Katlenburg (castle)
| Katlenburg | ||
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 The southeast side of the Katlenburg |
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| Alternative name (s): | Book castle | |
| Creation time : | 1000 to 1100 | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg , spur location | |
| Conservation status: | Preserved essential parts | |
| Standing position : | Counts, clericals | |
| Place: | Katlenburg | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 40 '39.5 " N , 10 ° 6' 0.8" E | |
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The Katlenburg is a former castle and monastery complex in the district of Katlenburg in the municipality of Katlenburg-Lindau in Lower Saxony. The complex, which was built in the 11th century as a spur castle , was for the longest time in its eventful history a monastery and seat of an agricultural domain , later an educational establishment. The complex has been known as the book castle since 1990 .
location
The Katlenburg is located near the district Katlenburg in the western Harz foreland . It is strategically located at the end of a mountain spur on the Katelberg, which gives the castle its name . It is protected on two sides by 50 m high steep slopes. The Rhume and Katlenbach flow on two sides of the castle hill . In total, there are four rivers and streams in the lowland, which, with their once marshy river valley, made it difficult for enemies to approach. These are the Rhume with two branches of the river, the Söse and the Katlenbach. The castle can only be approached without major obstacles via the mountain plateau from the south. In the Middle Ages, the Nordhäuser Heerstraße to Leipzig, via which the traffic from the Rhineland to Thuringia ran, ran below the castle in the plain . The road crossed the rooms immediately below the castle.
Building description
The Katlenburg originally consisted of a triangular main castle at the steeply sloping end of a mountain spur. The Merian engraving from 1654 shows this area of the castle with dilapidated buildings and remains of walls. Presumably, the buildings that still exist today were erected on the foundations in later centuries. The unprotected south side of the mountain plateau secured a backfilled today section ditch . The keep , which can be seen in the remains of a 10 × 10 m foundation wall pedestal , was probably found earlier in this area . Moreover, there was a preliminary Vorburg in later appointed domain area.
Because of the different history with multiple destruction by fire and war events, the buildings on the castle hill do not form a single group from one style period today. They are loosely distributed over the site and come from different time periods. The center of the complex is the church as a former castle church with a crypt . Both are the oldest components and are assigned to the castle when it was built in the 13th century.
The medieval gate building southeast of the church has Gothic style elements. In addition to the passage in the eastern half-timbered wall above a door beam, there are Gothic curtain arches.
The magazine building is located north of the church. In its basement there are barrel vaults as well as ribless cross vaults .
The basement has been preserved from the eastern curtain wall of the lower castle. Originally there was a solid construction with half-timbered upper floors , similar to the Welfenschloss in Herzberg am Harz . Parts of the basement vaults plastered with plaster are filled with rubble. The lower part of the wall is so deep in the rubble that even the loopholes are covered with rubbish. These light openings can be seen on a merian stitch at least 5 to 6 meters above the ground. The north, west and south areas of the former curtain wall are only partially preserved.
Directly to the north, adjacent to the northwest gate, is the former official prison used as an apartment.
The building, known today as the “Magazin”, consists on the ground floor of a chapel that was formerly located in the western part with extensions of a representative massive building. The narrow chapel has Gothic vaults, like the larger eastern part. Apparently the building originally had one or more upper floors. In the building on the south side there is a massive semicircle as a remnant of a former round tower or stair tower. The outer wall is built in a straight line, as if you had cut off the remains of the tower. A door leads into the semicircle from the outside. The south wall of the “magazine building” shows, to the east of a bend in the line of the wall, high early Gothic windows and entrances set at different heights. At the “Philippschlösschen” to the south, gothic wall breakthroughs that are still walled up today point to the older subdivision of the floors and the approach of the eastern residential wing that formerly connected the two buildings.
The younger buildings to the north of the “Magazin” date from the 18th century.
The massive and half-timbered buildings of the Amtshof to the south of the church were not built until after the Thirty Years' War . The “riding stables” built in the middle of the farm yard in the 17th century had a self- supporting ceiling construction that was astonishing for the times .
Next to today's southern driveway are the remains of the "ox barn" on the left. It was ruined by a severe storm in the 1980s due to neglected building repairs.
history
middle Ages
The castle was built in the 11th century by the Counts of Katlenburg, who had a supraregional importance in imperial politics at this time. The family of counts has been documented since 1002 by the brothers Heinrich and Udo von Katlenburg . Her descendants were Dietrich I. , Dietrich II. And Dietrich III. The pious Count Dietrich III, who remained without descendants. and his wife Adela von Beichlingen converted the castle into a monastery in 1105 , in which they had the curtain wall removed. The monastery was founded in honor of the evangelist John and called Johanneskloster. It is not entirely clear whether piety or childlessness was the motive for founding the monastery. Another reason is believed to be that the center of power was moved to Stauffenburg near Gittelde , where Count Dietrich also had his own coins minted. The couple had the monastery church of Katlenburg built. With the death of Dietrich in 1106 during the siege of Cologne, his family died out. He was buried in the crypt of the church he built. In the 12th century, Augustinian canons and later Augustinian women choirs lived in the castle, which was converted into a monastery .
In the 14th century the monastery suffered a few blows of fate. In 1346 the monastery complex burned down presumably as a result of arson . This fire was reflected in the Catlenburger Lied from 1346, which is considered the oldest Low German song in Lower Saxony. In 1348 the plague raged in the area, which worsened the economic situation of the monastery. In 1392 there was an attack from Thuringia.
Modern times
Between 1525 and 1534 the monastery put a stock book to, were listed in which all possessions, rights and income. The reason was concerns about the loss of property due to the peasant wars that developed in 1525 . The book names monasteries owned by 270 people in 70 locations. Around 45 villages in the area belonged to the monastery, but also places near Braunschweig. In addition, the monastic property included fishing rights to Rhume , Oder, Söse , Bever as well as hunting and milling rights. There were also patronage rights to churches in the area.
During the Reformation the monastery was secularized in 1534 . In 1560 Philip II von Grubenhagen moved into the building with his wife Clara von Wolfenbüttel . They transformed a part of the former monastery building into a renaissance - castle to. They lived in the complex until 1595, which made it a secondary residence in Grubenhagen. After the departure of the prince pair an inhabited bailiff of the castle. He was administrator, court lord and manager of the official court on the Katlenburg.
During the Thirty Years War there was a lengthy siege of the Katlenburg in 1625, which was under Protestant sovereignty. The imperial general Tilly was the besiegers . After the occupation surrendered and he took over the castle, the general Christian von Wolfenbüttel took it back in April 1626. He had the castle and church looted and set on fire.
During the Seven Years' War , French and Saxon troops occupied the facility in 1761. In doing so, they desecrated the castle church.
In 1819 the Amtshof was separated from the administrative headquarters on the Katlenburg as an agricultural enterprise. A royal domain was created, which was initially leased and existed as a state domain until 1950. The first domain leaseholder had a riding stable with a riding hall built as early as 1820 . In 1859 the official seat was moved to Lindau .
20th century
In 1964, the Lower Saxony Schreberjugend set up a leisure and educational facility at the castle, which was closed in 2007 due to bankruptcy . The Katlenburg premises will continue to serve as an educational facility. Today, other facilities at the castle and the castle hill have been part of the church since 1955, the castle hill school since 1974, a sports hall since 1975 and a hotel since 2008.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, Katlenburg has become known nationwide as a book castle . Around half a million old books, mainly from GDR remnants, are stored in their premises . They are given in exchange for a donation in favor of Bread for the World . The initiator of the campaign is Martin Weskott , pastor of the Sankt-Johannes-Gemeinde in Katlenburg. In the castle area there is a restaurant with a hotel and seminar house.
literature
- Helmut Engel : Die Katlenburg , Grosse Baudenkmäler Heft 191, Berlin 1980
- Hans-Joachim Winzer: The Katlenburg monastery and its stock book from 1525 , Duderstadt 1979, ISBN 3-923453-91-4
- Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Katlenburg . In: If stones could talk . Volume IV, Landbuch-Verlag, Hanover 1998, pp. 95-96, ISBN 3-7842-0558-5
- Hans-Joachim Winzer: The Counts of Katlenburg (999-1106). Diss. Phil. Goettingen 1974
- Markus C. Blaich , Sonja Stadje, Kim Kappes: Katlenburg Castle and Castle in: The Heldenburg near Salzderhelden, Castle and Residence in the Principality of Grubenhagen , (= guide to the prehistory and early history of Lower Saxony. 32) Isensee Verlag , Oldenburg, 2019, p. 123-126.
Individual evidence
Web links
- Entry by Gudrun Pischke and Stefan Eismann on Katlenburg in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Site plan of the castle complex
- Description of the castle at HNA Regiowiki
- Reconstruction drawing in the medieval state
- Reconstruction drawing in supervision
- Photos of the Katlenburg at the Photo Archive Photo Marburg
- Description of the Collegiate, Augustinian Canons and Choir Women Foundation Katlenburg on the Lower Saxony monastery map of the Institute for Historical Research
- Website of the book castle in Katlenburg
