Amönau Castle

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Castle: Half-timbered part during a visit by members of the German Castle Association
Castle: the older residential tower
View of the castle hill, on the left the Rapunzelhaus , in the middle in front of the curtain wall the roof of the manor house, on the right the church
Rapunzel Tower at Amönau Castle

The Amönau Castle (also Castle Amönau or Junkerngut Amönau was named) actually a castle-like manor and is located in the district Amönau town weather in Marburg-Biedenkopf in Hessen .

location

The property is located directly to the east next to the fortified church on a spur-like small hill, horseshoe-shaped , surrounded on three sides by the Asphe , Treisbach and Mühlenkanal streams .

history

The place Amönau was donated in 1008 by King Heinrich II. To the Stephanstift von Mainz . The oldest part of the surviving buildings with the remains of walls and vaults as well as ancient chimneys point to the very old age of the castle seat. Perhaps the square was high steeple at the beginning and keep interpreted as also the five early Romanesque sound holes, bricked up from the outside - but still visible inside, suggest. 1133 the place is documented as belonging to the Vogtei Ebsdorf in a register. The Bailiwick of Ebsdorf was subordinate to the St. Stephen's monastery in Mainz at this time.

Probably as early as the late 13th century, the place was owned by the Lords of Hohenfels , who were defeated in the middle of the 13th century in the nobility revolt against the Landgraviate of Hesse and lost territory and the nearby Hohenfels castle . For 1270, an enfeoffment of the court at Amönau with interest and church patronage by the dean and chapter of the Stephanstift von Mainz for five annual talents to Conrad, Gumpert and Eckehard von Hohenfels, sons of Volpert Hosekin von Hohenfels, is documented. As early as 1299, a knight Kraft von Hohenfels sold all of the land around Amönau ( Amenowe ) to the Caldern monastery . The von Hohenfels had a residential tower built with a defensive wall surrounding the tower and church by the 15th century at the latest. At that time the property was still a Mainz fief .

In the 16th century the place came under the rule of the Landgraviate of Hesse . In 1570 ownership went to Braun von Hohenfels , and in 1588 to von Bodenhausen .

The Amönau local chronicle, on the other hand, indicates that the von Rehen family took over the farm as early as 1555 , the latest in 1560 or 1580 also having the Heßler mill in their possession. The mill always seems to be part of the estate, since each time the property changes ownership, the new owner also certifies the Hessler mill . 1568-1579 occurs Junker Lowenstein (life stone) of deer as the owner of Amönauer court on how the archive of the parish noted. His grave plaque is preserved on the north wall of the church.

In 1608 at the latest, the manor came to Johann (es) von Bodenhausen. From 1615 to 1616, Hedwig von Bodenhausen, widow of Johann, had a garden pavilion , the so-called " pleasure house ", built on the lower corner of the ring wall . In 1687 Bodo von Bodenhausen sold the property to his son-in-law Georg Riedesel . Since 1710 or 1711 the castle-like property has been owned by the Helmrichschen branch of von Baumbach , in 1712 the Amönau line of those von Bodenhausen died out. The manor was recognized as a free aristocratic court in 1746 , expanded with the half-timbered mansion from 1800 and designated as a manor in 1846. In 1959, large parts of the farm buildings on the estate were sold by the von Baumbachs and parts of the farm were demolished. Irene von Baumbach dies on January 23, 1993.

The Hesse painter Otto Ubbelohde used the “Lusthäuschen” as a motif for the “ Rapunzel Tower ”, one of his illustrations of the Grimm fairy tales .

Building description

Mansion

Residential tower

View of the place, in front of the church the half-timbered building of the manor house

The original mansion was a residential tower consisting of large, rough-hewn, red sandstones is set and a construction period is assigned to the 1500th The two-axis residential tower with twin windows in flat sandstone frames is now provided with a steep mansard hipped roof. The windows of the two dormer windows on the south-west and north-east side are, like all the other windows, lattice windows .

Half-timbered construction

Between 1800 and 1805 (according to the dating on the front door), a front, transversely projecting two-storey half - timbered building , which is covered with a steep mansard roof and a further storey, was pushed out of the residential tower from the north to the northeast . The northern entrance side has a half-timbered dwelling in the middle as a covered and expanded triangular gable with a gable roof . The short L-side connection to the residential tower is also made of timber. At its western corner, the toilet bay is still clearly visible today.

The mansion is covered with blue-gray slate shingles, the studs were once painted. In the interior of the timber-framed part, numerous equipment elements from the classical period of construction have been preserved, including a. a two-flight wooden staircase , an older tiled stove , historic doors, floorboards and windows.

Today, both parts of the castle are in dire need of renovation ; some of the roof only has an emergency cover.

Rapunzel Tower

The Rapunzel Tower in the drawing by Otto Ubbelohde

The pleasure house, placed directly on the northeast corner of the curtain wall , has a half-timbered floor. The corner of the curtain wall is expanded to form a polygon , the octagonal part consists of cuboids. Above a leaf frieze that stretches around the polygon at man height is an alliance coat of arms , heraldically on the right the Bodenhausen coat of arms with the three sickles, on the left the coat of arms of the Rau von Holzhausen , above the year 1615, with double text embedded as a cartouche: The Latin building The inscription above and below the coat of arms , which refers to Hedwig von Holzhausen, wife of Johannes von Bodenhausen ,
reads above:

"HEDWIG JOHANIS CONJUX QUONDAM A BODENHAUSEN QUI VIR HEC *** FUNCTUS VIVIT IN ARCE TOL *** ZW (?) HOLTZHVSEN PRO CHALAT (?) ESTEN MATE (?) FECIT COM (???) (***?) SEDES TUTA ET AMEN ”.

The text below is marked with:

"HINC HAE STANT AEDES MURI VI RIDARIA PORTA HINC PLURA AUXILIO SUNT (PR *?) REFACTI DIE FAC DEUS UT PIETAS ET PAX HAC SEDE PERENNENT SINT (Q?) HABITATORES JUCITER NEOLIMES".

A stone portal on the eaves on the garden side shows the year 1616. The first floor of the half-timbered storey is composed of the octagon, the bay window , and a short longitudinal building. On the gable side there is a door above the curtain wall on the first floor. The framework with brick is filled in with ornaments. Remnants of the frame from 1979 resulted in red offset corner blocks and window frames of the same color with white plastered surfaces. The successful renovation has adopted this color composition.

Other components

Pillars of a gate entrance
Garden gate to the churchyard with a cartouche and the year 1613

At the northwest corner of the half-timbered building (today isolated in the garden) there are still two sandstone pillars of a gate entrance, which are bevelled and point to a heavy wooden gate. The volute capitals are still well preserved.

The garden , located between the Rapunzel tower and the half-timbered building, is also closed to the south by a wall with a sandstone gate with a keystone and volutes, the cartouche of which shows the year 1613 with simple scrollwork and cartilage .

Todays use

The property, which is in great need of renovation, is privately owned and designated a cultural monument .

literature

  • Michael Losse: The Lahn. Castles and Palaces. From Biedenkopf and Marburg via Gießen, Wetzlar and Weilburg to Limburg, Nassau and Lahnstein . Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-86568-070-9 , pp. 41-42.
  • Willi Görich : fortified church and knight seat. On the history of an old aristocratic castle in Upper Hesse [Amönau] . In: Hessenland , (2nd year), No. 22, Marburg 1955.

Web links

Commons : Amönau Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Rapunzelturm Amönau  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j The Amönau Chronicle at www.amoenau.de
  2. ↑ a b c Amönau Castle, Marburg-Biedenkopf district. Historical local lexicon for Hesse (as of June 12, 2014). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on March 20, 2015 .
  3. ^ Amönau Castle , in the Wiki of the project "Renaissance Palaces in Hesse" at the Germanic National Museum. Here section: Significance in building history

Coordinates: 50 ° 54 '36.1 "  N , 8 ° 41' 14.8"  E