Knight's Castle (Eckernförde)

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The "knight's castle" seen from the pedestrian zone
First known city map of Eckernfördes von Braun / Hogenberg, published no later than 1618, with the identification of the "knight's castle"

The so-called knight's castle in Eckernförde is not a knight's castle . It is a three-storey, listed commercial and residential building with a Renaissance gable from the 15th or 16th century.

The name knight's castle

In many publications, including by the city of Eckernförde, the following information is given about the naming: The building got its name from an innkeeper named Ritter , who ran an inn in the building in the 19th century. Knights never lived in the building itself - as was customary in the 16th century, it was one of the nobles' townhouses from which they traded.

This representation is at least partially wrong: In the 16th century the building was inhabited by the Rantzau knights . A branch of the original noble family von Rantzau was raised to count status in 1650 (before that all Rantzaus were "only" aristocrats), but this branch did not include the then owners of the knight's castle or their descendants. It is known from the 16th century that the couple Paul and Beate Rantzau (nee Sehestedt ) had (at least) 15 children (nine sons and six daughters) and that they lived on Gut Ludwigsburg (then called Kohøved ) during this time, the former moated castle replaced by the construction of a mansion. It is therefore questionable whether trading should be carried out from the knight's castle at all at this time or whether the building only served as an alternative quarter during the extensive construction work on Gut Ludwigsburg.

The thesis that the innkeeper Claus Heinrich Ritter, who, coming from the Maing area, has been running an inn in the building since 1825, was the namesake for the name as a knight's castle , there is no evidence that this name was not also used before (times ) was performed. Even at the time when the knight's castle in the area was built, it would have been by no means unusual to give a large urban residential building of the nobility or the knightly class a name ending in -burg; In Eckernförde, for example, an aristocratic house built around the same time was called Blomenburg . The inn itself was also not run under the name Ritterburg by the innkeeper Claus Ritter and subsequently by his widow Elise Ritter , but simply operated as a restaurateur knight . Speculative also remains the information to be found in individual works that a successor innkeeper of Claus and Elise Ritter made the restaurant a "knight's castle" after the name of his predecessor (and not based on other information available to him). Another interpretation of the name is as "House of the knight citizens".

history

The putti frieze (above) is no longer recognizable as such

The house was built as a Gothic building in the first half of the 16th century at the latest in the immediate vicinity of the former city gate and the city wall. Today it is in the main shopping street Eckernfördes, Kieler Straße (No. 48; corner house to Sauersgang ). Since 2004, the year 1537 has been applied to the facade again. According to Karl Friedrich Schinkel, however , the house was built around 35 to around 50 years earlier. The city gate a few meters away was built around the same time. In 1590, the Rantzau family had the original Gothic stepped gable of the "Knight's Castle" redesigned on the front into an interrupted, curved Renaissance gable ( volute gable ). There is no further information about a gable originally located on the back. The putti frieze on the front has meanwhile been whitewashed with wall paint so that it is no longer recognizable as such. The building had an annexed rear building early on, which served as a stable and warehouse from Rantzau's time until it was taken over by the innkeeper Claus Heinrich Ritter in 1825, who turned it into overnight accommodation. The rear building had to give way to a new extension in the early 1960s. In the 18th century the residents of the knight's castle were brandy distillers.

For the past seven decades, the building on the ground floor has housed a slaughterhouse, a small department store, a supermarket, a drugstore branch and currently a clothing store is housed in the building. There is evidence of a restaurant called “Zur Ritterburg” in the 1930s; the last inn to have this name existed until the 1970s and was on the first floor. The redesign of the facade in the ground floor area and the associated hollowing out took place as part of the conversion to a small department store in the early 1960s. “Unfortunately, the ground floor has been handled cruelly in modern times,” said Theo Christiansen in 1978 .

The city gate in the immediate vicinity was dismantled around 1760; the old town clerk's house - most recently a fish shop (Büll) - like a second adjacent building - most recently a flower shop (Klünder) - had to make way for road expansion measures on Kieler Strasse (at that time the main thoroughfare in the city center) in the mid-1960s ; around 15 years later, Kieler Strasse was converted into a pedestrian zone.

literature

  • Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Eckernförde - a walk through the city's history . Publisher: Manfred Goos, Horn-Bad Meinberg, 2nd edition 2002, pages 466 ff.

See also

Web links

Commons : Ritterburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Eckernförde yesterday and today. Archived from the original on April 12, 2013 ; accessed on January 22, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Church stalls of the Sankt Nicolai Church Eckernförde , Ciriacus Dirkes 1578: Pawell Rantsov with sinen negen Soins, Biate Rantsov with errenn sos Doihters .
  3. ^ Address book and business manual for the city and district of Eckernförde, page 120; Published by C. Heldt's Buchhandlung, 1897
  4. ↑ For example in: Heimatgemeinschaft Eckernförde eV and department for regional history of Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel, ECKernförde-Lexikon , Husum-Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG., Husum 2014, ISBN 978-3-89876-735-4 , Page 281.
  5. ↑ Etymologically, the word citizen developed from the word castle , which in turn is rooted in the Old High German burga ("protection"). Since the 12th century, the word has been used not only for castle residents, but also for townspeople; Furthermore, burg was the name for “city” in Old English .
  6. ↑ see also the map of Braun and Hogenberg around 1620
  7. ↑ Schinkel, page 466
  8. ^ Paul Rantzau died in 1579, Beate Rantzau died in 1589
  9. ↑ the statement "The characteristic Renaissance gable is reminiscent of a knight's castle" by the Museum Association Eckernförde eV and the city of Eckernförde in the publication Eckernförde - A city tour , 2015, page 29 is untenable
  10. ↑ it may have been created at the same time as the front building was built
  11. ↑ see also the map of Braun and Hogenberg
  12. ↑ see also photos from 1935 and 1955 at http://www.bildindex.de/obj20503016.html#%7Chome
  13. ^ Theo Christiansen: Eckernförde - Die Ostseestadt in pictures , Schleswiger Druck- und Verlagshaus, 1978, ISBN 3-88242-036-7 , text for picture no. 24 in the picture part

Coordinates: 54 ° 28 ′ 12.5 "  N , 9 ° 50 ′ 13.3"  E