Rath House (Krefeld)
| House Rath | ||
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 Rath House, southwest view, January 2013 |
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| Creation time : | around 1200 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg, moth | |
| Conservation status: | Receive | |
| Place: | Krefeld - Elfrath | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 22 '12.3 " N , 6 ° 36' 53.2" E | |
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Haus Rath is a medieval castle in the Elfrath district of Krefeld (Alte Rather Straße 205–219) and the oldest preserved secular building in the city.
history
The high street
It is possible that a paved path in north-south direction already existed in prehistoric times at some distance from the Rhine . When the Rhine was not yet fortified by dikes, meadows and floodplains were flooded for kilometers. The "Hohe Straße" , which reached from Cologne via Moers to Geldern , was so high that it was not flooded during floods and therefore remained passable all year round. It was an important and important trading route in the Middle Ages . In the area of the Rath house, the "Hohe Straße" leads from the Geismühle in Oppum via Glindholz and Bockum to Moers. The feudal lords of the area were the Counts of Moers and the Archbishops of Cologne . Both had a keen interest in path monitoring and tithing .
The Krefeld archaeologist Dr. In 1990, Christoph Reichmann from the Burg Linn Museum Center clarified the course of the medieval street. Haus Rath stands in the middle of a ford of the "Hohe Straße" through a stream, which could once have fed the moat with water, but no longer exists today. The street continued only a few meters west of today's Werner-Voss-Straße.
Origin of name
In the 10th and 11th centuries, settlers came here from the south and cleared the land through clearing. The name "Rath" can be derived from the verb "roden". One can assume that the place at which Haus Rath is located was, so to speak, important as the center of the clearing trade. Fief takers of the permanent house were the "Ritter von Rode", also known in many scripts as "Raede", "Rade", "Rayde", "Roede", "Roide", "Royde" or "Ryde" from which later "Rath." " has been.
Honesty advice
House Rath was the namesake of the Honschaft Rath, which developed around the castle. The Honschaft Rath belonged to the office of Uerdingen , but the pastor was Bockum until 1843 . Bockum was also responsible for the neighborhoods Verberg and Vennikel in church matters.
House Rath
House Rath consists of a grown facility with a formerly fortified tower hill castle (Motte) on a hill surrounded by moats . Haus Rath originally consisted of a three-storey residential tower with a height of 12.80 m which had a square floor plan of 9.30 m. The foundation in the basement has an average wall thickness of 2.25 m, on the upper floor it is 1.50 m. The tower could only be entered from the outside via stairs or a ladder, it had no door on the ground floor. The attic was provided with battlements to provide cover for the defenders in the event of an attack.
There is much speculation about the ownership structure around the time the tower was built. The establishment of the moth and the first fortifications is dated around 1200. Basalt as well as tuff and trachyte blocks from the Eifel and from the vicinity of the Drachenfels in the Siebengebirge served as building material for the residential tower . The walls in the basement are 2.20 m thick. Like the residential tower, they are also made of basalt blocks. The corners are clamped with cuboids made of trachyte. The same technique was used for the new construction of the imperial palace further east on the right bank of the Rhine in what is now Kaiserswerth near Düsseldorf , which was built around 1184 from the same material. This is a bit unusual for a comparatively small knight's seat like Haus Rath, as the relationships at that time usually did not go very far. It is assumed that there must have been a connection to the Kaiserswerther Kaiserpfalz. It is also assumed that there is a connection between the Rath House and the relationships between Arnold von Rode and Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa I in the period around 1174. It is assumed that this Arnold was an ancestor of Heinrich von Rode and founder of Haus Rath. House Rath is mentioned for the first time in 1246 in a document from the Count of Geldern. The signatories were the knights and brothers Heinrich and Bruno von Rode, and Count Dietrich III sealed the seal as a witness. from Moers. Shortly after the construction of the Rath House, the Traar House, which is within sight, was also built. The last landlord in Traar, Albert von Are, was married to Aleidis von Rode. In 1262 Heinrich von Rode was again associated with Haus Rath in a document. Many other documents from Heinrich's time show that the von Rode gentlemen played no insignificant role in the area. Haus Rath could have been built as an outpost of the imperial palace. This is supported by the fact that the coat of arms of those von Rode, which can be seen in the fragmentary seal on the document from 1262, already represents a cross-halved shield, which in turn shows half a double-headed eagle in the upper part , while the lower half is roughened. Here the question arises whether the double-headed eagle is related to the double-headed eagle seal of the imperial city of Kaiserswerth. At that time, Emperor Friedrich II was lord of Kaiserswerth. Such a connection between those of Rode and the Reich would mean that the Lords of Rode exercised an office in the Reich and were directly subordinate to the Kaiser as ministerials .
A loan from 1365 has been received which names the complex as the estate "the Rade with Hues end Vesten" . In later enfeoffments, Rath House is listed as "Rath Castle with forests, swamps and tithe and accessories in the Uerdingen office" .
In the middle of the 14th century a palace was added to the residential tower . Parts of the western wall are preserved today up to a height of about 4.50 m. Two square towers were attached to it, which were replaced around 1500 by the round towers still preserved today.
In the 15th century, when Agnes von Rode married Friedrich von Hüls, the castle became the property of the von Hüls knights . In the 16th century, the feudal lords were the Counts of Moers and the Archbishopric of Cologne .
The fiefdom entitles them to participate in the electoral parliament . In 1669, when reviewing the status of the house, a commission found that, due to its furnishings, it had “an old square tower made of basalt and tufa that can only be climbed from the outside” ; "With two other towers and a curtain wall that protrudes half a man's height from the earth" ; "With trenches and drawbridge" as well as "presented letters and documents" should be recognized as a noble residence. The owner of Haus Rath at the time was Johann Albert von Loen. The survey was carried out by the surveyor Hermann Wiegels and resulted in a usable land area of 104 acres .
Further owners were subsequently:
- 1669: Johann Albert von Loen
- 1706: Johann Werner von Loen
- 1748: Josef von Taufkirchen (wife Maria Theresia, daughter of Johann Werner von Loen)
- 1761: Johann Ludwig von Kleist (wife Amalia, daughter of Josef von Taufkirchen)
- 1779: Clemens August von Kleist
- 1798: Friedrich August von Kleist
- ?: Johann August von Kleist
Two more wings were added to the north and south of the main castle between the 17th and 18th centuries. They served as farm buildings.
In the 18th century, another extension was added east of the hall. In 1762, a document named the fiefdom as "House Rath, including the moat, forecourt, stables and brewery, garden and tree garden and arable land" .
At the beginning of the 19th century, another wing was added to the east of the old residential tower.
In 1844 Karl-Josef Henoumont bought the castle. The Henoumont family has also owned Haus Traar since 1812.
Haus Rath has been largely spared from destruction by war in its history, which has now lasted more than 800 years. The entire facility would hardly have withstood a serious military conflict. Even if the structural and architectural conditions reveal a typical castle complex, there was still a lack of adequate defensive structures. In addition to the steadfast residential and defense tower and the moat, which probably later did not even have water, there was only a kind of landwehr in the form of a small earth wall with a low wall around the castle a few meters away from the moat.
Max Winkelmann lived in the castle in the 1930s. During the First World War he was stationed as a major in Poland and retired at Haus Rath. His son Rudolf worked the surrounding fields.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Haus Rath was inhabited, among other things, by a shared apartment which can be assigned to the autonomous-alternative scene. Residents held annually in conjunction with the " B CITIZENS in ITIATIVE k a A tomkraft" (short "Binka" ) a summer festival at the castle, in which she drew attention on their activities against nuclear power, the peace movement and other actions. This festival was called "Binka-Fest" and was especially popular with the children in the neighborhood, as there was a lot on offer for them too. "Binka" was also the name of the farm dog , a shepherd dog .
The Krefeld artist and well-known comic artist Jari Banas was among the residents of that time .
The castle hill served as a toboggan run in winters with days of snow. This was tolerated by the castle residents and was very popular with the children from the area.
Haus Rath was a rural farm until the 1970s. Until shortly before the renovation in 1988, the northern stables in the outer bailey were used for cattle.
Until the mid-1980s, the castle fell into decline. The owners were unable to carry out the urgently needed renovation and maintenance work, as it far exceeded their financial means. Towards the end of the 1980s, the castle was initially empty and was further affected by vandalism . Most recently, the castle could be acquired for the symbolic value of DM 1 , but it was not bought for a long time.
Between 1988 and 1991, the entire complex was renovated by a developer with state subsidies and divided into several residential units. During the gutting, Dr. Reichmann carried out numerous archaeological investigations.
Elfrath
The name of today's Krefeld district Elfrath is derived from the "Elfrathshof" , which existed in the direct vicinity of the castle. Until after the Second World War, Elfrath was nothing more than a hallway name . The current district did not develop until the 1960s.
Old yew tree
The oldest tree in Krefeld's urban area is on the castle hill, a yew tree that is over 800 years old . The tree is protected as a natural monument. The street Zur Eibe in the new housing estate in the immediate vicinity is dedicated to her.
criticism
Today the complex is privately owned by a homeowners association. The substance of the castle was largely preserved, but ultimately lost some of its original flair through the expansion with modern and exclusive condominiums. It was not possible to keep the castle as a museum, for example, because the financial means could not be raised. However, there was no initiative on the part of the city or the citizens.
Since the transformation into a more or less exclusive residential complex, there have been repeated conflicts between the current residents and the neighboring residents from the area. The grounds of the castle do not end at the moat, rather it extends beyond the adjacent orchards. The criticism is "uninvited visitors" from the neighborhood who do not respect the property boundaries and camp, grill or go for a walk in the meadows or use the moat as a toboggan run in winter as before. Interested visitors should stick to the publicly accessible paths, according to the request of the homeowners association.
literature
- Reichmann, Christoph: House Rath . In: Ministry for Building and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia / Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Hrsg.): Burgen AufRuhr. On the way to 100 castles, palaces and mansions in the Ruhr region . Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2010, pp. 252–255
- Guido Rotthoff: From the early days to the Middle Ages Krefeld, Volume 1. Lower Rhine Society for Prehistory and Early History Research Duisburg eV
- Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages - floor plan lexicon . Weidlich / Flechsig, Würzburg 1994, ISBN 3-8035-1372-3 .
- Christoph Reichmann: The sanctuary in Krefeld-Elfrath. In: The home. Year 62/1991.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bernd Giesbertz (Ed.): Traarer Nachlese. 2007, p. 11.
- ^ Krefeld, the history of the city. 1992.
- ↑ City information of the city of Krefeld ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Regest of a document from Count Hermann von Neuenahr and Moers dated June 12, 1555; see. Regest of a document dated May 27, 1545; Guido Rotthoff (edit.): Document book of the city and the office of Uerdingen . (Inventories of Non-Governmental Archives 10). Uerdinger Heimatbund, Krefeld 1968, No. 724, p. 219; see. No. 680, p. 205.
- ^ Regest of the documents of December 19, 1544, March 29, 1550, August 3, 1555, April 21, 1561 and January 30, 1572; Guido Rotthoff (edit.): Document book of the city and the office of Uerdingen . (Inventories of Non-Governmental Archives 10). Uerdinger Heimatbund, Krefeld 1968, No. 677, 703, 725, 748 and 782, pp. 204, 212, 219, 227 and 239.
- ↑ Guido Rotthoff: From the early days to the Middle Ages - Krefeld vol. 1.
- ^ Franz Joseph Karls: Haus Rath , 1975
- ↑ Bernd Giesbertz (Ed.): Traarer Nachlese. 2007, p. 138.
- ^ Website of the Haus Rath owners' association www.h-rath-hauptburg.de .
