Scharfenburg
| Scharfenburg | ||
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 The tower of the Scharfenburg |
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| Alternative name (s): | Scharfenberg | |
| Creation time : | 1100 to 1200 | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | Keep, remains of the wall | |
| Standing position : | Nobles, Count | |
| Construction: | Rock stone, sandstone | |
| Place: | Ruhla- Valley | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 54 '52 " N , 10 ° 23' 50" E | |
| Height: | 396 m above sea level NHN | |
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The Scharfenburg , sometimes also called Scharfenberg , is the ruin of a 900-year-old hilltop castle in the Thal district of the city of Ruhla in the Wartburg district in Thuringia .
location
The Scharfenburg is now a castle ruin and is located at 396.1 m above sea level. NHN on the Scharfenberg , a striking conical mountain, about 75 m above the valley floor (320 m). The main access to the castle is via a narrow path that begins at Am Rögis . The castle ruins have an observation tower , which is opened by the local history association during the day.
history
First mention
In a document dated September 13, 1137, which confirms the transfer of goods for the bridge hospital to Frauenbreitungen , the earliest known documentary mention of the Scharfenburg takes place with the naming of Hartung von Scharfenberg as a witness. In the 12th century several generations of von Scharfenberg appeared as witnesses to documents or in the service of the Fulda abbots. They had the necessary means and great interest in the expansion of the Scharfenburg in order to be able to dominate the valley and the roads that passed by. Until the beginning of the Thuringian War of Succession in 1247, further evidence was missing, in 1248 a knight from Cobstedt was sitting at the castle as a servant. Fights and sieges ensue. In 1260 Hessian troops settled on the Scharfenburg, after their withdrawal it was the Wettin nobility, the knights of Hopfgarten and elderberries , who now rule as landgraves in Thuringia.
The castle as a pawn
Between 1300 and 1492 the castle was transferred from the landgraves to numerous knights and counts as changing pledges and fiefs. From 1329 to 1362 the Counts of Henneberg determined the Scharfenburg; they were always interested in expanding their influence north of the Rennsteig. The duty of the castle bailiffs often hardly lasts longer than five years, with this rapid change one consciously prevents the lower nobility from becoming rooted in the property handed over to the administration. The castle was eventually managed as an inheritance . In 1401 a bloody dispute broke out between these partial owners, as a result of which the castle was again besieged.
The creation of the office Scharfenburg
In the 15th century the lords von Witzleben , von Wangenheim and from 1452 to 1837 von Uetterodt finally succeeded in gaining long-term ownership of the castle.
In a description of the judicial district, the places under the castle are listed, these are the places (or parts of) Ruhla, Thal, Weißenborn, Schmerbach, Schwarzhausen, Sondra, Sättelstädt, Deubach and part of Schönau.
The castle has been badly damaged since a siege by Elector Friedrich in the Saxon Fratricidal War of 1446, and in 1455 it is largely regarded as a ruin and is therefore rarely inhabited. Berlt and Christoph von Uetterodt, the bailiffs at that time, then build an office building in the valley floor. With this the formation of the castle office Scharfenburg is connected. As a result, the interest in the Scharfenburg is primarily the property, the court and the associated income and titles.
The castle ruins become a cultural monument
1837 Gothaer Duke acquired the castle ruins, to preserve it as a cultural monument, but a comprehensive restoration was done in 1875. Here also the dilapidated was keep prepared the lookout tower. In the years that followed, guests of the Thal health resort like to use the castle ruins as an excursion destination.
Due to the acute danger of collapse, the tower had to be closed for decades until autumn 1994. However, it was still possible in time to avert the threatened emergency demolition and to collect the funds for the costly masonry renovation. The tower was ceremonially opened to the public on the day of the open monument on September 11, 1994. During the construction work, the staircase in the tower was renewed, false ceilings were added and the viewing platform was made weatherproof with a roof hood. Selected small finds and display boards provide information about the castle's history.
A small log cabin was built in 1997 to manage the castle ruins, and the required lightning protection and electrical lighting were installed on the tower. A small stage was set up in the center of the castle courtyard for musical performances and lectures.
Current situation
The Scharfenburg is a registered cultural monument and is owned by the city of Ruhla. Several times a year cultural events take place within the walls of the castle ruins (castle festival in July). The keep serves as a castle museum and observation tower.
Structural matters
Legend: (1) The Scharfenburg, (2) the medieval location of Thal, (3) the Uetterodts' office building; (A) the keep - today the observation tower, (B) the gatehouse, (C) the ring wall and ditch, (D) the inner crescent-shaped wall-ditch fortification, (E) the location of a tower in question, (F) the outer one Wall-moat fortification and (G) the courtyard or the lower castle with the farm buildings.
The hill fort was built in several construction phases as a summit castle on a cone-shaped mountain that slopes steeply on all sides. A well-preserved moat surrounds the few remaining remains of the curtain wall and the stone buildings attached to it, as well as the striking keep standing on a rocky plateau in the center. Only the gatehouse , with its Gothic portal and Uetterod's coat of arms, can still be unequivocally located in its location and extent as a building, while the residential and farm buildings have left only a few traces. The builders of the Scharfenburg used the easily breakable, very porous, soft rock of the castle hill, which is also used for the gatehouse and the curtain wall, for the stone building, but for the tower they had solid sandstone blocks brought from the surrounding area . As the oldest part of the castle complex , as in the case of the Treffurt Castle Normannstein , which was built around the same time , the Romanesque round tower , it was built solidly and with carefully worked large-format ashlar stones on the highest point of the castle rock, it has a diameter of 12 m and shows in the The ground floor has a wall thickness of a little more than 2 m and the top floor is still 1.88 m thick. The original access was through a small gate on the north side about 4 m above the base of the wall. There was a windowless dungeon on the first floor. The original height of the tower was about 30 m. The tower, which is around 20 m high today, can be climbed via a steel spiral staircase. The storage and farm buildings as well as the stables were built in the heyday of the castle and have surely been renewed several times; one suspects half-timbered buildings in the spacious lower courtyard immediately behind the castle gate. The residential buildings and a chapel documented from 1272, on the other hand, stood elevated on the rock by the east wall and were protected by the keep.
The two clearly recognizable crescent-shaped trenches, which can be found at a distance of about 25 m to the south in front of the gatehouse, also served to protect the gate system. Here there could have been a front gate with a tower standing next to it at the second ditch, this is indicated by a slight elevation of about 5 m in diameter at the end of the upper wall. The outer of the two upstream trenches is about an arc's range from the castle wall, it is only indistinctly recognizable as a depression for the layman.
Say
The eventful history of the castle led to the creation of numerous legends. Mostly these concern the battles for possession of the castle. Because of its striking shape, the badly dilapidated keep has been called the “soldering pot” by the local population since the 18th century.
- Impressions
The Scharfenberg from the east
The inner moat
In front of the castle gate
The inside of the castle gate
Inside the castle ruins.
Panoramic view over Thal and Weißenborn
literature
- Wolfgang Eberhardt: From the history of the Scharfenburg near Thal . In: On the history of the country on the Werra and Hörsel . (I). Verlag + Druckerei Löhr, Ruhla 1994, p. 45 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
- ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Eberhardt: On the history of the Scharfenburg near Thal , Ruhla 1994, pp. 27–33
- ^ Thomas Bienert: Medieval Castles in Thuringia , Gudensberg 2000, p. 333 f, ISBN 3-86134-631-1 .
- ↑ Scharfenberg castle ruins on Burgenreich.de
- ↑ Wolfgang Eberhardt: Brief history of the Wilhelmitenkloster Weißenborn near Thal , Bruchsal 1979.