Laneburg

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The Laneburg seen from the Lahn side.
Exterior view
inside view

The castle - ruin Laneburg in Löhnberg is located in the middle Lahn between the old imperial city of Wetzlar , in the Nassauer counts long time exercised the Bailiwick law and Weilburg , the ancestral home of walramischen line of the House of Nassau . The ruin lies above the Lahn at the point where the river enters a narrow rock valley from the wide valley of the Löhnberg basin. The Laneburg became known in numismatic circles through a coin hoard discovered in 2000 during renovation work , the so-called “Treasure of the Laneburg”.

history

The Laneburg lies as a foundation of the Ottonian line of the Nassauer at the southern end of their domain at that time, which stretched from Siegen via Dillenburg and Beilstein to the Lahn. Its origins go back to a Franconian settlement in the valley floor, near the Löhnberg intersection of today's B 49 . This place "Heimau", mentioned for the first time in 1254, already existed around 500 AD, as found Franconian graves prove. The place came to the Counts of Nassau after 1100. When the Nassau brotherhood was divided in 1255, the Heimau court fell to Otto I von Nassau , the founder of the Ottonian line of the House of Nassau . His son Johann with the hood had the Laneburg built in 1321–1324 on the rocky spur of the Schletsberg above the village.

As early as 1324 a document was sealed in this castle, on which the name "Laneburg" appears. The document deals with the various rights of the neighbors and cousins ​​of Laneburg and Weilburg. After Count Johann von Nassau-Dillenburg fell in a battle against Landgrave Heinrich II of Hesse near Wetzlar towards the end of the Dernbacher feud in 1328 , the castle came to his brother Heinrich von Nassau-Siegen . In 1344 he pledged the castle and town of Laneburg to Nassau-Weilburg and others.

At the end of the 16th century, the Counts of Nassau-Beilstein / Dillenburg began to convert the castle into a renaissance palace . There was a dispute with the co-owners, so that Georg von Nassau-Dillenburg felt compelled to put soldiers and heavy artillery in the Laneburg in order to secure the continuation of the construction work. The originally planned rectangular building with inner courtyard was not completed.

1773 House of Nassau-Weilburg exchanged the place and Laneburg against three villages in the Westerwald of Nassau-Dillenburg. When the castle was converted into a tithe barn in 1782, the large windows were walled up.

During the Nassau administrative reform in 1816, Löhnberg lost his official function. The castle was sold, partly to the community and partly to private individuals; it was still used as a barn and stables.

On September 5, 1900, the castle burned down and was not rebuilt. Towards the end of the Second World War , an aerial bomb destroyed the stair tower and the vault of the wine cellar.

Restoration and coin discovery

In 1968 the community of Löhnberg began to secure and cover the walls. The “Rheingold” singers' association carried out the first renovation work in the 1960s , expanded the cellar for gastronomic use and in 1970 organized the 1st Castle Festival.

From the end of the 1990s on, the Laneburg was further renovated. In the course of this renovation, which lasted until 2001, the castle grounds became the site of an archaeological find in 2000 , the "coin treasure of the Laneburg". The find was made when the masonry was checked from the outside near the so-called "Landgraves Tower" when a hole was discovered there. The coin treasure, which was hidden behind it and deposited from the inside of the building in the area of ​​a toilet, comprises 211 silver coins and is made up of sorts of different currencies . The treasure must have been hidden from 1687.

Todays use

Until recently, there was an annual castle festival on the Laneburg. The building is also used for a Christmas market, numerous cabaret performances and events by local associations, companies and private individuals, as the knight's hall , wine and champagne cellars and the entire castle complex can be rented. There is also a wedding room in which many bridal couples from all over Germany are officially married every year. In addition to the monument protection, the castle has the protection status in case of war under the Hague Convention .

literature

  • Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich, Jens Friedhoff : "Decided with strong iron chains and bolts ...". Castles on the Lahn . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-2000-0 , pp. 104-107.
  • Niklot Klüßendorf: The treasure from Laneburg, community Löhnberg , district Limburg-Weilburg , hidden from 1687: "Bridge nominal" in money circulation in the late 17th century , series: Archaeological Monuments in Hessen, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-89822-155-5
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 239.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Löhnberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Heymaue (or Löhnberg) court included the castle and town of Löhnberg, Waldhausen and Odersbach. ( Johannes von Arnoldi, History of the Orange-Nassau Lands and their Regents, Volume 3, Neue Gelehrtenbuchhandlung, Hadamar, 1799 (p. 52) )

Coordinates: 50 ° 30 ′ 42 "  N , 8 ° 16 ′ 36.2"  E