Lauterecken Castle
| Lauterecken Castle | ||
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 The Veldenzturm of the castle |
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| Data | ||
| place | Lauterecken | |
| Client | Count of Veldenz | |
| Architectural style | partly Renaissance; Basement: late Gothic | |
| Construction year | before 1343; rebuilt during the first half of the 16th century; Parts rebuilt at the beginning of the 19th century | |
| Coordinates | 49 ° 38 '56.2 " N , 7 ° 35' 29.7" E | |
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The Veldenzschloss Lauterecken is located in the small Palatinate town of Lauterecken and is considered a cultural monument. It was the former residence of the Counts of Pfalz-Veldenz, which spanned four generations and lasted 151 years. The castle is located at Veldenzplatz 1 . From 2017 to 2018 it was rebuilt and renovated inside. The new inauguration took place in August 2018.
history
A Lauterecken castle was built in the Middle Ages within the Verdun estate of Medard. Gerlach I (1112–1146), a descendant of the Nahegau Counts, founded the County of Veldenz (named after the place on the Moselle). The blue Veldenz lion in Lauterecken's coat of arms still reminds of this family today. The castle with its characteristic Veldenz tower was first mentioned in 1343. Around 1349 the city received city rights. In 1444, the Wittelsbach Count Palatine Stephan von Pfalz-Simmern-Zweibrücken (1385–1459) took over the territory by marrying Anna (around 1390–1439), the daughter of the last Count of Veldenz, and formed the Pfalzgrafschaft Zweibrücken. Ruprecht (1506–1544), brother of Count Palatine Ludwig II of Zweibrücken, took over the guardianship of the underage Prince Wolfgang (1526–1569) when Ludwig died . Out of gratitude, he later gave him his own palatinate county, which initially consisted of the offices of Veldenz and Lauterecken, the Jettenbach court and House Remigsberg (Marburg contract). As the founder of the Pfalz-Veldenz line, Ruprecht elevated Lauterecken to the seat of a royal seat and had a representative castle built. His son, the “astute” and visionary Georg Hans (1543–1592), married the Swedish princess Anna Maria from the Wasa family. He expanded the county to include Electorate Palatinate areas, later moved the residence to Lützelstein ( La Petite-Pierre ) in Alsace and founded Pfalzburg . He was followed by his son Georg Gustav (1564–1634, cousin of Gustav Adolf ) and his son Leopold Ludwig (1625–1694) until the Protestant Palatinate-Veldenzer family died out in 1694 during the French reunification period. Lauterecken finally fell to Electoral Palatinate in 1733 after long disputes . In the later Bavarian period, when the Zweibrücken family came to the Bavarian throne, the Veldenzer lion was included in the Bavarian state coat of arms. The bones of 15 members of the Pfalz-Veldenz family rest in the provost church on the nearby Remigiusberg .
lock
From the former Lautereck Veldenzschloss, the former residence of the Wittelsbach counts of Pfalz-Veldenz (1543–1694), only the Veldenz Tower, the medieval enclosing walls and the late Gothic ribbed vault of the cellar, as well as the facade of the “New Building” remain in the original. After the transition to the Electoral Palatinate , the dilapidated castle was rebuilt in the middle of the 18th century as an administrative building. From today's perspective, the gable roof, the stucco ceilings and restored windows are remarkable. In 1803, during the "French era", rent master Johann Carl Falciola bought it at auction in the course of the national property auction and had the building, which had been badly ruined by the French revolutionary troops, thoroughly repaired. Other small changes took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. It served as a traditional restaurant and company building. It was not until 2002 that the building passed from private to municipal ownership and was extensively renovated in 2004. Since 2017 it has been rebuilt and renovated inside and inaugurated in August 2018. It now houses a doctor's practice, a wedding room, the large "Grafensaal" for events, a training room for the district music school and a small documentation on the Pfalz-Veldenzers.
Veldenz Tower
The square, late Gothic Veldenz Tower on the southeast corner of the formerly square castle area was extensively restored in 1983. It represents one of the two surviving watchtowers on the Lauter, sits on the corner of an older remnant of the wall and dates from the early 16th century. The encircling battlements, which can be accessed from the roof terrace, refer to the former defensive function of the tower. The upper floor of the tower protrudes over a pointed arch frieze. All the cut stones here have stonemason's marks. In the case of the slit openings, it is no longer possible to clearly determine whether they were loopholes. There is a lavatory bay in front of the entrance to the tower room. The three rectangular windows have late Gothic grooved walls. Around the tower there was a moat 13 to 18 meters wide and several meters deep, which was fed with water from the Lauter and filled up shortly after 1700.
"New building"
Not far from the Veldenz Tower, a building erected around 1780 rises above the south side of the "New Building" ( Schlossgasse 1 ), which was demolished in 1779 and was once used as a stables. In it, parts of the richly crafted renaissance facade and a coupled window from the upper floor were used as spoilers. The two-storey plastered building, which is now privately owned, has a crooked roof. The "New Building" was probably built at the end of the 16th century under Count Palatine Georg Gustav . Style influences of the Dutch Renaissance and Weser Renaissance as well as echoes of the Strasbourg region can be seen.
On request from the Lauterecken city administration, tours of the palace and the city are offered.
Events
Gustav Philipp von Pfalz-Veldenz (1651–1679), son of Count Palatine Leopold Ludwig (1625–1694) and Hereditary Prince of the County of Veldenz , was arrested by his father in 1678 in the Veldenzturm after several cruel murders. When the princely “good-for-nothing” managed to escape from the tower a year later, the 28-year-old was shot by his sergeant Jeremias Berteau. The background was that Gustav Philipp had converted to Catholicism, which displeased his father, who, like all members of the Palatinate line of the Wittelsbacher, was Protestant.
Web links
- Information about the castle (PDF; 1.5 MB)
- City of Lauterecken
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Dietmar Fligg: Lauterecken: Veldenz Castle inaugurated after renovation. In: The Rhine Palatinate . August 27, 2018, accessed May 14, 2019 .
- ↑ First wedding in the new castle. In: The Rhine Palatinate . December 29, 2018, accessed May 14, 2019 .
- ↑ Veldenz Castle opens after renovation. In: SWR. August 24, 2018, accessed May 14, 2019 .