Kahlenhausen or Judenpforte

City wall in front of the "Calhauser gaß", Mercator only drew the towers (Wichhäuser) in 1571, the gate is no longer there

The Kahlenhausener- or Judenpforte in the northeastern section of the medieval Cologne city ​​wall was referred to as porta judeorum in an entry in the municipal shrine books of the year 1349 . However, the gate as such only had a short lifespan and was apparently walled up as early as 1446, since in the protocol of a watch distribution of the same year only the "Judenwichhaus" of the section, but not the gate or gate, were taken into account.

history

Hinterland of the gate

A new ditch in front of “Caldenhusen” was mentioned as early as 1239 (area Bertradis versus novum fossatum Caldenhusen). The area on the town side "Kaldenhuysen" and later called Kahlenhausen arable, wine and garden land, joined the turret wall running between the Eigelsteintor and the Kunibertsturm on the town side. It was an initially sparsely built-up area in the northeastern suburban district of Niederich , with only a few courtyards .

In 1405 a shrine entry noted the ownership sequence of one of the farms there and its lands (accessories). Like this one, it was mostly possessions that belonged to the monasteries or the families of the Cologne patriciate , as in other areas of the inner city area .

The farm, which was previously called "dat Kelderhus", with a farmstead, a tree garden and three apartments under one roof, together with all its accessories "under Kaldenhusen", is located opposite the city wall on the vineyard of Diederich von Schiederich and once belonged to the knight Werner vom Spiegel, formerly “de Speculo” (those from Schiederich, vom Spiegel and Hardevust were the city's mayors as early as the 14th century ) and was then owned by Alderman Goebel Hardevust.

The Kahlenhausen area served agricultural purposes well into modern times and, apart from the houses that were built along the few existing roads, only sparsely developed. There were town-side houses on Türmchenswall, on Krahnen (today probably Am Krahnenhof), Unter Krahnenbäume and Kahlenhausen. Keussen located the Fronhof of St. Kunibert on the city side of the Eigelsteintores on the north side of the street Eigelstein and as additional farmsteads the Stedingshof (zum Krahnen), as well as the farms "Kalder Stessen" and "Kaldenhusen", the latter at the end of the "Calhauser" which runs towards the gate gass ​​”, today's street“ Unter Kahlenhausen ”.

Description of the structure

City wall tower with "throwing nose", reconstruction by the architect Heinrich Wiethase

The gate, made of basalt panel , had a narrow passage corresponding to the narrow “Calhauser gass”. This was designed in an ogival arch made of ashlar and was only 2.75 m wide and reached a top height of 5.00 m. It was flanked to the west by a semicircular defensive tower of the wall and to the east by a wall ledge in which there was a smaller passage to the wall. Like many of the other gate structures, the Kahlenhausen gate on the field side had a wooden throwing gallery above the gate. The building was bordered by the city ​​wall made of tuff stone (in the form of bricks), which had been equipped with semicircular defense towers at regular intervals. The one following the gate in the direction of Eigelstein was equipped with a "throwing nose" and, due to this additional equipment, was probably a so-called battle house and was called Wichhus in medieval Cologne.

Designation "Judenpforte"

The gate was probably built as one of the last gates in the great curtain wall. This can be seen from another shrine file from 1262, in which the old Jewish gate in Zeughausstrasse was referred to as "antiqua porta", which was also transferred to the Jews for defense when the wall was expanded in 1106 .

The relationship between the citizens of Cologne and their Jewish flatmates has been ambivalent since the earliest times . In 1349 riots against the Jews in Cologne broke out again, also supported by the rampant plague , for which people were looking for guilty parties. They culminated in murder, expropriations and displacement. These were processes that lasted until the 1370s with the approval of the council, which from 1372 again pursued a moderate policy on the Jewish question. However, it can be assumed that from 1349 the Jews were deprived of responsibility for the Kahlenhausen defense section. For the year 1371 the entry “vigilantes up der Juden Wichhuss” was found in the city accounts, from which it can be seen that the city's vigilante guarded the Kahlenhausen section. Since the name Rondell or Wichhaus (battle house) was used in the watch order of 1446, but also in later times, for specially equipped battle houses, in the Kahlenhausen wall section it was only a name adopted from the past that no longer corresponded to reality. The final expulsion of the Jews, decided by the city council in 1423 , was carried out in 1424, accompanied by pogroms .

In 1475 city bills it was called “Watch on the Jews Wichhuys” and again in 1560, when a house was called “zo der kalder Schuren” on the city wall opposite the Jew Wichhaus, but in 1582 there was no such name, it was called “six field towers between Eigelsteinpforte and S. Cunibert. "

Change to bastion and laying down

On the map of Arnold Mercator nothing can be seen of the Kahlenhausenpforte, but an increase in the development of the quarter can be seen. In the 17th century, during the Thirty Years' War , the city carried out further strengthening of its fortifications as a precaution and also equipped the wall section in front of Kahlenhausen with a small bulwark. With this change, which should be recognizable in Hollar and Merian's drawings (1646), the references to Kahlenhausen's fortifications end.

Below Kahlenhausen in front of the Türmchenswall

At the end of the 19th century, measures were taken to expand the city, which had become inevitable. In 1882 the demolition of the bulwarks began, which was followed in sections by the removal of the city wall. The improvement and new construction of traffic routes through the demolition of the medieval city wall gave the quarter free access to the area that was formerly located “down the field”. As part of the then emerging Neustadt-Nord, the Türmchenswall was also built on on its northwest side. The street Unter Kahlenhausen later continued with the newly created Clever Straße, which now led to the Deutsches Ring (today Theodor-Heuss-Ring ) with its extensive green areas that had replaced the former security harbor there.

literature

• Hermann Keussen, Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages. in 2 volumes. Cologne 1910. Reprint: Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-7560-9 and ISBN 3-7700-7561-7 .
• Hans Vogts , Fritz Witte: The art monuments of the city of Cologne , on behalf of the provincial association of the Rhine province and the city of Cologne. Published by Paul Clemen, Vol. 7, Section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , Düsseldorf 1930. Verlag L. Schwann, Düsseldorf. Reprint Pedagogischer Verlag Schwann, 1980. ISBN 3-590-32102-4

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Vogts, Witte: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln , on behalf of the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province and the City of Cologne. (Ed.) Paul Clemen, vol. 7, section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , city fortifications p. 27 ff
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Hermann Keussen, Volume II, Chapter XIII District Eigelstein, p. 269 ff
3. ↑ Hermann Keussen, Volume II, Chapter XIII, Map of the Eigelstein District, p. 266

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 57.5 ″  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 42.5 ″  E