Prebrunn Castle

Prebrunn Castle
Suburbs Dech Betten, Prebrunn with Schlösslein, Schopperturm (1630)
Creation time :	after 1181
Castle type :	Niederungsburg
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Place:	Regensburg- Prebrunn
Geographical location	49 ° 1 '25 "  N , 12 ° 4' 39.4"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 1 '25 "  N , 12 ° 4' 39.4"  E
Height:	335  m above sea level NN

The castle Prebrunn is an Outbound Wasserburg west of the Old Town of Regensburg in Bavaria in the former suburb Prebrunn, who previously was outside the city walls of Regensburg ( extra muros ). Today Prebrunn is part of Regensburg and belongs to the district of Westenviertel , Midwest. The name of the former suburb (also Prennbrunn ) indicates the occurrence of good water at that time and the pottery and brick making industry that operated there. The old name has been preserved to this day in language usage and in the names of streets and monuments.

History of the castle and the suburb of Prebrunn

12th century - late 15th century

The castle was probably Prebrunn by I. Duke Otto of Bavaria built the 1181 from the Abbey Prüfening had acquired Prebrunn in exchange for a plot of land near the abbey an estate on the banks of the Danube in the area of the former pottery settlement. The duke probably had the estate fortified, thereby manifesting the territorial claims of the Wittelsbachers against the city of Regensburg, which was then under episcopal and royal influence and striving for imperial immediacy.

As at the end of the 13th century, the magistrate of the imperial city decided the city wall of Regensburg to expand to the west, the settlement Prebrunn as an area "extra muros" was omitted and remained controversial between Bavaria and Regensburg buffer zone of the truce assigned. Despite the exclusion, Prebrunn remained in the area of ​​influence of the city of Regensburg, which was demonstrated by the fact that the Wittelsbachers could only give the resulting Niederungsburg as a fief to selected Regensburg citizens from the 14th century at the latest . Among them was Erhart the hedgehog, who owned the castle until 1347 and then sold it. Part of this sale was a garden just a few 100 meters north of the castle, "which is located on a stone pit" . This is where the associated, archivally incomprehensible, abandoned tower hill castle Steingrube was located .

In preparation for the beginning of the city ​​war and because of the lack of protection by the city wall, the City Council of Regensburg ordered the building in the suburb of Prebrunn to be destroyed in 1388 so as not to provide cover for the army of the advancing Bavarian Duke Albrecht I. After the war, the Regensburg captain Jacob Graner rebuilt the destroyed castle in 1390 with the permission of the Regensburg council. The legal situation regarding ownership remained unclear in the following decades, but was clarified in favor of Regensburg with the end of the rule of the Bavarian Duke Albrecht VI. about Regensburg at the end of the 15th century in the Straubing Treaties of 1496 . After that, the castle had only symbolic importance for Bavaria, especially since its economic importance with 17 modest farms and 3 ailing fish ponds had become insignificant.

16th century - late 17th century

In the following decades the city of Regensburg got involved in buying up and building brick factories in Prebrunn. The suburb was well connected to the clay pits in dech beds , which belonged to the convent. In addition to houses for craftsmen, new brick kilns, wells and brick stalls for roof tiles were built, which were urgently needed in the city. The so-called Schopperturm, which was named after the boat builders (Schopper) who were also active in the town and who were widely known for building good boats, was built on the western edge of the suburb for the military protection of the businesses, houses and residents that were important for the town. For the transport of the bricks produced in large quantities, the transport route into the city through the Prebrunn Gate was made possible again after the gate had been closed since 1552 due to the filling of a bastion hill.

In the years from 1604 and then from 1622 the castle came into the fief of Christoph Jacob Elsenheimer and his son Johann Elsenheimer. They were members of a rich Exulantenfamilie Protestant religious refugees from the Upper Austrian Steyr had 1,601 citizenship in Regensburg obtained, acquired in 1604 and 1622, the castle Prebrunn as a fief and had to pay 50 guilders taxes annually. They had the medieval castle expanded into a patrician residence, a water castle in the forms of the Renaissance and early Baroque (Elsenheimerschlössl). The population regretted it when the buildings were destroyed again only 11 years later.

During the Thirty Years' War at the beginning of the fighting for Regensburg , the city was occupied by Bavarian troops in April 1632. When it became clear in the course of 1633 that the Swedes would attack Regensburg, Prebrunn Castle was destroyed on the orders of the Bavarian city commandant Troibreze and all the factories and houses in the suburb of Prebrunn were burned down so as not to offer shelter to the advancing Swedish troops. The destruction of Prebrunn could neither prevent the conquest of Regensburg by the Swedes nor the reconquest of the city by imperial Bavarian troops 6 months later. After the war there were no plans to rebuild the castle. In 1650, the brewer Georg Haller took over the entire fiefdom including the fish ponds and the 17 farmsteads, which - as it was recorded - "basically all burned down and lay in the ashes" . Today the former castle stable with the restaurant "Schlössel" (Altdorferstraße 11) is built over. It is registered as a soil monument D-3-6938-0116 "Archaeological findings and finds in the area of ​​a former tower hill of the Middle Ages" by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation .

The reconstruction of Prebrunn only began after 20 years and was hampered by the poor transport connection to the city after the magistrate decided in 1665 to build a new large bastion in front of the Prebrunn Gate , which closed the gate again. In the course of the new settlement, Prebrunn lost its former commercial structure and the fish ponds also dried up. The new population had a different social structure and a varied range of occupations. The new houses made a poor impression and at the site of the moated castle there was only the modest Hallersche Gütl .

18th century - 19th century

The plague epidemic in 1713 led to a further decline in the population. The situation improved, however, when the lease fees for the farms were reduced. There were new arrivals and wealthy citizens were so drawn to the idyllic, quiet location of the suburb that a farm, three town houses and two villas were built. During this time, the merchant Johann Jakob Pürkel not only had the Pürkelgut Castle, named after him, built in the south-east of the city, but he had also had a garden palace built in Prebrunn, which was rented to representatives of the Reichstag from 1722, and then as a third object in 1724 Immediately to the west of the Prebrunner Schanze there is also a stately property with extensive tree planting.

At the end of the 18th century, in the course of the alley of trees laid out by Prince Carl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis , the fortifications in front of the city walls were dismantled. When the avenue was expanded during the reign of Prince-Primate Karl Theodor von Dalberg , the looped Prebrunnbastei was converted into a Herzogspark and the Württemberg Palace was built, the separation between Prebrunn and the city of Regensburg was lifted. At the beginning of the 19th century, Prebrunn was discovered as a popular excursion destination and the neighboring Kuhwiese (today Schillerwiese) was used as a bathing area. In 1880 a cable ferry crossed the Danube between Prebrunn and Winzer, and plans even developed to better connect Prebrunn to the city by extending existing roads.

Prebrunn after 1900

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Prebrunn had not only developed into a popular excursion destination, but also a preferred residential area. After the Second World War, new problem areas became important for Prebrunn:

• Questions about residential development: The silhouette of the old Prebrunn changed fundamentally when, after unsuccessful protests by neighbors, 9 large apartment blocks were built in 1953, including two eight-story high-rise buildings, which are among the first of these buildings in Regensburg. As a result, other parts of the old buildings were lost, including the Ökonomiehof belonging to the old castle. With these buildings, the location of Prebrunn also disappeared from the official city map of Regensburg.
• The dangers of the traffic development of new building areas in the west of Regensburg that crossed Prebrunn: The breaking of the standards in residential construction led to the construction of four-lane access roads, one of which should run parallel to the Danube into the east of the city and another should cross the Danube. The original planning intentions can still be read from the road remains of the road construction measures that were started back then, but which failed due to the resistance of the Regensburg citizens, which are still preserved today.
• Problems of hydraulic engineering measures in the course of the construction of the Main-Danube Canal : The charm of the Prebrunn townscape was finally and seriously impaired by the river straightening of the Danube, which was carried out in 1979/80 and which was connected to the embankment in such a way that today there is only a view of the Danube exists when you stand on the dam.

literature

• Andreas Boos : Castles in the south of the Upper Palatinate - the early and high medieval fortifications of the Regensburg area . From the series: Regensburg Studies and Sources on Cultural History, Volume 5 . Published by the museums and the archive of the city of Regensburg. Universitätsverlag Regensburg, Regensburg 1998, ISBN 3-930480-03-4 , pp. 318-320.
• Eugen Trapp: Prebrunn - "formerly a funny suburb" Obituary for an ensemble that was never entered in the list of monuments , published by the City of Regensburg Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments, Preservation of Monuments in Regensburg, Volume 13, Verlag Friedrich Pustet Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7917 -2550-5 , pp. 175-211

Web links

• Entry on Prebrunn Castle in the private database "Alle Burgen".

Individual evidence

1. ^ Location of the Burgstall in the Bavaria Atlas
2. ↑ Eugen Trapp: Prebrunn, "formerly a funny suburb" Obituary for an ensemble that was never entered in the list of monuments . In: City of Regensburg, Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Preservation of monuments in Regensburg . tape 13 . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7917-2550-5 , pp. 182 .
3. ^ Prebrunn Castle at burgseite.de
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Eugen Trapp: Prebrunn, "formerly a funny suburb" Obituary for an ensemble that was never entered in the list of monuments . In: City of Regensburg, Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Preservation of monuments in Regensburg . tape 13 . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7917-2550-5 , pp. 175-181, 183-190, 194-195, 191-192 .
5. ^ Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . 6th edition. MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service GmbH, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 464-466 .
6. ↑ List of monuments for Regensburg (PDF) at the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (PDF; 476 kB)

Remarks

1. ↑ The younger son Christoph Jacob, born in Wels in 1595, attended the Poeticum grammar school in Regensburg, to which the family later felt deeply indebted. A scholarship foundation was set up which, when the father died in 1622, left the grammar school with an impressive 30,000 guilders. the interest was to go to the poor boys of the poetry school , the teachers and three scholarship holders. In addition, there were sums and other foundations from other members of the branched family, which suggest a considerable fortune (lit. see Trapp, p. 179f.). The older son Johann donated the high amount of 300 guilders for the construction of the Trinity Church