Eschlkam fortified church

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Cemetery fortifications, partly medieval, four-sided walling with round tower on the northeast corner, now Lourdes chapel.

The fortified church Eschlkam was in the Upper Palatinate market Eschlkam in the Cham district of Bavaria (Kirchstrasse 10-14). The remains can be found in the cemetery area north of the market square.

history

The name of Eschlkam is partly derived from ash and partly from the river Chamb or from the town of Cham .

In a tradition of the Reichenbach monastery dating back to 1178–1183 , a Gotsalkus de Eskilkambe is mentioned, who can be regarded as the local castle owner. After the transfer of the Mark Cham from the Diepoldingern to the Wittelsbacher , the place was raised to a seat of its own office and court in 1204. The ampt Eschelkambe is mentioned for the first time in the oldest Duke Surbar from 1231/37. It comprised the area between the border and the Hohe Bogen as well as the area from the parish from Arnschwang to Weiding . A parish in Eschlkam is occupied from 1326 at the latest. In 1255, Eschlkam fell to the Duchy of Lower Bavaria when the country was divided . In the land register of the Viztumamt Straubing the name gerihte zu Eschelcamb appears around 1301 .

In the second half of the 13th or the first half of the 14th century, the conversion of the former ministerial seat into a fortified church castle should take place . Eschelkam may have had to accept a loss of importance compared to Kleinaign in the 14th century , as the entire district court was called Aign in a boundary description from 1350 to 1400 or the name Winkel was used for the first time in 1352 . After the Lower Bavarian line of the Wittelbachers died out, Lower and Upper Bavaria were reunited with each other under Ludwig the Bavarian in 1340. In 1352 the Cham and Eschlkam courts were pledged to the Palatinate Wittelsbachers, but in 1353 the Wittelsbachers from Niederbayern-Straubing-Holland were granted a redemption right. In 1361 the court Eschlkam and the eastern part of the court Cham came back to this line of Wittelsbachers.

In the 14th century the judicial districts of Furth im Wald and Neukirchen bei Heiligen Blut were removed from the Eschlkamer district. From 1380 the nurse sat in the Winkel until the Hussite Wars on Kleinaign. After the Straubing line of the Wittelsbach family with Duke Johann III died out. In 1425 Eschlkam fell to Duke Wilhelm III. from Bavaria-Munich and was incorporated into the newly formed court of Kötzting in 1361 .

In the course of the Hussite Wars , Eschlkam was largely destroyed. In 1420 the Viztum zu Straubing gave the instruction to pau the Kirchof against the Hussen . In 1422 the complex was referred to as coemetrium (= grave complex ) hoc est munitum in modum castri and plures domus in eo were mentioned. In 1424 eight riflemen are attested here as occupying the fortified church. Whether the facility was destroyed in 1433 is uncertain, but it is probable because Kleinaign was burned down at that time. Afterwards, the reconstruction of the Eschlkamer care lock to the west of the still existing gate building can be accepted. At that time the complex consisted of a church, karner , maintenance lock and a circular wall . 1451 Eschlkam was awarded to Přibik von Klenau . After his death († 1465), Duke Sigmund von Bayern-Munich sold the rule to his hereditary steward Hans von Degenberg . Since he played a leading role in the Böckler War , his goods were confiscated in 1468/69 and Duke Albrecht IV awarded the maintenance office for Eschlkam, Neukirchen and Furth to Ratzko von Rayol for three years . In 1474 he was reappointed the caretaker of Eschlkam, but was ordered to spend 200 guilders at the cemetery for emergency purposes , i.e. i.e. to repair the war damage. In the early 16th century, all reconstruction efforts appear to have ended. In Landshut War of Succession Eschlkam does not seem to have been damaged. In the views from this period, the nursing home is a three-story building with a cripple hipped roof . The circular wall has mouth notches and carries a cantilevered battlement built using log construction. The gate tower is also three-story and a ring tower built to the northeast can also be seen. The facility is enclosed by a ditch. Nothing seems to have changed until the Thirty Years' War , the expansion of the fortress and the market, planned in 1619, did not take place. The last carer here was Hans Adam Grimm , who often had an argument with the Eschelkamer citizens.

At the end of February 1634 the fortified church was taken by troops from the Swedish Colonel Georg Christoph von Taupadel . His department belonged to the army of Field Marshal Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar , who had conquered Regensburg in November 1634 . Taupadel found many hidden riches in the castle and made a very large booty. As a thank you, the nursing home was burned down and the church was badly damaged. As a result, the Eschlkam Nursing Office was attached to Furth from 1640 to 1654. After 1654 it was connected with Neukirchen in personal union. After a decree by Elector Ferdinand Maria on March 27, 1634, the reconstruction of the nursing home was prohibited and only the fortifications of the place were restored. The church had also been rebuilt and the cemetery expanded. Another damage to the church in the War of the Spanish Succession around 1703 has not been proven with certainty. In 1774 the Eschlkam Nursing Office was dissolved together with Neukirchen and Kötzting was added.

Markt Eschlkam after an engraving by Michael Wening from 1721

Kirchenburg Eschlkam then and now

After the engraving by Michael Wening from 1721, the destroyed care lock can be seen next to the church. A wall stretches from the church to a square tower with at least two stories. The place itself appears to be unpaved.

By the 19th century, the ruins of the nursing palace were completely removed and the cemetery, which was newly inaugurated in 1749, was built in its place. The powder tower on the northeast corner was used as an ossuary. In addition, the curtain wall was removed by a few meters and the north-west strand completely. The church was renovated from 1976 to 1984, and the curtain wall, the powder tower and the gatehouse between 1977 and 1987. The round tower (former powder tower) on the northeast corner is now used as a Lourdes chapel. The former ossuary was filled in. The gatehouse is a two-storey and eaves gable roof building with a round arched passage, the core of which is still medieval . The trapezoidal cemetery fortification made of regular quarry stone goes back in part to the earlier curtain wall of the fortified church. The cemetery wall, which protrudes 9 m to the south, marks the location of the former nursing home. The former ditch is no longer recognizable.

The parish church of St. James the Elder comes mainly from the reconstruction after the Thirty Years' War. The previously existing barrel vault was removed between 1866 and 1868 and replaced by a flat ceiling. The neo-romantic Byzantine interior dates from 1888 and was last thoroughly renovated from 1976 to 1988.

literature

  • Bernhard Ernst: Castle building in the southeastern Upper Palatinate from the early Middle Ages to the early modern period, Part II catalog (=  work on the archeology of southern Germany . Volume 16 ). Dr. Faustus, Büchenbach 2001, ISBN 3-933474-20-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernhard Ernst, 2001, pp. 67–73.
  2. ↑ Peter Engerisser: From Kronach to Nördlingen. The Thirty Years' War in Franconia Swabia and the Upper Palatinate 1631–1635 . Verlag Späthling Weißenstadt 2007, p. 212. ISBN 978-3-926621-56-6

Web links

Commons : St. Jakobus the Elder (Eschlkam)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 17 '59.3 "  N , 12 ° 55' 0.1"  E