Fürstenberg (High Forest)

Part of the ring wall

Fürstenberg was a tower hill castle (Motte) in the Hohen Forst ( Hartmannsdorfer Forst ) near Kirchberg in Saxony , in the historic Pleißenland landscape . The motte was first mentioned in 1316, when I. Friedrich , Margrave of Meissen to the Council and the citizens of the city of Zwickau citizens fief either side of belonging to it, located in the castle find it had become mine ZCU Vurstemberg awarded. The occasionally used designation "Hohenforst Castle" cannot be proven historically.

history

At the beginning of the 14th century, a small settlement of the miners who operated the mine was established in the Hohen Forst . To the north-east of the settlement there was an older tower castle called Fürstenberg. The city of Freiberg (excluding the mines) was pledged to Waldemar von Brandenburg from 1312 to 1317 and Margrave Friedrich therefore endowed Zwickau with rights similar to Freiberg. However, Zwickau was not such a mountain town as Freiberg, as there were no mines within the city walls.

Since 1244, with an interruption from 1290 to 1311, the Wettins owned the Pleißenland as pledge and consequently asserted their claim to the Bergregal here as well. This claim collided with the claims of the bailiffs to Weida , Gera and Plauen , who exercised sovereign rights but did not have the Bergregal . On May 12, 1317 an agreement was reached between Margrave Friedrich I and the bailiffs. He secured the support of the bailiffs and signed a contract with them, which obliged them to provide 50 armed men and to recognize the margrave as sovereign. In return, they were enfeoffed with a hoof from the mine site on the Hohen Forst. In addition, Heinrich II., Known as Reuße von Plauen, received the third pfennig from the court held on the Hohen Forst. In addition, the margrave left him the kyrchleen on the mountains . Furthermore, "the scrap office, the meat, bread and shoe banks, as well as baths and ore mills" were left to him. As a result, the Hohe Forst appeared again and again in documents , for example in 1318, when Conrad von Dölen and Albrecht von Lichtenstein confessed that they had “become servants of Margrave Friedrich” and wanted to protect the mine. For this they were given a courtyard in the “stat zcu furstenberg”. Wolfgang Schwabenicky derived from these two documents that Fürstenberg was a mining town in 1317 . However, there was only one small mining settlement next to the castle.

After the death of his father in 1323, Frederick I's son, Frederick II , was under the tutelage of Henry II, Reuße von Plauen. In 1324, when he took over the guardianship, Frederick II certified that he would comply with everything that had been agreed between Heinrich the Reussen and the Wettins regarding the mine "zcu dem highforste". Two years later, in 1326, the margrave and his guardian jointly lent the pits on the Hohen Forst for 3 years to Witticho von Schönfels , his brother Johann and Heinrich von Uttenhofen . At that time, Fürstenberg Castle no longer existed. It was destroyed by Heinrich II. Reuss in 1324/25.

After Margrave Friedrich III. had subjugated the bailiffs of Weida and Plauen in 1355 , he exercised the rights to the Hohenforst alone and appointed the mountain masters Hans Bach and Albrecht Lazan. The mine does not seem to have found anything at this point. Hans Bach and Albrecht Lazan were therefore granted the full purchase price for the silver for any silver deliveries - in contrast to the usual regulation.

The end of mining is not on record, but the settlement was abandoned after the minable ores were mined. The next documented report about mining activities on the Hohen Forst dates back to March 18, 1472.

Mines

Open day on the main course

Ping the main course

Mouth hole of the Tiefen Martin Römer Erbstollen

From the pits today bears witness to a variety of Bingen . The names of the medieval pits have not been passed down. Mining began in the 14th century. After the treasure trove was found in 1316, a brisk prospecting activity probably began in the area. However, it must be assumed today that the mining area was in operation for a very short time and that the area was abandoned shortly after 1355. After mining found what it was looking for on the Schneeberg, attention turned back to the Hohen Forst. In 1472 the heaps were lent to the chancellor of the sovereigns, Johannes Scheibe. The work was not started because in March 1473 the pits were awarded to the Zwickau councilor and Schneeberg tithe Martin Römer . The Nuremberg redsmith Staude, who was involved as a tradesman, undertook to swamp the mine workings with a bulge art built by Gillig Glockel and driven by a horse goblet . The corridor was found gutted down to the depth of about 135 m. At the beginning of 1476 mining was stopped again. Between 1500 and 1532 the slag heaps of the smelters were removed as aggregate for the silver smelting in Schneeberg. Another mining attempt did not take place again until 1793. At the northern end of the mining area of the Martin Roman Erbstolln was awarded and 269 m distances aufgewältigt . After a renewed award in 1816, the tunnel, now known as Neuer Martin-Römer-Stolln, was cleared again until 1819 and then work was stopped. At the south-western end, the deep Martin-Römer-Stolln was awarded in 1795. By the time work was stopped in 1815, 304 m on the tunnel and 418 m on the main corridor had been excavated. It was not until 1935 that the German Soil Research Institute carried out research work on tungsten in the Hohen Forst area. In 1944, the Sachsenz Bergwerks AG began excavating a tunnel. British prisoners of war were used here, which earned the gallery the nickname English gallery. The work was stopped at the end of the war.

About 200 m west of the main train, in the area of ​​the mouth of the Tiefen Martin-Römer-Erbstolln, there are two large bings. These are also known as pike holes . These are the bings of the light holes 1 and 2 of the Martin Römer tunnel, which are temporarily filled with surface water, as the tunnel broke towards the mouth hole. “They are called pike holes because there was a giant pike in one of the holes, the old head of which was covered with algae and moss. In any case, a forest walker used a pike earlier. "

Archaeological site

Hechtlöcher (light hole of the Tiefen Martin Römer tunnel filled with water)

The Bingenzug extends for about 500 m in a north-south direction on the main corridor. There are depressions from pit houses between the bangs. Above the northern part of the ore vein, a roughly rectangular, 100 × 90 m square is surrounded by a wall and ditch, which represents the actual main castle. An area measuring approximately 20 × 20 m in the northeast corner is separated from the rest of the complex and is interpreted as a fortified courtyard.

The wooden tower of the castle was about 30 m northeast of the area. It was surrounded by a nearly circular moat and a wall. The tower hill inside has a diameter of around 22 m.

Based on ceramic finds, the establishment of the entire complex can be classified in the 14th century.

See also : List of German hill towers

World heritage

newly built hut house

The archaeological site is part of the “High Forest Mining Landscape” and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Ore Mountains Mining Region . It was made accessible to the public in 2000–2002 through the nature and mining trail "Zum Hohen Forst" , which was inaugurated in September 2002.

Since 2014 there has been a resting place for hikers with a refuge at Zechenplatz, the " Huthaus Engländerstolln".

literature

• Otfried Wagenbreth et al .: Mining in the Ore Mountains . Technical monuments and history. Ed .: Otfried Wagenbreth, Eberhard Wächtler . 1st edition. German publishing house for basic industry, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-342-00509-2 .
• Holger Thuss, Werner Coblenz: Hohenforst Castle in the Zwickauer Land and mining . In: excavations and finds . tape 10 , no. 2 . Berlin 1965, p. 98-102 .
• Wolfgang Schwabenicky: High medieval mountain towns in the Saxon Ore Mountains and Ore Mountains foreland . In: Klaus Fehn et al. (Ed.): Settlement research . Archeology - History - Geography. tape 10 . Settlement Research , 1992, ISSN  0175-0046 , p. 195–210 ( Kulturlandschaft.org [PDF; 29.4 MB ; accessed on April 6, 2015]).
• Uwe Jaschik: The high forest - a mining historical consideration . In: Conference volumes of the Bergbauverein Schneeberg . tape 9 . Mining Association Schneeberg / Erzgebirge e. V., Schneeberg-Neustädtel 2016.

Web links

Commons : Fürstenberg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The history of the Hohen Forst. In: nabu-sachsen.de. Retrieved April 5, 2015 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Codex diplomaticus Saxoniae . In: Document book of the city of Freiberg in Saxony . tape 2 , 872 5, pp. 5 ( codex.isgv.de [accessed April 6, 2015]).
2. ↑ Codex diplomaticus Saxoniae . In: Document book of the city of Freiberg in Saxony . tape 1 , 60 47, p. 47 ( codex.isgv.de [accessed April 12, 2015]).
3. ↑ Wolfgang Schwabenicky: ... was once a rich mountain town . Archaeological research on the high medieval mining industry in the Ore Mountains and the Ore Mountains foreland. Ed .: Kreisarbeitsstelle für Bedendenkmalpflege Mittweida (=  publications of the Kreisarbeitsstelle für Bedendenkmalpflege Mittweida . Issue 1). Regionalhistorischer Verlag, Mittweida 1991, p. 12 .
4. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Thuringian historical sources . Document book of the bailiffs of Weida, Gera and Plauen. Ed .: Berthold Schmidt. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1885, p. 287 .
5. ↑ Codex diplomaticus Saxoniae . In: Document book of the city of Freiberg in Saxony . tape 2 , 874 7, pp. 7 ( codex.isgv.de [accessed on April 12, 2015]).
6. ^ Christian Meltzer: Historia Schneebergensis Renovata . That is: Renewed city u. Berg-Chronica The Wohl-löbl located in the Ober-Ertz-Gebürge of the praised Meißens. Freyen mountain town of Schneeberg. Heinrich Fulde, Schneeberg 1716, p. 57 ( digitized version of the original edition ).
7. ↑ Wolfgang Schwabenicky: The medieval silver mining in the Ore Mountains and in the western Ore Mountains . Ed .: Klaus Gumnior. 1st edition. Klaus Gumnior, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-937386-20-1 , p. 191 .
8. ^ High forest. In: kirchberg.de. City of Kirchberg, accessed April 5, 2015 . 
9. ↑ "Kirchberger Buntgewebtes" No. 17/1928
10. ^ High forest mining landscape - mining cultural landscape of the Erzgebirge / Krušnohoři. (No longer available online.) In: montanregion-erzgebirge.de. Archived from the original on December 6, 2015 ; Retrieved April 5, 2015 . 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.  
11. ↑ Ore Mountains Mining Region - Expansion of the nature and mining educational trail "To the High Forest". In: ehrenamt.sachsen.de. Retrieved April 5, 2015 . 
12. ↑ Wolfgang & Renate Prehl: Nature and mining educational trail "Zum Hohen Forst". In: kirchberger-bergbrueder.de. Retrieved August 23, 2020 . 
13. ↑ Erhard Kühnel: Resting place of the Kirchberg mountain brothers in the Hohen Forst on the Jakobsweg Silberberg. In: jakobsweg-silberberg.de. Retrieved October 25, 2016 . 

Coordinates: 50 ° 37 ′ 10.6 ″  N , 12 ° 34 ′ 7.6 ″  E