Henneburg

Henneburg
	Henneburg on the Kühlberg near Stadtprozelten - south side
Alternative name (s):	Procelten Castle
Creation time :	1127
Castle type :	Höhenburg, summit location
Conservation status:	Ruin, keep preserved
Standing position :	Ministeriale
Construction:	Cuboid, small cuboid, humpback cuboid, quarry stone
Place:	Stadtprozelten
Geographical location	49 ° 47 '15.1 " N , 9 ° 24' 49.2" E Coordinates: 49 ° 47 '15.1 " N , 9 ° 24' 49.2" E
Height:	234 m above sea level NHN

The Hennesburg is a Staufer Höhenburg the taverns of Limpurg on the right bank of the Main River in the town of Stadtprozelten in the district of Miltenberg in Bavaria , Germany .

Geographical location

Map of the ruins of Henneburg

Aerial photo 2008

The extensive ruins of the Henneburg are located at 234 m above sea level. NHN on the Maintalhöhenringweg about 100 meters above the right-Main town process (formerly Prozelten) on the southern edge of the Spessart on a sandstone foothill of the Kühlberg. Between the Stadtprozelten and the Henneburg, a 70 meter deep valley cut protects the western flank of the castle. To the north the complex is protected by a neck ditch , to the south-east the Kühlberg drops steeply towards the Main. The Franconian Marienweg runs right next to the ruins .

history

The Limpurg taverns

Timo de Bratselde, 1127 Vogt of the Abbey of St. Peter and Alexander zu Aschaffenburg and administrator of their properties in the Mainviereck , which also included Prozelten, is considered to be the founder of the local castle district and commissioner for a precursor to the Prozelten Castle, as the Henneburg was initially called. It is certain that Conradus Colbo, one of the taverns of Limpurg and cupbearer of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa , who sat in the not far away Clingenburg , became the immediate successor of Timo de Bratselde after his death. This presupposes that at that time Bratselde (later Bradshelden, then Prozelten) had come into Staufer possession.

Numerous Romanesque wall relics that can be found in the oldest parts of the castle from the 12th century, the large keep and the eastern palace , testify to the early existence of a previous building. Around 1260 a document mentions the brothers Albert Schenke, who later joined the Teutonic Order , and Walter Schenke, who moved to the Nuremberg-Hersbruck area after his marriage to Elisabeth von Königstein-Reicheneck, as Lords of Bradshelden. Both brothers bequeathed parts of their percentages to the Order. In 1272 Walter left two underage sons, Conrad and Walter, when he died. Reinhart von Hanau was appointed as their guardian, who in 1272 bought the shares of Count Poppo and Rudolf von Wertheim in the Prozelten Castle for 600 Heller . The order strengthened its influence through acquisitions. In 1386, Konrad the Elder, Herr zu Bickenbach, sold one of his tithes to Röllfeld to the German Order Master Siegfried von Venningen and to the German Order House Prozelten. Resident aristocrats did their knighthood at the castle.

Servants of the castle

1385 Contz von Kottwitz (local nobility, 2 years in the Prozelten order house )

The Wertheimer, Hanauer and Henneberger

In 1275, only three years later, however, the Counts of Wertheim and Hanau were jointly in possession of all properties, as can be read in a still existing document about a truce for Prozelten. Based on these agreements, the community of heirs seems to have bequeathed its shares primarily to the daughters. In any case, the Counts of Hanau never reappeared in connection with Prozelten.

Count Heinrich von Henneberg, the husband of Kunigunde von Wertheim, began to make demands on Prozelten in 1288 and again in 1291. In the same year, on the other hand, the widowed Elisabeth von Wertheim sold her property to her brother-in-law Gottfried von Schluesselburg. The highly respected Elisabeth's dependence on the Teutonic Order became apparent when she first confirmed Poppos von Eberstein and Conrads von Vehingen's rights to Prozelten in 1311, then bought back the inheritance from Gottfried von Schlüsselburg's widow in 1313 and finally acquired the Eberstein's share in 1317. In 1319 she also succeeded in buying up Conrad von Vehingen's share. With this, Elisabeth was the sole mistress of Prozelten, the associated lands and the castle. Only a small part still belonged to Count Ludwig von Rieneck the Elder.

The German Order

A year later, in 1320, Elisabeth gave all her property into the hands of the Teutonic Order. In 1329 Count Ludwig von Rieneck renounced his claims in favor of the German rulers. Later donations round off the area, so that, according to documents from 1333 and 1440, the order subordinated the now completely owned Prozelten including the castle to the Archdiocese of Mainz .

The Teutonic Order owned the Prozelten Castle for 150 years, and it was during this time that they carried out the great Gothic renovation that gave the castle its present-day appearance. The small keep and the western hall, the defensive systems and fire towers that surround the entire castle and an underground walkway on the critical northwest flank were built.

Around 1480, negotiations between the Teutonic Order and the Archbishopric Mainz began in countless records about an exchange of various possessions, including the town and castle of Prozelten. These negotiations were completed on April 9, 1483. The Grand Master of the Order, Reinhard von Neipperg , finally reached in May 1484 the actual exchange of the castle Prozelten against those at Mainz castle owned Scheuerberg and the city with City Palace Solme (today Neckarsulm ). The last Komtur at Prozelten Castle was Count Georg von Henneberg, to whom the castle presumably owes its current name.

Wars and decay

As early as 1493, invoices from Mainz about extensive repair work on the Henneburg document the partial deterioration of the complex; some buildings were already dilapidated and had to be renewed at great expense.

The Henneburg seems to have been spared the raging of the Peasants 'War and the Thirty Years' War , because the annals only mention destruction caused by a storm, not the effects of war. The castle, which was of little military or strategic importance, was probably not a target of attack during the war years. In addition, Stadtprozelten, as the place was now called since it was granted city rights, had joined the uprising in the Peasants' War and thus escaped destruction, but through this tactic lost the city rights, which were only granted again in 1528. The fact that the Henneburg was destroyed by French troops in 1688 cannot be proven any more than with the neighboring Collenburg and Clingenburg . Since the castle has only been occupied by a few officials and soldiers for almost 200 years and a large part of the complex was unused, it can be assumed that it will slowly deteriorate. In 1704 the Henneburg was first described as ruined.

Security and Preservation

100 years later, ownership began to change at short intervals. From 1803 Stadtprozelten and the Henneburg belonged to the Principality of Aschaffenburg , in 1810 to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt and from 1814 to the Kingdom of Bavaria . King Ludwig I of Bavaria arranged for the ruins to be repaired for the first time in 1840 in order to save them from complete decline.

Part of the window front of the western palace collapsed in 1927 after fireworks, but it was not until a lightning strike on June 24, 1978, which killed three people, that the total renovation of Henneburg brought about between 1982 and 1986. The towers were restored and fortifications added , made the underground battlements accessible again and attached a lockable gate to the large tower. After removing the heavy vegetation, a visitor parking lot was created, which can be reached via a narrow street from Stadtprozelten. From 2017 to 2020 the Henneburg will be renovated for 3.1 million euros, whereby parts of the castle should always remain accessible to visitors. The total of four construction phases have three focal points: preventing water from penetrating the masonry, removing the vegetation and sealing the joints. Work began on the Bergfrieden, which are currently closed to visitors.

Todays use

The entrance to the Henneburg is located on the northeast corner of the facility, which can be visited all year round. In the summer months , the viewing platforms of both keep are freely accessible. They allow a view of the Main Valley and Stadtprozelten, the heights of the Odenwald and the Mondfeld district of Wertheim in Baden-Wuerttemberg .

The Burgschänke housed in the upper castle offered space for around 80 guests, after a lease agreement this restaurant has been closed since the end of March 2016. Knight games also take place irregularly on the Henneburg .

description

Entrance to the outer bailey

Eastern front wall

Eastern Palas

Western hall and large keep

Western hall with stair tower

Henneburg, winter view from the east

The castle complex is divided into the upper castle, consisting of the outer castle and core castle , as well as the outer structures with the neck and ring moat and the protective wall on the mains side. The fortifications surrounding the upper castle, several castle gates, seven wall towers or their remains, the two palace ruins , large and small keep as well as the approximately 150-meter-long, electrically illuminated underground battlement, which is accessible through exits in the wall towers and which connects the south-western gateway with the connecting the northern part of the facility. You enter the outer castle complex from the northeast through a small front gate. A footpath leads along the castle wall on the mains side to the gatehouse of the outer bailey, the actual entrance.

Outer bailey

A wooden bridge over the moat first leads to the late Gothic front gate of the gate building, which is followed by a younger, but also pointed arched entrance to the outer bailey. Both gates consist of a main archway and a pedestrian gate. The year 1523 on the first gate refers to its renovation. Two dogs can be seen in high relief above the inner gate, probably an indication of the sex of the Rüd von Kollenberg. The Burgschänke is located on the left hand side after the gate.

The outer bailey, also known as the Zwinger or Oberer Torweg, dates back to the time of the German rulers with the east facing wall facing the Main and the north-east facing wall with the neck ditch. Four towers in the eastern front wall with a diameter of around 4.5 to 6.8 meters protected the outer gateway. The middle round tower bears a wreath of brackets for a former, wooden battlement halfway up the wall. In the high-Gothic gate courtyard, the passage to the main castle, there are three delicate arches. The double-stepped portal of the castle gate, based on the model in the Gelnhausen imperial palace around 1170 to 1190, emphasizes the importance of the castle at that time. In the 14th century, the castle gate was supplemented by a simple forecourt and an additional second inside was added, so that the entrance to the main castle appeared very representative.

Core castle

The core castle, which you enter through the gate courtyard, is the oldest part of the Henneburg. Here are the large keep and the eastern hall from the Hohenstaufen period and the small keep and the western hall from the time of the German rulers. The main castle is surrounded by a Staufer, almost closed circular wall, which was built up with humpback blocks in the area of the large keep and the eastern hall , while the masonry of the circular wall at the castle gate, which was built at the same time, consists of rubble stones . The rear wall of the western hall is part of the western curtain wall and designed as a mantle wall . The south-western section of the curtain wall between the keep and the castle tavern is missing today.

With a floor space of 10.5 × 11 meters, the relatively large, residential tower-like building of the eastern palace consists of three, originally four floors. The upper floor contains the remains of a fireplace. The joint to the Gothic residential building to the south can be clearly seen.

The 25 meter high keep standing on the northern edge of the core castle has a floor area of 9.8 × 9.8 meters. In the building, which consists of a humpback square connection, the original entrance is about ten meters high, where the recesses for the door house and the bridge to the neighboring western hall can still be seen. The interior of the tower is also carefully walled up with finely crafted blocks as is the exterior. However, the processing quality of the humpback cuboid decreases significantly in the upper area of the tower. This suggests that the construction work will be completed quickly due to external constraints or a lack of money. In the large keep are two toilets, accessible via a complicated corridor, which were emptied via a shaft in the tower wall and a channel into the moat.

In contrast to the eastern hall, the western hall, built by the Teutonic Order after 1321, is better preserved. It has a hexagonal stair tower and the remains of two 14 × 5.5 meters and 10.5 × 5.5 meters large halls. The still existing corbels supported the wooden gallery that connected the rooms with one another. The small keep closes off the western hall on the southwest side. Its entrance could be reached from the third floor of the hall, approximately at the level of the battlements of the western front wall. The inside of the tower has no storeys with lounges, there is only one continuous staircase. The small keep is built of quarry stone walls that are braced by corner hump blocks.

Front wall

At the beginning of the 15th century, a front wall about 150 meters long and about 2.3 meters thick was built to protect against attacks on the western land side of the Henneburg. A square and three round moat towers with a diameter of 5.3 to 6.7 meters also reinforce the bulwark . The towers are connected by an underground gallery with additional loopholes. From the southern building of the main castle, today the Burgschänke, a corridor leads to the gallery at the height of the square moat tower. All four towers are divided into individual floors with firing chambers and vaults connected by stairs. The northern part of the front wall consists of large cuboids, the older southern part of quarry stone masonry.

It is believed that the rampart in front of the ring trench 15 meters wide to the west had its own second front wall, as wall approaches at both ends of the ramparts allow this conclusion. Remnants of the wall at the approach of the city wall in front of the ring ditch and neck ditch indicate that there was another barbacane ( Vorwerk ) in front of the entrance bridge . However, both assumptions are not backed up by records.

literature

Ursula Pfistermeister : Castles, fortified churches, city walls around Würzburg . In: Wehrhaftes Franken . tape 2 . Ernst Carl, Nuremberg 2001, ISBN 3-418-00386-9 , pp. 110-112 .
Anton Rahrbach, Jörg Schöffl, Otto Schramm: Palaces and fortresses in Lower Franconia . Hofmann Verlag, Nuremberg 2002, ISBN 3-87191-309-X , p. 98-99 .
Karl Gröber: Lower Franconian castles . Dr. B. Filser, Augsburg 1924.
Erhard Tremel: Chronicle of the city Stadtprozelten, a town of the Teutonic Knight Order . Self-published, Stadtprozelten 1992.
Adam Hessler: 296 castles and palaces in Lower Franconia and the adjacent areas of Middle Franconia, Württemberg and Baden - history and description. Edited according to the existing literature . Perschmann, Würzburg 1909.
Alexander Antonow: Castles in the Main Square. Breuberg, Freudenberg, Miltenberg, Prozelten, Rothenfels, Wertheim, Wildenberg . Antonow, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-924086-30-3 , pp. 68-80 ( handbook series historical buildings 1 ).
Dieter Michael Feineis: Overview of the history of the Prozelten castle and office until the end of the Old Empire, Diocese of Würzburg, Würzburger Diözesan-Geschichtsblätter Volume 76, special edition 2013

Web links

Commons : Henneburg - Collection of images

Individual evidence

^ Henneburg at Burgenreich.de

↑ Gudrun Berninger: The taverns on our Clingenburg. City of Klingenberg am Main, April 7, 2004, accessed December 23, 2012 .