Bürresheim Castle
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The Bürresheim Castle is northwest of Mayen on a rocky outcrop in Nettetal . It belongs to the local parish of Sankt Johann . Together with Eltz Castle and Lissingen Castle , it is one of the few facilities in the Eifel that was never conquered or devastated and that were able to survive the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries and the social upheavals of the French Revolution unscathed.
Due to its unique location in the border area of the holdings of Kurköln and Kurtrier , these archbishoprics played a key role in the history of the palace .
Residents and owners
Built in the 12th century, Bürresheim and its owners at that time, the noble free Eberhard and Mettfried "de Burgenesem", were first mentioned in 1157. Shortly before 1189, Eberhard's son Philipp sold his share to the Archbishop of Cologne , Philipp I von Heinsberg , in order to get it back from him as a fief . The Archdiocese of Trier also recognized the importance of the complex and acquired the other half of the former castle under Archbishop Heinrich II von Finstingen .
The bailiffs of Leutesdorf took over the Cologne fiefdom in 1359 from the last representative of those of Bürresheim, while the Trier part came to the gentlemen of Schöneck . Bürresheim thus became a Ganerbeburg in the 14th century . The von Schöneck did not stay the owner for long, because as early as 1473 Kuno von Schöneck and his son sold their part of the Bürresheim castle and rule to Gerlach von Breidbach , whose son Johann was also able to acquire part of the Leutesdorf fief in 1477. The remaining part of the castle of the bailiffs came to Emmerich von Lahnstein at the beginning of the 16th century .
From 1572 property disputes over those Lahnstein property flared up, which could not be settled even through a process before the Reich Chamber of Commerce. It was not until 1659 that the parties reached an agreement and the von Breidbach family became the sole owners of the castle complex. From then on the family bore the name “von Breidbach-Bürresheim” and in 1691 was even raised to the status of imperial baron. Its best-known representative was Emmerich Joseph von Breidbach-Bürresheim , elector and archbishop of Mainz from 1763 to 1774 . At the time of the Barons of Breidbach-Bürresheim, the immediate imperial rule of Bürresheim included the castle, the villages of Sankt Johann , Rieden and Waldesch , the hamlet of Nitz and the Bürresheimer mills.
In 1796, the family died out with the death of the last male heir, Franz Ludwig Anselm Freiherr von Breitbach-Bürresheim, the Oberamtmann of Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein , who died while fleeing from French troops. Bürresheim Castle was inherited by a grandson of the sister of the last Breidbach in Bürresheim, Count Klemens Wenzeslaus von Renesse, whose descendants continued to live at Bürresheim Castle. After the last resident had a fatal accident in her car at the age of 32 and only 11 days after their wedding, the castle was also inherited by the von Westerholt family in 1921 . Due to unfortunate circumstances, it was only 17 years later that it was forced to sell Bürresheim Castle and all its furnishings to the Provincial Association of the Prussian Rhine Province . The castle remained in his possession until 1948 when it came into the care of the “State Palace Administration Rhineland-Palatinate ”, which in 1998 handed it over to its successor organization “ Castles, Palaces, Antiquities Rhineland-Palatinate ”.
architecture
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The complex, which appears to be a closed whole, did not get its present form until the 15th century. Before that, there were two completely separate, non-contiguous and differently sized sections, which only shared the Romanesque keep from the 12th century.
Bürresheim Castle was once secured by circular walls and two neck ditches . The latter have now been filled in and only a few remains of the curtain walls have survived.
Keep
The almost square keep is the oldest building in the palace complex. Formerly only accessible through a high entrance , it is now accessible via a baroque staircase built in the 17th century . Presumably in the 15th century, it was increased and housed the gatekeeper's apartment on the fifth floor.
Cologne Castle
This part was named after its builder, Archbishop Philipp I von Heinsberg, who had the buildings erected in 1339 in the west of today's complex. It consisted of a spacious outer bailey , of which only remnants of the curtain wall have survived today, and the late Gothic core bailey . Access was via a drawbridge from the northwest .
The main castle consisted of a double tower gate, which also served as a shield wall , and an adjoining hall . As was customary at the time, its basement was designed as a barrel vault. The ground floor consisted of a single large hall with a small, separated chapel room .
After the expansion of the Trier castle from 1659, the Cologne castle was only used as a farmyard and finally left to decay. Today it is only preserved as a ruin .
Trier Castle
The oldest surviving building of Trier Castle goes back to the bailiffs of Leutesdorf, who built a house on the border with Cologne Castle in the second half of the 14th century. All other buildings were built under the von Breidbach family in their present form.
After 1473, Gerhard and Johann von Breidbach had a three-story residential building next to the circular wall and a round tower with four-meter thick walls built in the southeast . Only later did the latter receive its now distinctive half-timbered upper floor . The late medieval housing, on the other hand, illustrates very well how simple it was around 1490. On each floor there is a single large hall with oak pillars, beamed ceilings and huge chimneys. Only in later centuries were cozy rooms divided.
After the von Breidbachs became the sole owners of the castle in 1659, extensive extensions and renovations to a baroque residential palace began. Anna Magdalena von Metzenhausen, the widow of Wolf Heinrich von Breidbach, had a large south wing built between the round tower and the Leutesdorfer Vogtshaus, and between 1698 and 1700 Georg Rheinhard von Breidbach closed the last structural gap between the keep and the Gothic residential building with the so-called Chapel building. What was unusual here was that the builder had the chapel installed on the first floor, contrary to the customs of the time.
As early as 1683, a French terrace garden in the Baroque style was built on the south-west side of the castle , which was reconstructed in its current form in 1952.
sightseeing
While the ruins of Cologne Castle are not open to visitors, parts of Trier Castle can be visited on a guided tour.
The fact that Bürresheim was in the hands of a single aristocratic family for a long time gave the castle its remarkable, unique interior design, which included pieces from the late Gothic to historicism . Numerous portraits show members and relatives of the owner family and princes of bygone times. A unique testimony to Rhenish nobility and living culture has been preserved to this day.
Among others, King Ludwig I of Bavaria and Emperor Wilhelm II visited Bürresheim Castle.
Location
A brief exterior shot of the castle can be seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade . In the film, it depicts the fictional Brunwald Castle on the German-Austrian border where Professor Henry Jones senior is being held. Among other things, it can also be seen in the children's film The Prince and the Whipping Boy as the king's castle, from which the prince and the whipping boy escape. In addition, a commercial for “ 4711 Echt Kölnisch Wasser” showed the baroque garden and the castle in the background, and in May 2009 the WDR fairy tale film Rumpelstiltskin was shot here.
literature
- Matthias Kordel: Bürresheim Castle. In: The most beautiful palaces and castles in the Eifel. Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1999, ISBN 3-86134-482-3 , pp. 18-19.
- Michael Losse : Bürresheim. In: Joachim Zeune (ed.): Hohe Eifel and Ahrtal. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8062-1775-0 , pp. 44-47.
- Hans-Peter Pracht: Täntze, Todt and Teuffel. Regionalia, Rheinbach 2015, ISBN 978-3-95540-141-2 , pp. 165–173 (witch trials at Bürresheim Castle).
- Karl von Werner, Hans Caspary: Bürresheim Castle. State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz 1999.
- Ulrike Wirtler: Bürresheim Castle near Mayen / Eifel (= Edition Burgen Schlösser Antiquities Rhineland-Palatinate. Guide booklet no. 2). Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-7954-1442-9 .
Web links
- Entry on Bürresheim Castle in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Bürresheim Castle at "Castles, Palaces, Antiquities Rhineland-Palatinate"
- Bernhard Peter: Bürresheim Castle
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Dieterici: Communications of the statistical office in Berlin . Volume 9. ES Mittler and Son, 1856, p. 36. ( digitized version )
Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 10.1 ″ N , 7 ° 10 ′ 46.9 ″ E