Landskron Castle

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Landskron Castle
Ruins of the Reichsburg Landskron, view from the Niederburg to the Oberburg, today a viewing platform

Ruins of the Reichsburg Landskron, view from the Niederburg to the Oberburg, today a viewing platform

Creation time : 1206
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Standing position : king
Place: Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
Geographical location 50 ° 33 '5.1 "  N , 7 ° 10' 20.2"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 33 '5.1 "  N , 7 ° 10' 20.2"  E
Height: 271.7  m above sea level NHN
Reichsburg Landskron (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Landskron Castle
The Landskrone Castle Hill around 1900

The Landskron Castle , also ruin Landskrone called, is the ruin of a high medieval hilltop castle in the town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in the district Ahrweiler in Rhineland-Palatinate ( Germany ). The Höhenburg is the ancestral seat of the Burgraves of Landskron and played an important role in the disputes between the Staufers and Welfen during the Middle Ages .

Geographical location

The ruin stands on the widely visible basalt cone Landskrone ( 271.7  m above sea  level ), which rises in the lower Ahr valley east of Bad Neuenahr between Gimmigen in the north-north-west, Heppingen in the west, Heimersheim in the south and Lohrsdorf in the east. The mountain was formerly called "mons Gimiche, (Gimmiger Berg)" and is now called "Landskrone" after the former castle.

description

Unlike other castles, Landskron Castle did not have an outer bailey , but two upstream kennels with typical stonework from the Staufer period, predominantly made of layers of basalt columns, mostly alternating with balancing layers of broken slate stone. The North Zwinger was reached through the lower gate. Today only one block of the wall remains, in 1366 there was still a round tower . The second gate led to the eastern Zwinger with a round tower on the side, secured by a double wing door. In this kennel there were farm buildings, guard rooms and stables. The upper gate, which led into the lower castle, was richly faced with trachyte stones, the fold of a portcullis is still present. To the left of the gate entrance was a two-story building, probably the chapel. On the other site once stood Palas , Backhaus and other residential buildings in addition to the castle well . The narrow upper castle had a more defensive character, the mighty Kronenturm (round tower) and a fortified house once stood here. The upper castle has not yet been excavated and researched. The Maria-Hilf-Chapel is located on a plateau on the west side, below the castle. Around 1470 it was referred to as "the five maiden capell", today it is called the Marienkapelle. The chapel is a plastered Romanesque stone building made of large basalt columns. To the east, behind the altar, there is a small cave room cut out of the basalt rock. A hermitage is mentioned around 1366 , the occupant of which may have lived in the grotto on the Epistle side.

  • Site plan of the castle from 1910

  • View of the area of ​​the lower castle; in the back right the edge of the terrace of the former Möhren inn

history

Roman control room

Previously a Germanic thing site , the dominant basalt cone served the Romans as a control room and military base. Due to the proximity to the Rigomagnus fort , today's Remagen , the control room was permanently connected to it. After the fall of the Limes around 300 AD, the Landskron was part of a chain of height fortifications that protected the Roman hinterland. Numerous Roman finds were made in 1910 when a new inn was built on the ruins of the Landskron. The State Museum of the Rhine Province in Bonn then undertook excavations and archaeological investigations of the entire lower castle, the finds of which were lost.

Medieval castle

The medieval history of the Reichsburg Landskron is described in detail by the historian Valentin Ferdinand Gudenus , who had the Landskron archive printed in full in the second volume of his Codex diplomaticus (pp. 929-1368) in 1747 .

The Reichsburg Landiscrone was built in connection with the conflict between the Guelphs over Otto IV and the Staufers around Philip of Swabia for rule in the German Empire. Both were after the death of Barbarossa's son Heinrich VI. Crowned German kings in 1198. On June 21, 1208, the Bavarian Count Palatine Otto VIII von Wittelsbach stabbed Philip in Bamberg in personal revenge . In 1206, on behalf of King Philip of Swabia, the construction of the Landskron castle began; it was supposed to protect the most important and busiest street at the time, the so-called coronation street Frankfurt-Aachen. Before the hilltop castle was built, the mountain cone had to be flattened. The castle also served as a fortification for the then imperial territory around Sinzig , Remagen , Heimersheim . King Philip of Swabia appointed the Trier Ministerial Gerhard ("Gerischwin") von Sinzig as the first castle administrator; In 1207 Gerhard was mentioned for the first time in the suite of King Philip. After his murder, Otto IV, who had taken over the kingship, handed over the building to the burgrave Gerhard at Christmas 1208. Otto's successor, the Staufer Friedrich II , left Gerhard after Otto's death.

Gerhard I. von Sinzig became the progenitor of the Gerharde, Burgraves of Landskron. From 1202 onwards, the sons of the male burgrave line received the same first name five times in a row; In the following, the date of the first documentary mention and the year of death are mentioned, the years of birth, however, are unknown: Gerhard I. 1202–1237, Gerhard II. 1238–1273, Gerhard III. 1276–1296, Gerhard IV. 1298–1369 and Gerhard V. 1333–1344. During these decades the Gerharde were often intertwined with the politics of the Reich and the German emperors. Gerhard IV was a vassal of four of the seven German electoral principalities, namely the Rhenish archbishops of Cologne , Mainz and Trier as well as the Count Palatine near the Rhine .

  • Remains of the lowest gate

  • Remains of the central gate

  • Remnants of the Supreme Gate

Before 1252, the Count von Neuenahr pledged the village of Gimmigen to Gerhard, Burggraf zur Landskron. Later Gimmigen appears with Kirchdaun as a joint property of the county of Neuenahr and the rule Landskron, Green near Lohrsdorf was bought in 1333 by Gerhard von Landskron. By 1341 at the latest Lohrsdorf belonged to the Landskron Imperial Knighthood. The villages of Nierendorf and Oedingen also belonged to the Landskron lordship, as well as the Koenigsfeld lordship with Dedenbach and Schalkenbach and Vinxt as well as Heckenbach in the imperial forests south along the lower Ahr , and the Oberwinter lordship with Birgel and Bandorf . After the death of Gerhard IV in 1369, the male line of the Imperial Knights of Landskron ended in the male line. His son-in-law Friedrich von Tomburg and his wife Kunigunde inherited the imperial direct rule; the widespread female line subsequently became Landskron's heir.

Owners in the following centuries were the von Tomburg, von Sombreffe , from 1450 to 1622 the Quadt von Landskron , also those von Eynenburg, von Plettenberg , von Harff, von Eltz- Pyrmont, Waldbott von Bassenheim , von der Leyen , von Forst-Lombeck , von Rheineck, von Manderscheid, von Brempt, von Nesselrode , 1775 it is the Barons von Clodt. Around 1800 Freiherr vom Stein was a co-owner of the castle, who was a descendant of von Quadt. Because of the French rule, he sold his share to the Count Boos von Waldeck .

In 1441 the glory of Oberwinter was divided. One half went to the Lords of Saffenburg as dowry , the other half to Messrs. Quadt von Landskron. In 1478, Bodendorf , which had initially belonged to the Sinzig estate and had been an exclave of the Saffenburg rule since 1246 , came into the possession of the lords of the Landskron rule.

In 1659 there was an exchange of rights and territories: Philipp Wilhelm von Pfalz Neuburg acted as Duke of Jülich with the approval of Emperor Leopold I (HRR) as supreme liege lord with the Archbishop of Trier Karl Kaspar von der Leyen and the widow Maria Waldbott von Bassenheim to Gudenau and their son Otto Werner an exchange. Jülich received the Waldbott'schen share in the imperial fiefdom Landskron and the villages Vinxt and Schalkenbach with their meadows, forests, the Landskroner Hof with the aristocratic seat in Sinzig, the Gudenau'schen share in the villages Lohrsdorf , Lantershofen and Heppingen . On the other hand, Jülich gave the archbishop and his peer Freiherr von der Leyen zu Adendorf his dinghies Adendorf and Eckendorf , the widow Waldbott von Bassenheim and her son zu Gudenau his dinghy Villip , previously in the Jülich'schen Amt Neuenahr. Adendorf with Arzdorf and Eckendorf thereby became imperial direct rule of the family von der Leyen zu Adendorf. Villip with the moated castle Gudenau also became an imperial dominion. Landskron Castle, however, only belonged to a third to the Duke of Jülich. He occupied his part with a garrison, which led to considerable disputes with Baron Johann von Bremt, the owner of the other two thirds from the Einberg share. Probably under the influence of Emperor Leopold I, the Duke of Jülich acknowledged his guilt towards Baron von Bremt. On February 16, 1669, he pledged the Eineberger to Freiherr Wilhelm von Bremt, which was now more of a Jülich share in the Landskron house and rule.

A large part of the castle and the Landskron rulership came to the adjacent Duchy of Jülich, which since 1337 has been gaining ever greater rights in the previously purely imperial Sinzig and Remagen from the emperors Ludwig the Bavarian and Charles IV , and since 1546 the adjacent county Neuenahr could incorporate.

Jülich fortress and garrison

From 1659 to 1682, Landskron Castle was occupied by a garrison, the troops belonged to a company that was under the command of Freiherr von Pallandt, who was sergeant-general and governor of Jülich. During this period, three commanders succeeded each other at Landskron Castle: Lieutenant Captain Gottfried Grunter (1659–1674), Colonel Sergeant Hans Heinrich de Grane (1674–1676) and Captain Wilhelm Oswald von Pampus (1676–1682). The crew initially consisted of ten soldiers, during the Dutch War in 1672 it was reinforced to 50 men through drafting and drafting. After the great conflagration triggered by a lightning strike on the night of September 20-21, 1677, the outer walls were makeshiftly repaired to maintain the defense capability.

destruction

The new owner was Philipp Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg (* 1615; † 1690) and as such, after the Jülich-Klevischen succession dispute , since 1653 also Duke of Jülich. After the great fire of 1677 there were first cost estimates for the repair of Landskron Castle in the amount of 973 Reichstalers. While Count Palatine Philipp Wilhelm still insisted on preserving the Reichsburg Landskron, his son Johann Wilhelm (Jan Wellem) , since 1679 as Wilhelm II Duke of Jülich, was in favor of razing the castle ruins. On New Year's Day 1682 he gave two orders to carry out a plan of destruction. The surrounding towns had to provide men with work equipment. On January 8th, 17 Jülich skilled workers came to blow up the crown tower, the destruction took place within three weeks, and on January 30th the garrison moved to Düsseldorf. Furthermore, due to the possible arrest of enemy troops, it had probably become more of a threat than to secure the offices of Neuenahr and Remagen-Sinzig belonging to his Duchy of Jülich . After the razing, the Baron von Bremt, as a co-owner, filed a lawsuit for compensation for 16,000 Reichstaler to rebuild his building. In 1693, Duke Johann Wilhelm promised the payment of compensation of 6,000 Reichstalers in annual installments of 500 Reichstalers. A little later came the Nine Years' War (1688-1697), in which more castles such Burgbrohl that Olbrück castle , the castle Rheineck and cities like Sinzig Ahrweiler were destroyed in the area.

19th and 20th centuries

Information board at the Landskron castle ruins in the area of ​​the Oberste Pforte

In the 19th century, plans arose to use the basalt dome of the castle hill as a quarry. As a result, an association was founded in 1889 to save the ruin and the Ahrweiler district acquired the castle. In 1906 and 1910 extensive excavations were carried out on the castle grounds, during which, among other things, the top gate was exposed.

From 1906 the restaurateur and local history researcher Heinrich Möhren ran an ostrich tavern in a hut and in the castle cellar on the mountain . After receiving a building permit in 1910, he built an inn on the hilltop in the area of ​​the lower castle on the foundation walls of a residential tower that had previously been archaeologically examined. The inn became a popular place for excursions. Heinrich Möhren owned an extensive collection of finds from the excavations at the castle around 1907 and 1910. They were lost due to the effects of the Second World War and the complete destruction of the inn by a fire in 1949.

An earthquake in 1992 caused damage to the castle ruins. In 1999, renovation measures took place at the top gate. The castle ruins are owned by Sebastian Graf von Kanitz at the Cappenberg Monastery . The castle area is leased from the city of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler .

literature

  • Heinrich von Behr: Landskron castle ruins on the Ahr, published by Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1912.
  • Gottfried Kinkel: The Ahr. , JP Bachem, Cologne 1999, pp. 209ff. (edited new edition of the first edition from 1849; edition 1858 as online edition dilibri Rhineland-Palatinate ).
  • Christian von Stramberg, Anton Joseph Weidenbach: Memorable and useful Rhenish antiquarius ... , part 3, volume 9, Koblenz 1862, p. 412ff.
  • Sources on the history of the Landskron ad Ahr rule , Volume 1: Regesten 1206–1499, collected by Hans Frick, revised and edited from the estate by Theresia Zimmer, Peter Hanstein Verlag, Bonn 1966; Volume 2: Invoices, inventories, lists of goods and interest 1242–1500, edited by Theresia Zimmer, Peter Hanstein Verlag, Bonn 1966.
  • Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich: "... like a monarch enthroned in the middle of his court". Castles on the Lower Middle Rhine . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7954-2210-3 , pp. 94-99.
  • Joachim Gerhardt, Heinrich Neu: Art monuments of the Ahrweiler district 2nd half volume, L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1938, pp. 394–404.
  • Julius Wegeler : Neuenahr and its surroundings. For spa guests and history lovers. Verlag von T. Habicht, Bonn 1862, pp. 39–52 (with 5 family tables).
  • Carl Müller: Swedish soldiers on the Middle Rhine and in the Ahr Valley from 1632 to 1635. In: Ahrweiler district administration (Hrsg.): Home yearbook of the Ahrweiler district 1962 , ISSN  0342-5827 , pp. 131-134 ( online edition from Ahrweiler district administration ).
  • Hans Frick: Landskron Castle as a Jülische fortress and garrison (from 1659 until the castle was destroyed in 1682) . In: Kreisverwaltung Ahrweiler (ed.): Heimatjahrbuch des Kreis Ahrweiler 1941 , pp. 85-102.

Web links

Commons : Reichsburg Landskron  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Gerhardt, Heinrich Neu: Art monuments of the Ahrweiler district , 2nd half volume, L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1938, p. 400 and 401.
  2. ↑ Codex Diplomaticvs: Exhibens Anecdota Ab Anno DCCCLXXXI, Ad MCCC. Mogvntiaca, Ivs Germanicvm, Et SRI Historiam Illvstrantia / Ex Latebris In Lvcem Protraxit Notasqve Addidit Valent. Ferd. De Gvdenvs, Immed. Ord. Eqvestris Imp. Camerae Imperialis Assessor. Goettingae; Francofurti; Lipsiae 1743–1768 ( Google Books )
  3. ↑ On 1206 is committed u. a. Hans Frick in On the location and construction of the Landskron house , in: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Ahrweiler 1956, p. 79
  4. ↑ Paul Krahforst: Burgrave Gerhard IV von der Landskron as an electoral assistant in the German election of 1314 , in: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Ahrweiler 1999, p. 53
  5. ↑ Hans Frick: Landskron Castle as a Jülich fortress and garrison (from 1659 until the castle was destroyed in 1682). In: Kreisverwaltung Ahrweiler (Ed.), Heimatjahrbuch des Kreis Ahrweiler 1941, pp. 85-102
  6. ↑ Joachim Gerhardt, Heinrich Neu: Kunstdenkmäler des Kreises Ahrweiler , 2nd half volume, L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1938, pp. 402–404, (list of the finds from the Landskron)
  7. ↑ Hans Haffke: Sources for the history of the rule Landskron ad Ahr , book review in: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Ahrweiler 1968, p. 163