Löwenburg JU
| JU is the abbreviation for the canton of Jura in Switzerland and is used to avoid confusion with other entries of the name Löwenburg . |
| Löwenburg | ||
|---|---|---|
 Löwenburg from the south |
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| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Place: | Pleigne | |
| Geographical location | 47 ° 26 '6.5 " N , 7 ° 18' 54.1" E | |
| Height: | 585 m | |
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Löwenburg is a hamlet belonging to the municipality of Pleigne in the Swiss canton of Jura and consists of a castle ruin (13th / 14th century) and a fortified courtyard (16th century) that has been entered in the cantonal and federal register of historical monuments. The settlement and building history of Löwenburg is presented in its own museum.
Löwenburg is located on a spur on a plateau above the Lützeltal (585 m above sea level), on an old Jura crossing between southern Alsace and the Pierre-Pertuis route from Basel to Biel . The hamlet forms the German-speaking part of the otherwise French-speaking municipality of Pleigne and is adjacent to the German-speaking area (municipalities of Ederswiler and Roggenburg ).
Prehistory and the Middle Ages
The first human traces in the Löwenburg area date from the Middle and Neolithic ; Various devices and tees were found that prove the mining and processing of flint . An actual settlement does not seem to have taken place before the High Middle Ages . According to archaeological findings, the castle was founded in the late 10th century, still as a wooden structure, the first documented mention of the Löwenburg comes from 1271. There has also been a meier farm next to the castle since the turn of the first millennium . The castle was first built in stone shortly before 1200 (initially only as a primitive curtain wall) and in the middle of the 13th century it was completely redesigned into a fortress that was both powerful (massive quarry stone ) and representative ( sandstone work , tiled roofs , tiled stoves , slug panes ). The importance of the complex is evident in the fact that it was promptly restored after it burned down completely before 1300. The Basel earthquake of 1356 led to the destruction and construction of the keep and cistern. Smaller extensions took place in the 15th century.
The owner of Löwenburg was a noble family from Sundgau , which had a lion in its coat of arms at the latest in 1235, from which the name of the castle was derived. Castle and courtyard were originally an allod (own property) of the Lords of Löwenburg, but became a fiefdom of the Counts of Pfirt in the middle of the 13th century and one of the Dukes of Habsburg in the 14th century . Shortly after 1360, through marriage and inheritance, the property was transferred to the estates of the Basel knight family Münch von Münchenstein , who also frequented the Löwenburg. Due to financial difficulties, the Münch sold the Löwenburg property in 1526 to the nearby Lützel monastery ; this left the fortification to fall into disrepair, but instead turned the manor into a fortification.
Modern times and the present
The original Meierhof is likely to have been a simple Sennhof , possibly with some defensive structures. The Defensionale (defense alliance) of 1580 between the Bishop of Basel and the Catholic towns of the Confederation caused the Abbot of Lützel Beatus Papa to undertake a large-scale new building; Around 1585–1600, a three-part residential and administrative wing was built, followed by a church-like chapel, finally a battlement and gate tower. The building, in which post-Gothic residential, defense and sacred architecture was combined, remained a torso; an episcopal objection and the accidental death of the abbot in 1597 prevented the completion of an actual fortress with a small town character. (Other significant expansions of the estate happened until the 18th century .: supplementing the residential tract by a further 1,820 renovated front building; Pächter- and guest house;. Dairy and barn) Nevertheless, the used convention of the monastery Lützel Hofgut as a refuge during the Thirty Years' War , and several abbots and members of the convent were buried in the chapel. However, the chapel never received the status of a parish church, just as Löwenburg never became a Lützel's provost.
As a result of the French Revolution and the fall of the Duchy of Basel and the Lützel Monastery, Löwenburg first came into state ownership and gradually passed into private hands from 1796 onwards. In 1956, the Basel Christoph Merian Foundation bought the estate and its ruins and had it extensively restored from 1963 to 1966 . Since the 1960s, several new buildings have been built for the uninterrupted agricultural operation (originally dairy farming, extensive grassland operation with suckler cows since the mid-1970s).
museum
In 1961 a local history museum was set up in the old cheese dairy, which was extensively renovated from 1995–1996. On the one hand, prehistoric finds from the nearby flint processing (tips, scrapers , knives and drills) are exhibited. On the other hand, artefacts from the area of the castle ruins document everyday life in the Middle Ages: stove tiles, ceramics, clay tiles, weapons, coins, hunting, war and agricultural implements as well as gifts from the monks' graves; A Pope's seal is particularly valuable. A reconstruction model shows the castle in an intact state.
Attractions
literature
- Werner Meyer : The Löwenburg in the Bernese Jura: history of the castle, the rule and its inhabitants [Basler contributions to historical science, vol. 113]. Basel / Stuttgart 1968.
- Emil Maurer , Werner Meyer: The Löwenburg JU. (Swiss Art Guide, No. 96). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 1989, ISBN 978-3-85782-096-0 .
- Werner Meyer, Eduard Widmer: The great castle book of Switzerland. ExLibris, Zurich 1977, 320 p. Ill., P. 198.
