Wooden tower (Mainz)
The wooden tower in Mainz is a medieval city tower whose current Gothic appearance dates from the beginning of the 15th century . The name of the building was given to the city of Mainz's wood stacking yard in the immediate vicinity on the Rhine. Together with the Iron Tower and the Alexander Tower , it is one of the three city towers of the Mainz city wall that still exist today .
The wooden tower served - like the iron tower - as part of the city fortifications as a watchtower and city gate and later as a prison . The roofing was destroyed in the Second World War and was faithfully reconstructed in 1961 for the city's 2000th anniversary. Today the wooden tower houses various initiatives and associations.
Background: The Mainz city fortifications
The city of Mainz had its own city fortifications with walls, towers and city gates since late Roman times . Shortly before the fall of the Limes in 259/260, the first wall ring was built around the city of Mogontiacum . Not long after 350 the city wall of the late antique Mogontiacum was significantly shortened in the course of the abandonment of the legionary camp and expanded and reinforced using older building materials ( Spolia ). After the Romans withdrew, repair work was carried out on the Roman city wall , especially in the Merovingian and Carolingian times. The city wall, referred to as “Roman-Carolingian” in Mainz city archeology, was created.
The continuity of the early medieval city fortifications was drastically interrupted in 1160. After Mainz citizens after prolonged argument with her Archbishop Arnold of Selenhofen (and the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa ) killed them, imposed Emperor Frederick I in 1163 as a punishment the imperial ban over the city. Its city wall including the city towers was razed (according to some historians, however, this was limited to the destruction of the gate towers).
Since the city of Mainz was an important political and strategic ally in the battle of the Hohenstaufen against the Guelphs for supremacy in Germany, permission to rebuild a city fortification was granted as early as 1190/1200. With the incorporation of the previously independent suburb of Selenhofen into the fortified city area in the second half of the 13th century, the predecessor of the wooden tower, the so-called new tower, was erected. As a fortification and gate tower, it replaced the Romanesque Wingert gate that had existed there until then and was first mentioned in writing in 1366.
Architectural style
The wooden tower in the structure still preserved today is a building from the Gothic period and dates to the first half of the 15th century. Like the iron tower, the six-storey tower has quarry stone masonry, is divided by corner cuboids and two coffin cornices, as well as a final, but here very steep, hipped roof . In contrast to the iron tower, however, the overall construction of the wooden tower has significantly slimmer proportions, which were typical of the “verticalism” prevailing in the Gothic period.
The archway of the earlier wooden gate is ogival and has a ribbed vault in the passage . Due to the recent elevation of the banks of the Rhine, the gate passage is now approx. Three meters below today's street level. The base of the 12 m high hipped roof is lined at every corner by polygonal corner turrets crowned with pointed helmets . These sit on tiered, interconnected by pointed arches corbels . The upright rectangular windows have the pointed arches typical of the Gothic.
Two city-side windows on the first floor show pairs of busts in their arched fields: a citizen couple and a royal couple are shown.
Use in the Middle Ages and in modern times
The wooden tower served as part of the city fortifications and at the same time as a gateway through the rebuilt city wall. In front of the gates on the banks of the Rhine, in the Middle Ages, there was a pile of timber for timber from southern Germany, and thus the timber market. This gave the tower and gate its final name.
Like other towers of the city fortifications, the wooden tower also served as a prison in the late Middle Ages and modern times. In 1793, after the capture of the previously French Mayence, so-called clubists were locked in the wooden tower. The most prominent prisoner, however, was Johannes Bückler , known as Schinderhannes , and his captured gang members in 1803 . After more than 15 months imprisonment in the wooden tower, they had to walk from there to the place of execution on the former site of the Electoral pleasure palace Favorite and were guillotined according to the then valid French law .
In the second half of the 19th century, extensive construction work began on the banks of the Rhine, especially for the newly created Hessian Ludwig Railway. As a result of extensive restructuring and backfilling in the 19th and 20th centuries, the ground level around the wooden tower rose so that the original entrance gate is below today's street level. The wooden tower survived the Second World War largely unscathed, but the hipped roof and the roofing of the four corner turrets were completely destroyed. In 1961 this, including the entire stonework of the Trums, was restored for the upcoming 2000 year celebration of the city of Mainz, in 2016 further measures were necessary. Today the wooden tower is owned by the city of Mainz and is not open to the public. The Mainz local association of the German Amateur Radio Club has its domicile on the top floor and operates a shortwave and ultra-shortwave station there.
literature
- Rolf Dörrlamm, Susanne Feick, Hartmut Fischer, Hans Kersting: Mainz contemporary witnesses made of stone. Architectural styles tell 1000 years of history. Hermann Schmidt, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-87439-525-1 .
- State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate (Ed.): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Volume 2.2 .: City of Mainz - Old Town. in: Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany . Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1997 (3rd edition), ISBN 3-88462-139-4
- Ernst Stephan: The community center in Mainz (= The German community center. Vol. 18). Wasmuth, Tübingen 1974, ISBN 3-8030-0020-3 .
See also
Web links
- mainz.de - Historic Mainz: The Iron Tower
- Mainz Fortress - The medieval city fortifications of Mainz
Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 49.7 " N , 8 ° 16 ′ 40.9" E