 1479 when the County of Katzenelnbogen was taken over. On behalf of the landgrave, he was also on the road more often, for example he was in Erfurt in April 1479, in Heidelberg in 1492 and in 1504 he received a fee in Zwingenberg.

From November 19, 1482, the reverse of the appointment as master builder and servant has been preserved for life. The Ettlingen seal with the horizontal horn also hangs on this certificate . With this appointment, his payments became 20 Albus. fixed. In kind he received 16 quarters of grain, 20 quarters of oats, 2 pigs, a cow, 6 hammers, 10 chickens, 8 geese, 4 Metz poppy seeds, 1 load of beer, 10 loads of wood, 1 load of straw, farm clothing every six months, a meadow for 3 Load of hay, a service plow, a garden to “muskrute”, free food and “feed” on business trips and compensation in the event of horse damage.

Around 1482 Ettlingen was probably also working for the Hersfeld abbot Damian von Knoblauch, for which he was enfeoffed with half a good at Oberbegrenzebach and half a good at Grenzebach (called the "Foißgut"). According to the sources, it is no longer possible to determine which buildings he worked on for the abbot.

When Heinrich III. In 1483 died, Archbishop Hermann IV of Hesse took over the guardianship of the underage son Wilhelm III. The affairs of government were mainly in the hands of four governors, including Hofmeister Hans von Dörnberg and Hofmarschall Schenck zu Schweinsberg.

From 1483 Ettlingen was bailiff in Hauneck and from 1489 he was mentioned for the first time as Vogt on Hauneck. He held these offices until 1494. During this time he also lived in the castle with his family. After Ettlingen Engelhart von Buchenau was deployed as Vogt on Hauneck. Ettlingen then probably moved back to his farm next to the Ziegenhain castle. As compensation he was enfeoffed with half an estate at Herzhausen near Treysa.

When Wilhelm III. When his father succeeded him in 1489, the above-mentioned construction projects were largely complete. In the 1490s work was still being carried out on the fortifications of Ziegenhain and Rüsselsheim.

After the death of Wilhelm III. Around 1500 the "Land on the Lahn" was ruled again by the main line of the Hessian landgraves under Wilhelm II, "the middle one" . According to sources, Ettlingen was no longer active as a builder from this time on. However, Ettlingen continued to receive his remuneration in the same amount until his death, so working for Wilhelm II cannot be completely ruled out. Ettlingen died in Ziegenhain in 1507.

family

Ettlingen was married and had three children, who are mentioned in a sales deed. In 1520, his children Rudolf, Hans and Ursula sell the Herzhäuser property and the Ziegenhainer Hof there. One of these children was baptized in 1481. This is known because the landgrave donated the wine for this event. Hans, probably his oldest son, became a soldier and in 1495 applied in vain for the position of mercenary captain in Frankfurt.

plant

The castles that Ettlingen worked on were only rebuilt about a hundred years later due to the advancement of weapon technology. Either they were converted into a castle, in which the defenses were dismantled or completely removed and the buildings were representative and stylistically adapted to the time, or they were expanded into the so-called land fortresses ( e.g. Ziegenhain water fortress ), which were adapted to weapon technology. Many of the other smaller castles were only official seats after Ettlingen's time and were only poorly maintained until they were destroyed in the Thirty Years' War at the latest.

His first work was the fortress-like expansion of the Friedewald moated castle and the moat, which was probably also drawn around the outer castle. There were still earth walls around the moat. The work lasted from 1474 to 1489. In the following decade only the buildings of the farmyard in the outer bailey were built. Ettlingen's presence in Friedewald was rare at this time, and these buildings were built without his involvement. Since the buildings (e.g. the Pallas) were rebuilt only a few decades later according to the style of the time, only the towers and the gatehouse have been preserved from the Ettlingen buildings.

In 1483 Ettlingen began work on Hauneck Castle , which was destroyed in 1469, and into which he moved with his family. He rebuilt the castle until 1489. Almost all of the buildings there go back to Ettlingen. Only the stump of the keep still comes from the first castle complex; the humpback blocks in the corner structure refer to the end of the Staufer period. Presumably Ettlingen only lowered the tower and provided it with a new roof. Hauneck was only rebuilt as an official castle, and a fully developed keep was probably no longer necessary. Since there was no more major renovation work on the castle after Ettlingen, all of the walls that have been preserved can be traced back to him.

The largest hilltop castle in Hesse in terms of area, Herzberg Castle , was built by Ettlingen between 1477 and around 1500. The old castle was surrounded by Ettlingen with a trapezoidal ring wall and five towers. In front of the old castle, Ettlingen built a keep and on the main attack side a bailey with a kennel and upstream entrenchments. As early as the 16th century, renovation work took place in the castle, and the demolition of the old castle in the 18th century and the keep in the 19th century meant that there are no more residential buildings from Ettlingen's time. Only the ring walls with the five towers (without the half-timbered structures) and the gate in the outer bailey come from the building from the time of the ettling. Ettlingen's coat of arms can be seen both on the stump of the keep and on the Gehauer tower in the curtain wall.

As with Herzburg Castle, which is owned by the Lords of Dörnberg, Ettlingen worked between 1477 and 1490 on behalf of the court master and governor, Hans von Dörnberg, at the castle in Neustadt, the so-called Dörnberg Castle . This is also where the only building in Ettlingen that has remained undamaged and largely unchanged to this day, the "Junker Hansen Tower", is located.

Around the time between 1470 and 1497, expansion and renovation measures took place at Marburg Castle . The invoices from this period are very incomplete, so that Ettlingen's direct involvement can only be documented in the bathing rooms at the castle. Since he was court architect at this time, these buildings are ascribed to him. Of particular importance here are the “Bollwerk im Graben” (the witch's tower) and the Wilhelmsbau, as they have survived largely unchanged through the ages. Architecturally, however, the Wilhelmsbau cannot be assigned unequivocally to Ettlingen, as there are no profane comparable buildings from Ettlingen.

swell

• Reinhard Gutbier: The landgrave master builder Hans Jakob von Ettlingen: a study of the manorial defense and residential building of the late 15th century , 2 volumes, self-published by the Hessian Historical Commission Darmstadt and the Historical Commission for Hesse, Darmstadt and Marburg 1973

References and comments

1. ↑ Reinhard Gutbier: The landgrave's court architect Hans Jakob von Ettlingen .
2. ↑ Gutbier, page 5
3. ↑ Late medieval white pfennig .
4. ↑ Item 6 alb. Lip and Ple (?), When he moved home with the foide of Friddewalde (on sonabenth after decollations Joh. Babt.)
5. ↑ Intem 7 alb. Jacobe von Otlingen from Bevels Karaspar von Berlebsch uf dinstag after Sanct Bartholomeytag.
6. ↑ For the minor Landgrave Wilhelm III. there were four governors of Hesse

literature

• Friedrich Küch, Hans Jakob von Ettlingen , Hessenkunst Volume 15, Pages 34 to 50, 1921