Glanzenberg ruins
| Glanzenberg | ||
|---|---|---|
 View from the wall of the moat and the remains (shield wall) of Glanzenberg Castle |
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| Alternative name (s): | Fahr Castle | |
| Creation time : | around 1044 (Burg Fahr), around 1240 (Glanzenberg) | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Standing position : | Free nobles | |
| Place: | Unterengstringen | |
| Geographical location | 47 ° 24 '7.5 " N , 8 ° 25' 19.5" E | |
| Height: | 399 m above sea level M. | |
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The ruins of Glanzenberg are the ruins of a low castle and desert in the area of the municipality of Unterengstringen in the canton of Zurich .
location
The ruin is about 300 meters from the deserted former town of Glanzenberg on the Limmat . It has been restored and is freely accessible.
history
Fahr Castle
Probably around 1040 Lütold von Affoltern built the Altburg near Regensdorf , on today's border between the city of Zurich and Regensdorf, not far from Lake Katzensee . The castle, also known as Alt-Regensberg, became the ancestral seat of the Barons of Regensberg .
Probably in the same period a wooden castle was built at Fahr, in the immediate vicinity of the later town of Glanzenberg and not far from Fahr Monastery .
In a document from 1044, in addition to Lütold von Affoltern, Ebbo and Adalbero von Fahr also appear as witnesses.
Town of Glanzenberg
As part of the territorial competition between the Regensbergers and the flourishing city of Zurich , in the first half of the 13th century, the Regensbergers expanded the old Fahr Castle. Adjacent, they probably founded the town of Glanzenberg " ennet der Limmat bei Dietikon " around 1240 .
After the death of Lütold V. it came between his two sons, Lütold VI. and Ulrich von Regensberg, around 1250 for the division of the estate. Ulrich received the castle town of Neu-Regensberg and property in the area of Glanzenberg, Fahr and Weiningen .
The Regensbergers had chosen the place for a city to be founded on the basis of strategic considerations. On the one hand, it was supposed to control trade on the Limmat between Zurich and Baden ; on the other hand, the site was well suited for the construction of a bridge over the Limmat and was located near the Fahr Monastery, also a Regensberg foundation.
To build a bridge, however, they needed the cooperation of the Knights of Schönenwerd , whose Schönenwerd Castle stood on the opposite bank of the Limmat. The city of Zurich, on the other hand, did not tolerate the construction of a new bridge and urged the Lords of Schönenwerd, who pledged in 1257 not to sell any land on the opposite bank of the Limmat for a bridge. This document contains the first written mention of the city of Glanzenberg.
In 1259, in the dispute between Provost Eberhard von Fahr and Count Rudolf von Habsburg over the parish membership of the city of Glanzenberg, an arbitration decision was made in favor of the Fahrs monastery.
Contemporary sources are missing, but the late medieval chroniclers report in September 1267 of the violent destruction of Glanzenberg by the people of Zurich under the leadership of Count Rudolf IV of Habsburg (from 1273 as German King Rudolf I of Habsburg ). 1267/68 should, throughout the so-called Regensberger feud to the city of Zurich disabling possessions of the barons have been destroyed, but on the allegedly ruined castles - Old warehouses , castle and town Glanzberg, Baldern , castle Friesenberg , Üetliburg , Wulp and Utznaburg - was a violent destruction has not yet been proven beyond doubt. The destruction of Baldern, Uetliburg and Glanzenberg is mentioned in the saga of the cunning Habsburg .
In 1291 Lütold the Younger from Regensberg is said to have sold the Glanzenberg area to the Wettingen monastery , but to have secured a right of repurchase for 10 years, and in 1301 he was again the owner of Glanzenberg.
Ulrich von Jegistorf, provost in Fahr and monk in Einsiedeln Abbey , appears on June 11, 1300, in a document from Baron Ulrich von Regensberg's widow Adelheid, through which she renounced her personal property in favor of Wettingen Abbey. In the following year the Fahr Monastery acquired the Glanzenberg court and other goods from the Regensberg Lütold VIII. On February 25, 1301, when Lütold VIII gave up the bailiwick of the Fahr Monastery to the Abbot of Einsiedeln, with the request that they be passed on to Bertold and Jakob Schwenden, citizen of Zurich. Documents mention farms in Glanzenberg that were managed until 1322.
Late Middle Ages to Modern Times
In 1689 the Wettingen monastery is said to have unsuccessfully raised a claim to the urban area used as arable land. Glanzenberg played a role in the Second Villmerger War (1712) when a temporary Limmat bridge was built here. Also in 1799 in the so-called second battle of Zurich , when the French general André Masséna secured his positions and the river crossing by building entrenchments west of the former city.
investment
Parts of the former castle hill had to give way to the adjacent industrial ice in 1909, and the construction of a flood dam also destroyed other structures in 1912. The Antiquarian Society of Zurich was able to prevent the rest of the complex from being used as a gravel pit for the construction of the Überlandstrasse in 1923.
The first archaeological explorations were carried out in 1924, and the remaining remains were uncovered in the years 1937 to 1940. During the construction of the N1 motorway, the Zurich cantonal archeology undertook additional excavations , and by 1980/81 the entire rest of the castle town was uncovered and preserved.
Castle
While the castle seems to have been abandoned around 1267, the mentioned sources, archaeological findings and ceramic finds indicate a settlement from the 12th to the 14th century, after which Glanzenberg was used as a desertification and as a quarry. The erosion by the Limmat eroded part of the subsoil in the centuries that followed.
The are received from the former castle double moat and a part of around 2.5 meters thick polygonal megalithic - circular wall of huge boulders that the actual castle plateau with the former residential tower surrounded. The castle was located on a ledge directly above the river at that time.
Town
The former town of Glanzenberg was located on the Limmat, which flowed 300 meters further north in the 13th century, on an area 180 meters long and 45 (east side) to 110 (west side) meters wide. The 1.2 meter thick city wall had a main gate on the north side, while there were smaller passages towards the Limmat.
The city does not seem to have been completed: Remnants of the city wall, some of which did not extend beyond the foundation pit, have been preserved . Parts of the landside moat are faintly recognizable in the terrain. There were wooden and some stone buildings along the north, east and south walls. There is no clear evidence of violent destruction.
photos
Ruin with Limmat Bridge in the background
View from the rear ditch of the moat wall
Masonry of the polygonal megalithic curtain wall
Map of the medieval Glanzenberg
Wall remains of the town
Remains of the wall in the east of the town
Remnants of the wall in the west of the town
Web links
- Heinrich Boxler: Glanzenberg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Burgenwelt: Glanzenberg Castle
literature
- Ronald Gohl et al. (Red. Sabine Vulic): Burgenparadies Schweiz: 40 hikes to knights, counts and governors , Edition Lan, Zug 2004
- Karl Grunder: The Art Monuments of the Canton of Zurich , Vol. IX: The District of Dietikon, Basel 1997
- Institute for the Preservation of Monuments at the ETH Zurich (ed.): City and Country Walls, Vol. 2: City Walls in Switzerland. Catalogs, illustrations , Zurich 1996
- Thomas Bitterli-Waldvogel: Swiss Castle Guide , Reinhardt, Basel / Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-7245-0865-4
- Daniel Reicke: "From strong and large flüejen": An investigation into megalithic and humpback cuboid masonry on castle towers in the area between the Alps and the Rhine [Swiss contributions to the cultural history and archeology of the Middle Ages, Vol. 22], Basel 1995, ISBN 3-908182 -07-7
- Walter Drack: Glanzenberg: Burg und Stadt , Unterengstringen 1983
- Fritz Hauswirth: Castles and Palaces of Switzerland , Vol. 4: Zurich, Schaffhausen, Kreuzlingen 1968
- Emil Stauber: The castles and noble families of the districts of Zurich, Affoltern and Horgen , Basel 1955
- Heinrich Zeller-Werdmüller: Zurich castles . In: Communications from the Antiquarian Society in Zurich , 48./49. Born in Zurich 1894–1895
Alt-Landenberg | Old warehouses | Alt-Regensberg | Alt-Wädenswil | Alt-Wildberg | Alt-Wülflingen | Baldern | Bernegg | Breitenlandenberg | Bubikon | Book | Dättnau | Dowel block | Eglisau | Elgg | Freienstein | Friedberg | Friesenberg | Gamser | Glanzenberg | Greifenberg | Greifensee | Grüningen | Hegi | Hohenlandenberg | Hoh-Wülflingen | Knonau | Kyburg | Langenberg | Running | Liebenberg | Manegg | Maur | Moosburg | Mörsburg | Upper Baliken | Regensberg | Rossberg | Schauenberg | Schnabelburg | Schönenwerd | Sellenbüren | Sünikon | Teufen | Tössegg | Üetliburg | Uster | Wädenswil | Wait | Wetzikon | Wiesendangen | Winturm | Wülflingen | Wulp | Wyden
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Website dickemauern.de, Glanzenberg Castle (Fahr) (as of April 20, 2008)
- ↑ a b c d e f Website dickemauern.de, city fortification Glanzenberg ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (As of March 28, 2008)
- ↑ site swisscastles.ch, castles of Zurich, Regensberg (as of 28 March 2008)
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↑ On the destruction of Glanzenberg: « Only the little town of Glanzenberg, which also belonged to Baron von Regensberg, was now dangerous to the city of Zurich. It lay close to the water of the Limmat and prevented the city's merchants from traveling freely on the river into the lowlands to Basel. The clever Habsburg knew how to help. On his advice, the people of Zurich filled heavy goods ships with barrels in which they hid men of war.
When the rowers drove down the river with these ships one day and approached the little town of Glanzenberg, they let the armed men slip out of the barrels in the thick bushes and climb ashore, where they united with Count Rudolf, who was already in the building with his people because he had ridden there at night. As the ships were close to the little town of Glanzenberg, they pushed the rowers to the bank, got out, uttering a terrible cry for help, and threw all sorts of things, especially cloth, into the swift waters of the Limmat.
Now the gate of the little town opened, and the town servants and the humble people of the inhabitants rushed out to steal all the goods that were floating in the water and which they thought were stranded. But the ship's servants, who were well armored, received them with blows and held them out until a murderous shout rang out from the town. Then they knew that the Habsburgs had meanwhile invaded the solid water nest with his horsemen and the people of Zurich. But the little town's soldiers and the inhabitants, who had let themselves be lured out so carelessly by their greed, ran away in horror when they saw a red smoke rise from the town. So this last stronghold of the Regensberger around the city of Zurich was taken and so completely destroyed that today only a lone heron nests in its few ruins. The once so powerful Regensberger, however, had to be happy that the people of Zurich accepted him as their citizen, and it was in the city that the baron, who once owned half of Zurichgau, decided to live ”. Source: haben.at . - ↑ Einsiedeln monastery archives, Book of Professors IV., The Monks of the 13th Century
- ^ A b Heinrich Boxler: Glanzenberg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
