Cronheim Castle

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Main wing with entrance on the east side

The Cronheim Castle (formerly Leonrod'sches castle called) is a palace in Cronheim , a district of Gunzenhausen in Central Franconia district Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen . The moated castle is registered under the monument number D-5-77-136-149 as an architectural monument in the Bavarian monument list. The castle, partially preserved predecessors and the area around the castle are designated as a medieval moated castle stable , early modern moated castle Cronheim as a ground monument under the number D-5-6929-0192.

location

The palace is located in the center of Cronheim north of the village church of St. Maria Magdalena and west of the Cronheim allodium at an altitude of 474 meters above  sea ​​level . The postal address is Cronheim 178 .

architecture

Today's castle was built on a medieval predecessor building in 1564, initially as a two-wing complex in the form of a moated castle . It was secured by two outer castles and a reservoir. Around 1597 the building was expanded to a four-wing complex, which was flanked by round towers at the outer corners to the west and by octagonal corner towers to the east . In the atrium , an octagonal stair tower connected the floors . The castle is aligned exactly to north-south / east-west and does not follow the axes specified by the course of the road.

State of preservation

The two-storey main wing in the east and the adjoining parts of the south and north wing as well as two octagonal corner towers, of which the south tower, also known as the Hunger Tower, was built around 1400, together with the still existing gate system, are still preserved. The tower in the north was built when the castle was expanded into a four-wing complex in the 16th century. Towards the south, including parts of the medieval residential tower (12th / 13th century), the previous building, around half of it is preserved. Today there is the Museum Mikrokosmos Cronheim, a village - three religions . About a third of the north wing still stands. The wooden connecting passage on the inside has been extensively restored. The stair tower built in the 16th century and the entire west wing were partly demolished in the 19th century due to dilapidation. Today there are modern buildings that are used by the AWO as a therapy center. The medieval bailey, the former fortified church of St. Maria Magdalena and parts of the high medieval allodium as well as parts of the inner and outer curtain wall of the castle in the south and east are also partially preserved . These have been severely shortened in their original height, but still partially contain the original, elaborate sandstone wall crowning.

history

In the Middle Ages, Cronheim was a free, imperial manor . A fortified allodium , to which the first mansion belonged, was built with royal permission around 1140 a few meters east of today's castle. Parts of this building are still preserved in house no. 180. A first, modest moated castle was probably built towards the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. In the middle of the 14th century, the facility was greatly expanded. This included the construction of a bailey towards the east, including the already fortified allodium. In 1403 the castle was destroyed by the Nuremberg burgrave Johann III by bypassing the outer bailey.

By marriage, the manor Cronheim came to the Lords of Leonrod , who began building today's moated castle in 1564, initially as a two-wing complex. In 1580 the manor Cronheim was inherited by Sebastian Neustädter called Stürmer , before he sold it to his brother-in-law Friedrich von Eyb zu Eybburg for 47,000 guilders in 1595 or 1597 . Friedrich expanded the palace as a four-wing complex, but became so indebted during the expansion that in 1604 he was forced to pledge the palace to his brother-in-law Geyer von Giebelstadt zu Goldbach. The Eichstätt prince-bishop Johann Christoph von Westerstetten acquired the castle in 1630. The purchase was unlawful, whereby after the end of the Thirty Years War the manor fell back to the previous owner Fuchs von Bimbach , who sold it to pay off debts to Count Johann Heinrich Notthracht . In 1661 Johann Heinrich Notthracht offered his Cronheim property to the Teutonic Order for purchase in 1661. The sale was delayed, however, so that the Eichstätter Bishop Marquard could finally make use of his right to redeem and instead entered into the purchase contract. So Cronheim came back to the diocese of Eichstätt on August 2, 1661. However, the actual sales contract was only signed ten years later, on January 10, 1671, due to controversial issues. In 1668 the castle was subordinated to the Arberg maintenance office and a Vogt took over the management of the castle. The Margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach tried several times to gain power over Cronheim. In 1707 the castle was stormed by the margrave's musketeers and partly devastated. In 1796 the Kingdom of Prussia annexed the Eichstättische Amt Cronheim, before the manors of Cronheim and Eybburg were handed over by the Prussian king to the Bavarian elector Max Josef in 1802 . He gave the manor Cronheim to his minister Maximilian von Montgelas , who sold it to the Prussian king just a year later. From 1804 the castle was uninhabited and suffered heavily from billeting during the Napoleonic Wars. Afterwards, various private owners acquired the castle, which had now become dilapidated. Between 1840 and 1848, the stair tower, which was built in the 16th century and has since fallen into a tilted position, had to be demolished together with the west wing and parts of the north and south wings due to the risk of collapse. In 1999 the remaining parts of the castle were restored at great expense. Today, in addition to a museum open to the public, the castle also houses a castle shop. The AWO maintains a therapy center in other parts of the building.

  • Remains of the southern wing

  • patio

  • "Hunger Tower" with parts of the former curtain wall (east)

  • Former fortified church of St. Maria Magdalena with curtain wall and gate

  • Parts of the allodium used as the outer bailey with gate and curtain wall

  • South wing of the castle

literature

  • Gotthard Kießling: Weissenburg-Gunzenhausen district (= Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation [Hrsg.]: Monuments in Bavaria . Volume V.70 / 1 ). Karl M. Lipp Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-87490-581-0 , p. 236 .
  • Hans-Heinrich Häffner: Castle Cronheim near Gunzenhausen in Middle Franconia. In: Castles and early palaces in Thuringia and its neighboring countries. Editor of the Wartburg Society for Research into Castles and Palaces, Volume 5, 1999, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-422-06263-7 / ISBN 978-3-422-06263-4 .
  • Daniel Burger : New findings on the building history of Cronheim Castle, City of Gunzenhausen, district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen. In: Contributions to archeology in Middle Franconia. - Büchenbach. - ISSN  1430-5461 . - 5 (1999), pp. 221-254.
  • Ralf Rossmeissl and Evelyn Gillmeister-Geisenhof: Microcosm of Cronheim: one village, three religions. Ed .: Kreisverband der Arbeiterwohlfahrt Roth-Schwabach eV self-published, Roth-Schwabach 2000, ISBN 3-933474-09-4 .
  • Karl Ried: Cronheim a former aristocratic seat. Eichstaett 1934.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Former von Leonrodsches Schloss , Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (pdf, accessed on May 18, 2016)
  2. ↑ Topographic maps , Bavarian Surveying Office ( BayernAtlas )
  3. ↑ Microcosm of Cronheim: one village, three religions - page 48.

Coordinates: 49 ° 5 '47.1 "  N , 10 ° 39' 48.6"  E