Bernau Castle (Aargau)

Bernau Castle
Bernau Castle in Aargau, pen lithograph around 1840
Alternative name (s):	Bernau Castle
Creation time :	1157
Castle type :	Hilltop castle
Conservation status:	ruin
Place:	Bernau, Leibstadt community
Geographical location	47 ° 35 '43 "  N , 8 ° 10' 20"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 35 '43 "  N , 8 ° 10' 20"  E ; CH1903:  655,175  /  271 879

The Bernau are the ruins of a hilltop castle in the district of the same name in the municipality of Leibstadt in the Swiss canton of Aargau . After a devastating fire in July 1844, only a few remains of the wall are left today.

history

Presumably, Bernau Castle, which previously stood on the same spot, was built in the 11th century as the seat of the Free of Bernau; "Bernowa" was first mentioned in a document in 1157. The noble Ulrich and Berchthold von Bernau are documented in 1299. By inheritance, Bernau Castle came to the Lords of Gutenburg at the beginning of the 14th century and in 1379 to the Lords of Rinach . The small rule of Bernau comprised the high and low jurisdiction over Unterleibstadt , Gansingen and Schwaderloch .

After the Confederates had conquered Aargau in 1415, the border between the County of Baden and Upper Austria ran right through the castle tower, which is why the owners of Bernau served two lords. In 1499 the castle was destroyed in the Swabian War.

The lords of Reinach sold the Bernau estate to the von Rotberg family in the 16th century. The Rotbergers sold them in 1632 to the von Roll family from the canton of Uri , which later enabled Franz Ludwig von Roll to join the knighthood of Breisgau. Franz Ludwig von Roll erected a new four-story, single-wing castle building with a stair tower on the castle rock of Bernau. Franz Ludwig von Roll married Maria Agnes von Schönau in 1642, the daughter of the governor of the western Austrian forest towns. In January 1646 Maria Agnes von Roll entertained the traveling Florentine geographer Giovanni Battista Nicolosi at Bernau Castle:

“A little less than an hour later we had to stay in the castle of a nephew of the said commander, who married a sister of my doz brother: the most witty lady I have seen in Germany so far. And in order not to commit an unforgivable disgrace, it was necessary to have breakfast the German way: for three hours. "

In 1764 the baron Joseph Leopold von Roll von Bernau switched to the production of Barchent , but was unable to assert himself against his competitors - Kilian from Waldshut and the Montfort brothers from Wiesental - and became insolvent. The claims of the creditors before the forest governor in Waldshut are said to have initially been delayed because the forest governor did not see himself responsible. He explained that the baron's living room in Bernau Castle was on Swiss territory. The creditors should therefore contact the Landvogt in Baden AG . In 1814, Bernau Castle was used as a military hospital during the great typhus epidemic . After that, the castle changed hands several times at short intervals and was ultimately to be divided into apartments. On July 15, 1844, the castle, whose insurance value was 6,000 francs, burned down completely. Only the remains of the walls of the main tower and the castle building are preserved. The castle's double chapel, built in 1672, with the von Roll family crypt and a separate part for the local residents is now used as the Leibstadt cemetery chapel.

literature

• Hermann Josef Welti: Two ancestral samples from the Loretto Chapel, the resting place of Messrs von Roll zu Bernau , 1931.
• Hermann Josef Welti: The Barons von Roll zu Bernau: After a lecture, held at the annual meeting of the Histor. Association Zurzach and the surrounding area on March 27, 1935 in Leibstadt , self-published, 1935, 16 pp.
• Robert Hilgers (ed.): A three-hour breakfast at the Freifrau von Roll in: Giovan Battista Nicolosi's trip to Germany: for the first time edited from his manuscript, commented and introduced by Robert Hilgers . Schäuble, Rheinfelden / Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87718-781-1 . (Letter from Baden of January 29, 1646, p. 120.)

Web links

• Andreas Steigmeier : Bernau. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jakob Christoph Beck , Jakob Christoph Iselin , August Johann Burtorff: Neu-Vermehrtes Historisch- und Geographisches Allgemeine Lexicon, Basel, Brandmüller, 1742, keyword Bernau.
2. ↑ GLA Karlsruhe, Findbuch 80 No. 36. Archduke Wilhelm of Austria: Deutsche Adelsproben, Vienna, Braumüller, 1868, No. 5299 on p. 150 mentions February 27, 1624 as the date of the recording, which cannot be correct.
3. ↑ Hans Jacob Leu : General Eydgenössisches or Schweitzerisches Lexicon [...], Volume 15, p. 368.
4. ^ Archduke Wilhelm of Austria: Deutsche Adelsproben, Vienna, Braumüller, 1868, No. 5300 on p. 150.