Martinsburg Castle

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Martinsburg Castle in Lahnstein

The Martinsburg Castle , shortly Martinsburg or Martin Castle called, is a palace complex in Lahnstein . It was built in 1298 as a customs castle for the Archbishops of Mainz and was originally called Burg Lahnstein . In addition to the city wall in Lahnstein, the Archbishop of Mainz also built this complex, which is one of the few undestroyed castles on the Middle Rhine . Today it is privately owned and houses apartments and offices as well as a carnival museum and a mint .

history

Original location of Martinsburg after Ferdinand Luthmer (1914)

The Martinsburg was built at the end of the 13th century as a base for exercising the Mainz customs rights . With the permission of King Adolf von Nassau , the Mainz electoral and archbishopric had secured shares in the Boppard imperial tariff since 1292 . As the Electoral Mainz castle Lahneck rose some distance from the Rhine on a hill, a permanent building was erected directly on the Rhine to secure the levying of the Rhine toll. A fortified building, which was mentioned in a document in 1244, was probably located at this place to monitor shipping as early as the middle of the 13th century.

The oldest parts of the castle form a rectangular residential tower with two corner towers, as well as the foundations of the hexagonal main tower in the south of the complex. Which collected at this point today, 28-meter-high dungeon was built around 1400 and has an adjoining stairs and abortion tower.

In connection with the construction of the city wall of Oberlahnstein after 1324, the Martinsburg was also expanded. It formed the southwest corner of the city fortifications. Towards the city, the Niederungsburg was secured with a moat and a fixed gate, where a cast bay window is still visible today. Attackers could be doused with hot pitch or oil from such components protruding above the castle gate. The fortification towards the city was necessary because it could be conquered by enemies and the castle then remained the last place of refuge for the Mainz officials. But even a revolt of the city population against their episcopal-electoral masters was not necessarily excluded. As the city castle of the economically up-and-coming Oberlahnstein, it accommodated the customs clerk and the customs staff, porters and tower guards as well as other auxiliary staff.

The moated castle was never destroyed, but changed through additions and renovations until the end of its membership in Kurmainz in 1803. The north-west wing was added as early as the 14th century, followed by today's south-east wing in 1497. In the years 1719 to 1721, the gap between the medieval residential tower and the donjon that still existed at the time on the Rhine side was closed by a three-storey central building in the Baroque style .

As the occasional secondary residence of the Mainz electors, Martinsburg Castle has left Lahneck Castle far behind since the end of the Middle Ages.

Monument protection

Martinsburg Castle is a protected cultural monument under the Monument Protection Act (DSchG) and entered in the list of monuments of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate . It is located at Schloßstraße 1 .

Martinsburg Castle has been part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 . Furthermore, it is a protected cultural asset according to the Hague Convention and marked with the blue and white protection symbol.

literature

  • Alexander Thon: Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage Site . Superior, Kaiserslautern 2003, p. 34, ISBN 3-936216-14-2 .
  • Alexander Thon, Manfred Czerwinski: Middle Rhine . The most beautiful castles in Germany, part 2, CD-ROM. Kaiserslautern 2003. ISBN 3-936216-08-8 .

Web links

Commons : Martinsburg (Oberlahnstein)  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lahnstein Carnival Museum
  2. ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - Rhein-Lahn-Kreis. Mainz 2020, p. 53 (PDF; 6.2 MB).

Coordinates: 50 ° 17 ′ 51 ″  N , 7 ° 36 ′ 20 ″  E