Reign of Werdenstein
The rule Werdenstein was a small territory of the Lords of Werdenstein with headquarters at the castle Werdenstein in Immenstadt district Eckart . It is not to be confused with the Counts of Werdenberg or the County of Werdenfels .
history
The originally noble family of the Werdensteiners joined the followers of the Kempten Abbey early on. In 1239, Hildebrand von Werdenstein was the first bearer of the name to appear as a witness in a document from the Kempten monastery.
From 1350 onwards, the Werdensteiners served the monastery as hereditary treasurers . a. four houses in Kempten as fiefdoms . At the beginning of the 15th century, however, the family submitted to the House of Austria . Apparently they wanted to achieve greater independence from the prince monastery and also assert themselves against the mighty Counts of Montfort, who sat only a few kilometers southeast on the large double castle Rothenfels - Hugofels .
In 1457 Count Hugo von Montfort besieged the Werdenstein during a feud . In 1464 the Höhenburg appears under the Austrian "Swabian feuds". The Werdensteiners had subordinated their rule to the archdukes and received it back as a fief. In 1491 Hildbrand von Werdenstein was in the service of Maximilian I.
In 1525, the rebels looted the castle during the Peasants' War . The lord of the castle, Georg, fled behind the protective walls of the nearby imperial city of Kempten and recorded the war events in the "Werdensteiner Chronik".
After the family moved to their newly acquired estate Dellmensingen near Ulm in 1659 , the hilltop castle was only inhabited by one administrator. Occasionally the Werdensteiners used their ancestral castle as a summer residence until 1782.
Modern times
At the end of the 18th century, the last Baron von Werdenstein was in financial difficulties and had to sell the castle to Count Franz Fidel von Königsegg-Rothenfels in 1785 . Anton Christoph von Werdenstein wanted to keep his daughters in control of Dellmensingen. The rule at this time included u. a. Höfe in Dietzen, Eckarts, Lachen, Thanners and Zellers as well as the Werdensteiner Mühle. With the baron, the old Allgäu noble family died out in the male line in 1796. His two sons died in childhood.
The Counts of Königsegg themselves had no use for the old noble seat and had the roofs covered a little later. The castle then began to fall into disrepair. In 1804 the Habsburgs acquired rule from the Königseggern.
As early as 1805 the property came to the Bavarian state, which sold the castle ruins to the landowner Gruber in 1821. The new owner exploited the remains of the wall as a quarry . In 1898 the Rapp family bought the site and have been running the farm in front of the castle ever since.
See also
literature
- Toni Nessler : Castles in the Allgäu. Volume 1: Castle ruins in the Altlandkreis Kempten and Altlandkreis Sonthofen . 1st edition. Allgäuer Zeitungsverlag, Kempten 1985, ISBN 3-88006-102-5 , pp. 154-175.
- Michael Petzet : Sonthofen district. (The art monuments of Bavaria. The art monuments of Swabia, Volume 8). Oldenbourg, Munich 1964.