Brumath Castle

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Brumath Castle, south facade

The Brumath Castle stands in the same French community Brumath in Alsace Bas-Rhin department , formerly Hanau-Lichtenberg .

In the 1720s at the behest of the Hanau Count Johann Reinhard III. Built by Hanau , it was converted into a Lutheran church after the French Revolution , in the basement of which an archaeological museum is now housed. So this castle of Johann Reinhard III., Who during his lifetime in the Reformed areas of his county zealously promoted Lutheran parishes and churches (see Reinhardskirchen ), posthumously became a church of the Augsburg Confession itself .

prehistory

The forerunner of the baroque palace complex was Brumath Castle. The Lords of Lichtenberg bought it in 1332 from the heirs of the landgraves in Alsace and it was initially the center of their office in Brumath . The castle was a fiefdom of the Elector and Archbishop of Mainz . In 1378 the Lords of Lichtenberg sold half of the castle to Ulrich von Finstingen .

After the death of the last Lichtenberger, Philip I the Elder of Hanau-Babenhausen (* 1417, † 1480), because he was married to one of the two Lichtenberg heirs, inherited half of the Lichtenberg rule in 1480, the other half went to his brother-in-law, Simon IV. Alarm clock from Zweibrücken-Bitsch . The Brumath office and the castle initially became a condominium between Hanau-Lichtenberg and Zweibrücken-Bitsch. Under the government of Count Philip III. From Hanau-Lichtenberg there was then a real division: Brumath came entirely to Zweibrücken-Bitsch. In contrast, the Willstätt office , which also came from the Lichtenberg legacy and was a condominium between the two houses, was transferred entirely to the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg.

However, there was another inheritance in 1570, which also brought Brumath to the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg: Count Jakob von Zweibrücken-Bitsch (* 1510; † 1570) and his brother Simon V. Wecker , who died in 1540, each left only one daughter as heir. Count Jakob's daughter, Margarethe (* 1540; † 1569), was married to Philipp V von Hanau-Lichtenberg (* 1541; † 1599). The legacy resulting from this constellation also included the second half of the former Lichtenberg rule, including Brumath, which was not already ruled by Hanau-Lichtenberg.

history

Plan drawing of the Brumath palace complex with the building stock from 1795

The classicist castle was built between 1720 and 1726 instead of a previous building that was destroyed in 1672. Its ruins had been completely removed from 1718 to make room for the new building, for which the Hanau master builder Christian Ludwig Hermann provided the plans. His client was Count Johann Reinhard III. von Hanau, who had it built as a summer residence for his daughter Charlotte . However, due to her early death in 1726, she never used the castle. Her and her father's heirs, the Landgraves of Hessen-Darmstadt , had little use for the complex, so it was mostly empty. From 1775 Maria Christina von Sachsen , abbess of Remiremont and aunt of the French king Louis XVI. who have favourited buildings as a residence. After her death on December 3, 1782, they were never inhabited again. Unused and abandoned, the castle was the victim of vandalism and the people of Brumath made use of the facility. What she had left was then taken away by soldiers who were in the city in 1793. Under the leadership of Dagobert Sigismund Wurmser, a Count of Vendenheim and Sundhausen who had emigrated from France , Austro-Prussian troops occupied Brumath on October 19 that year and set up their headquarters in the castle. Before the end of the year, however, they had been driven out again by French revolutionary troops.

Confiscated during the Revolution, the complex - consisting of the castle building, stables, a pigeon tower , gardens, an ice cellar and 10.5  hectares of land - was auctioned as a national property in 1795. The first appointment in July of that year, however, was unsuccessful because there was no interested party. At the second auction on August 16 of the same year, Georges Christ from Colmar bought it , who paid 795,500  livres for it. However, he had not bought part of the complex for himself, but for “the citizen Rastignac” from Hagenau . The two side wings of the palace, consisting of pavilion buildings that were connected to the main wing via three-arched arcades with a terrace structure on the upper floor, were then torn down.

From the beginning of the 19th century, Brumath Castle saw various changes of ownership, during which the property was divided several times. In 1803 there were a total of 22 people who owned the property. In July 1804 the Lutheran parish Brumath-Krautwiller bought the castle building for 15,560 livres and had it converted into a church for their own purposes. Although the final purchase contract was not signed until January 25, 1806, the renovation work began as early as 1803. In the course of this, the entire original interior was removed - including all ceilings - and replaced by classical fixtures with decorations in the Empire style . Only the outside facade of the building remained untouched. In the middle of the roof a bell tower was built in 1805, which was equipped with a first bell in January 1806. The official inauguration of the church building had already taken place on September 1, 1805. The plans for the conversion to the church came from the Strasbourg architect Jean-Jacques Schuler, who was supported by Jean-Chrétien Arnold. The two men also provided the designs for two right-angled pavilion buildings at the south-east and south-west corners of the courtyard.

In 1923 one was the restoration of the building made followed the 1973 and 1985 restoration of the organ. The latter eliminated changes made to the instrument in the 1930s and restored it to its original 1810 condition. Since the basement and its groin vault were repaired in 1982, part of it has been used by the archaeological museum of Brumath ( Musée archéologique de Brumath ).

When plans of the community became public in 2013 to erect two modern, cubic buildings for a media library and a restaurant in the main courtyard of the palace , a citizens' initiative tried to prevent changes to the historic palace area, but was unsuccessful.

description

Colored drawing of the castle by Jean Nicolas, around 1818

The main building of the castle is a rectangular structure with six window axes each and a central risalit of three window axes. Its two storeys are closed off by a mansard roof with a bell tower with a Welscher hood and lantern as well as a weather valve in its center . To the south of the building there is a courtyard through which a small avenue of linden trees leads to the palace portal . This is flanked by pilasters and has a triangular gable with a tympanum at the top. Opposite the main building, on the other side of the courtyard, there are two corner buildings with hipped roof and yellow plastering , which date from the beginning of the 19th century.

The former pavilion buildings to the west and east of the main building have not been preserved, as has the former French garden that was located north of the palace. In contrast, the former farm buildings still exist, which are grouped east of the palace courtyard along the northern side of Rue Jacques Kablé .

The Lutheran Church of Brumath has been in the building since 1805, whose parish belongs to the Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine . Inside it consists of a single large hall , the galleries of which are supported on the long sides by Doric columns . The organ , built by Michel Stiehr from 1809 and installed in 1810, was rebuilt in 1936. In 1973 its prospectus was classified as a monument historique . In 1975 the actual organ was added to the French list of monuments .

literature

  • Gerhard Bott : Castles and public buildings in the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg in the 17th and 18th centuries. In: Neues Magazin für Hanauische Geschichte 2015. P. 35ff (here P. 66–71).
  • Fritz Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. Investigations into the property, the rule and the politics of domestic power of a noble family from the Upper Rhine . In: Writings of the Erwin von Steinbach Foundation . 2nd edition, unchanged in the text, by an introduction extended reprint of the Strasbourg edition, Rhenus-Verlag, 1938. Volume 10 . Pfaehler, Bad Neustadt an der Saale 1985, ISBN 3-922923-31-3 (268 pages).
  • Werner Kurz: Alsace is hoping for solidarity from Hanau . In: Hanauer Anzeiger from October 7, 2010.
  • Daniel Zimmer: Le château de Brumath, Œuvre de l'architecte Christian-Ludwig Hermann . Strasbourg 2010 ( PDF ; 1.4 MB).

Web links

Commons : Schloss Brumath  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. 1985, p. 61.
  2. ^ Fritz Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. 1985, pp. 164, 237.
  3. ^ Fritz Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. 1985, pp. 103-104.
  4. ↑ a b Ancien château de Brumath devenu Temple , accessed January 5, 2020.
  5. ^ Daniel Zimmer: Le château de Brumath, Œuvre de l'architecte Christian-Ludwig Hermann. 2010, p. 1.
  6. ↑ a b c d Website of the city of Brumath ( Memento from August 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ a b c d History of the Protestant Parish , accessed January 5, 2020.
  8. ^ Website on Lutheran Churches in France , accessed January 5, 2020.
  9. ↑ a b Entry of the organ in Base Palissy , accessed on January 5, 2020.

Coordinates: 48 ° 43 '54.1 "  N , 7 ° 42' 34.5"  E