Cellar castle

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Cellar castle
Battenberg (center) and the cellar castle (left), right inside the city wall the old castle - excerpt from the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian 1655

Battenberg (center) and the cellar castle (left), right inside the city wall the old castle - excerpt from the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian 1655

Creation time : around 1227
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Keep, remains of walls, moat
Standing position : Count
Place: Battenberg
Geographical location 51 ° 0 '57.3 "  N , 8 ° 38' 17.8"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 0 '57.3 "  N , 8 ° 38' 17.8"  E
Height: 464  m above sea level NHN
Kellerburg (Hesse)
Cellar castle

The Kellerburg is the ruin of a hilltop castle on the 464 m high Burgberg (Kellerberg) in the northern urban area of Battenberg in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district in Hesse .

history

The castle was built in the early years of the 13th century by the Counts of Battenberg, probably during the reign of Count Werner I of Battenberg and Wittgenstein or his son Widekind I (Widukind) , who ruled until 1238. After its completion, Widukind moved from the old count castle on the high edge of the valley of Battenberg (in today's vicarage) to the cellar castle. First mention of the castle was the in 1227 than the Battenberger the Kellerburg Ludowinger Landgrave Heinrich Raspe IV. To feudal auftrugen.

Due to the location of their comparatively small county in the border area between competing powerful rulers, the archbishopric of Mainz and the Thuringian-Hessian landgraviate of the Ludowingers , the Battenberg counts saw themselves compelled to move cautiously and opportunistically between the two and, depending on the circumstances, more to the to lean on one side or the other for their own survival. Widekind I. and Hermann von Battenberg, who had previously been dependent on Mainz, gave the castle (or at least half of it) as a fief to Landgrave Heinrich Raspe as early as 1227 or 1228 and received it from him as a fief back; at the same time they became landgrave castle men in Marburg . At the same time (1228), the first negotiations with Archbishop Siegfried II of Mainz took place regarding a possible sale of the castle (or its other half) to the archbishopric. In 1234 there were renewed negotiations in this matter. A corresponding contract dated April 9, 1234, according to which Widekind I undertook to sell half of the castles Battenberg and Kellerburg and the associated city of Battenberg and the county “Stiffe” (“Stift”) for 600 marks to Mainz, obviously did not materialize in force and was probably only the result of preliminary negotiations. Widekind emphasized the consent of his brother Hermann and his son and promised to get the consent of his wife and daughters after Hermann's death, but the situation was not so easy, not only because the cellar castle was the landgrave's fief, but also because they Succession in Battenberg was linked to the condition that Siegfried I. von Wittgenstein also became a Mainz feudal man.

Keep of the former castle complex

Only in July 1238, after the county had been divided into the counties Wittgenstein and Battenberg between Widukinds sons , this sale was made with Archbishop Siegfried III. by the brothers Widekind II. and Werner III. von Battenberg and her brother Siegfried I von Wittgenstein completed, with the Battenbergers and the Wittgensteiners each selling their half to the archbishop. The sale was delayed because one half of the castle belonged to Siegfried von Wittgenstein and because the Lords of Merenberg were also able to file inheritance claims on the castle. In addition, half of the castle had been a fiefdom of the landgrave since 1227/28, and with the planned sale the Battenbergers at least partially violated their 1228 agreements with the landgrave. (He had considerable leverage in hand, not least because Konrad von Thuringia , his brother Heinrich Raspes and Ludowinger regent in their Hessian parts of the country, 1233/34 on the Frankenberg , in the middle of the area of ​​the County of Battenberg, on the border between the judicial districts of Röddenau and Geismar had a castle and a city built to put a stop to Mainz's efforts to gain further territorial territory in this area.)

In 1291, Count Hermann II († 1310) von Battenberg was forced to sell parts of his county to the Archbishopric of Mainz due to financial difficulties: the castle and town of Battenberg and the courts of Laisa , Battenfeld and Münchhausen became property of Mainz. In return, Mainz gave him half of the cellar castle back, but reserved the right of first refusal. In 1296, the last installment from the 1291 sales contract was paid. Since the childless Hermann was still in financial difficulties and the extinction of his house was foreseeable, he sold his remaining share in the cellar castle and the Battenberg rule with all accessories for 2000 - with the consent of his brother-in-law Heinrich IV von Waldeck and his wife Ida Mark to Archbishop Gerhard II of Mainz. After Hermann's death in 1310, Mainz moved into the small county and had it administered as the Battenberg office.

Mainz needed money to finance its disputes with the Landgraves of Hesse , and as early as 1303 Archbishop Gerhard II pledged the cellar castle and castle and town of Battenberg to his bailiff in Hesse and the Eichsfeld , Count Otto I von Waldeck and his son Heinrich. After a dispute between Waldeck and Mainz, which culminated with the capture of Heinrich IV. Von Waldeck by Archbishop Peter von Aspelt , Heinrich IV. Returned the cellar castle and castle and town of Battenberg, as well as Gieselwerder castle , in exchange for a corresponding payment of money .

In 1353 the Mainz cathedral provost and monastery administrator Kuno II of Falkenstein pledged the cellar castle and the castle and town of Battenberg to the noblemen and brothers Konrad and Werner Milchling , who made him and Archbishop Heinrich III. von Virneburg had actively supported against Landgrave Heinrich II of Hesse. Just three years later, in 1356, Archbishop Gerlach von Nassau pledged the cellar castle and castle and town of Battenberg to his brother, Count Johann I von Nassau-Weilburg . In 1364 he sold the pledge to his nephew Otto II von Waldeck .

View from the keep of Allendorf

It is not known whether and when the Mainz deposit was redeemed, but it does not appear to have been the case. In 1463 the castle was abandoned as a residential complex and only used as a material store. In 1464, Archbishop Adolf II of Mainz took over the office of Battenberg (i.e., Kellerberg, Battenberg, Rosenthal, Melnau and half of Wetter, along with accessories) and with him the cellar castle as pledge to Landgrave Heinrich III. von Oberhessen for 30,000 guilders to redeem funds to pay for the costs incurred during the Mainz collegiate feud of 1461/62. Heinrich had to redeem the Battenberg and Kellerburg castles, which had already been pledged otherwise (probably still to the Counts of Waldeck), for 22,000 guilders. Although the 40 × 25 m castle complex in the Salbuch of the "Oberfürstentums" Marburg was still described as intact in 1577, it no longer had any actual function and fell into disrepair or was used as a quarry. The last remains of the building, with the exception of the keep , were demolished towards the end of the 19th century. The stones were used to build houses, walls and streets in Battenberg.

Current condition

Today, on Castle Hill, only the a lookout tower restored 17-meter-high keep, remains of the perimeter wall and the moat to see. The tower is open to visitors from April to September from morning to dusk. The ascent takes place on an internal staircase with 88 steps. From the viewing platform you have a good all-round view and, if visibility is good, a distant view of the Marburg Lahn Mountains , the Kahler Asten in the Rothaar Mountains and the Hohen Lohr in the Kellerwald .

Burgberg tunnel

Visitor mine

A former mine in the Burgberg has been accessible as a visitor mine since 2000. It is open from May to September on the first Sunday of the month from 2pm to 5pm after prior registration.

literature

  • The castles of Battenberg and Kellerberg . In: Hessisches Staatsarchiv in Darmstadt, Historischer Verein für Hessen (Hrsg.): Archive for Hessian history and antiquity . tape 7 , booklet 3.Historical Association for Hesse, 1853, p. 559–566 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 41 ff.
  • Stefan Grathoff: Archbishop's castles of Mainz: Acquisition and function of lordship using the example of the Archbishops of Mainz in the High and Late Middle Ages . In: Historical regional studies . tape 58 . Steiner, 2005, ISBN 3-515-08240-9 , ISSN  0072-4203 , p. 87–88 (590 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Jens Friedhoff : Castles, palaces and aristocratic residences in the Hessian hinterland . Published by the Hinterland History Association, 2018, p. 168.

Web links

Commons : Kellerburg  - Collection of images

Remarks

  1. ↑ The place Battenberg itself was first mentioned in a document in 1232, but already in 1234 as a city.
  2. ^ Photo of the information board on the tower, on commons.wikimedia.org
  3. ^ The Wittgenstein relatives waived their inheritance claims in 1322.
  4. ^ Johann Ernst Christian Schmidt : History of the Grand Duchy of Hesse . First volume. Heyer, Giessen 1818, p. 252 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ In 1583 the entire Battenberg pledge finally became the property of the landgraves with the Merlau contract .