Obernburg (Gudensberg)

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Obernburg
Obernburg

Obernburg

Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Received or received substantial parts
Standing position : Count
Place: Gudensberg
Geographical location 51 ° 10 '32 "  N , 9 ° 22' 3"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 10 '32 "  N , 9 ° 22' 3"  E
Height: 305.8  m above sea level NHN
Obernburg (Hesse)
Obernburg

The Obernburg is the ruin of a hilltop castle above the town of Gudensberg in the Schwalm-Eder district in Hesse ( Germany ). The former castle was built in the Romanesque style. The Gudensberg city coat of arms shows the stylized gate of the castle.

Geographical location

The castle ruin is located on the hilltop of the Schloßberg ( 305.8  m above sea  level ), lined with wooded flanks , a basalt cone that is passed east of the Ems tributary Goldbach in a north-south direction. The outer bailey of the Obernburg was the Wenigenburg .

From the Schloßberg there is a good view of almost the entire historical Hessengau , to the north past the Odenberg to the Langenberge , to the northeast to the Kaufunger Wald , to the east to Felsberg and Heiligenberg and to the south and southwest to Homberg and Fritzlar and over the Edertal over to the Kellerwald .

history

The Schlossberg had been the seat of the Counts in Hessengau since at least 1045 . From 1027 this office was held by the family of the originally Swabian Count Werner . The Obernburg was first mentioned in documents as Udensberc Castle in 1121 as the seat of the Gaugrafen family of the Gisonen , which the Gaugrafschaft inherited in 1121 after the death of Werner IV . The district court was the head of the district court and responsible for collecting taxes and duties. He led the army and held Thing on the nearby Mader Heide . The town of Gudensberg was founded and settled. The heiress Gisos IV. , Hedwig , married the Count and later Landgrave Ludwig I of Thuringia before 1122 , whereby the county fell to the Thuringian Ludowingers after the death of Gisos IV. And subsequently mostly by younger brothers of the Landgraves as " Count of Gudensberg ”was administered. One of them, Konrad von Thuringia , became known because he, as Count von Gudensberg, cremated the neighboring Mainz cathedral city of Fritzlar after a long siege in 1232 and had the majority of the inhabitants killed, but then entered the Teutonic Order as a penance and a few years later its Grand Master has been.

Copper engraving after Merian von der Obernburg Gudensberg with surroundings, original from 1627, reproduction around 1850

In 1170, Landgrave Ludwig of Thuringia left his allod in Gudensberg to the Fulda monastery . Since the Obernburg, like the rest of the county, had been a Mainz fief since 1121 , after the death of Heinrich Raspe (1247), the last Ludovingian Landgrave of Thuringia, it passed to the new Landgrave House of Hesse , which with Heinrich , the " Child of Brabant ”and grandson of St. Elizabeth . After Heinrich on the Mader Heide was proclaimed Landgrave of Hesse in 1247, he took his official residence first in Marburg and then from 1277 in Kassel .

In 1312 the castle was stormed by the Mainz ally and bailiff in Lower Hesse, Count Heinrich von Waldeck , during a feud between the Archdiocese of Mainz and the Landgraviate of Hesse . On September 2, 1387, in a renewed feud with Mainz, the Wenigenburg , also located on the mountain, was destroyed, while the Obernburg was successfully defended against the troops of the Archbishop of Mainz, Adolf I of Nassau , by Ekkebrecht von Grifte and remained undamaged. From 1413 to 1427 the Obernburg was again a main base against Mainz aggression under the Hessian Landgrave Ludwig I.

The castle kennel was built in 1500. In 1613 the keep collapsed. In 1627 the engraving of the city of Gudensberg by the engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder was made. Ä. prepared. This demonstrably oldest pictorial representation of the upper castle is shown in Wigand Gerstenberg's state chronicle of Thuringia and Hesse . In the Topographia Germaniae , Matthäus Merian published this view of Obernburg from 1642 to 1688.

During the Thirty Years' War Johann t'Serclaes von Tilly convened a state parliament of the Hessian cities on the Obernburg. In 1640 Gudensberg was devastated by Croatian troops .

After 1700 the castle gradually fell into disrepair. During the Seven Years' War , the partly preserved castle was badly damaged in 1761 by two days of shelling by British troops under John Manners . In 1806 Napoleonic troops plundered the remains of the Obernburg and completely destroyed it. Jérôme Bonaparte , brother of Napoléon and by his grace King of Westphalia , had the remains of the castle auctioned off in 1809.

Castle gate
Castle interior

The castle gate was renewed and secured in 1850, but the surrounding wall was not renovated until 1900 . In 1901 the city of Gudensberg acquired the Obernburg. In 1950 the keep was repaired. From 1986 the Obernburg was repaired and secured by the "Obernburgfreunde Gudensberg". The renovation work was completed in 2006. However, only part of the walls, the substructure of the keep and the castle gate are preserved today.

The Obernburg has been used as an exhibition space for art exhibitions since May 14, 2006. The installation “Playing with Light” by the artist Adolf Luther was on the plateau until October 15, 2007. In addition, works by the American artist Mac Whitney were exhibited on Burgberg as part of the “The 70s Utopia” exhibition.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )

literature

Web links