Moth Altenburg
| Moth Altenburg | ||
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 The moth near Altenburg |
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| Creation time : | around 1100 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg, Motte, location | |
| Conservation status: | Burgstall, earthworks | |
| Standing position : | High nobility | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone (small remains) | |
| Place: | Jülich - Altenburg | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 53 '31 " N , 6 ° 23' 15" E | |
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The Motte Altenburg in the Jülich district of Altenburg in the Düren district in North Rhine-Westphalia is an abandoned tower hill castle (Motte) of the Jülich counts and is now a ground monument .
description
Almost nothing is left of the originally existing building, only the mound of earth, which is characteristic of a moth and is now tree-lined, and the rest of the ditch surrounding it stand out clearly from a pasture northwest of the village; from the federal highway 56 it is on the right in the direction of Düren Page easy to make out. It can be assumed that the Altenburg fortification was designed as a moth typical of the High Middle Ages. Presumably the artificial castle hill was crowned by a wooden or stone tower, which was surrounded by an outer bailey of palisades and earth walls. Small remnants of the wall suggest that the main castle on the mound also had a stone enclosure wall , some of which consists of remains of Roman bricks. In the middle of the castle hill, excavations in 1896 also revealed a well with a tuff border . Topographic maps from the beginning of the 19th century show a double moat around the moth hill, which is around 85 meters in diameter , which is silted up today and was fed by a branch of the Rur from the southwest. In the northeast, the main castle was adjoined by an outer bailey that was around 20 meters wide and 50 meters long; its rectangular floor plan still stands out slightly in the terrain. Until the end of the 19th century, the remains of the foundations of two stone round towers were recognizable at the corner points of the outer bailey.
history
Not much is known of the history of the castle. Earlier investigations found late Roman pottery remains in the run-up to this, which could indicate that one of the many country estates was located here, which existed in large numbers in the Rhineland at this time. It is unclear whether the settlement continued after the migration, but there are also late medieval ceramic and tile fragments that go back to the 13th century. The motte itself was probably created in the 12th century to supplement and strengthen the fortifications in the Jülich area during a phase of power growth for the County of Jülich , when it was in a heated dispute with the overpowering Archdiocese of Cologne , which was the dominant power in the region at the time. Together with the late antique fort in Jülich, it was presumably intended to secure the Rur line and restrict the freedom of movement of armies passing through; some also want to recognize the ancestral castle of the Jülich counts in it. The motte was probably destroyed in the course of the dispute with the archbishop sometime in the course of the 13th century and not rebuilt; its end may coincide with the devastation of Jülich in 1278. Perhaps it met its fate as early as 1239, when an archiepiscopal army devastated the area around Jülich. It cannot be determined with certainty whether the moth was established near an already existing village or whether a new one was formed under its protection, which continued to exist even after the castle was destroyed and which received its name from Altenburg . It can be assumed that after the end of Cologne domination after the battle of Worringen in 1288 and the considerable expansion of the fortification of the nearby Jülich at the beginning of the 14th century , the Count no longer needed it and therefore refrained from rebuilding it. Today the Motte Altenburg is listed as a floor monument with the number 19 near the city of Jülich.
literature
- Hartwig Neumann : The Motte Altenburg near Jülich - A special kind of ground monument , home calendar of the Jülich district, 1972
- Hartwig Neumann: The Citadel Jülich- A Walk Through History , Verlag Jos. Fischer KG, Jülich 1971
- Hartwig Neumann: City and fortress Jülich on pictorial representations , Verlag Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-7637-5863-1
- Ulrich Coenen: From Juliacum to Jülich , Verlag G. Mainz, Aachen 1988, ISBN 3-925714-17-0