Osterland Castle

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Ruins of Osterland Castle

With Castle Osterland (in the literature Castle Osterlant ) a ruin complex is west of Oschatz referred dating back to the 13th century. It is a listed building .

Location and shape

Osterland Castle is located about 2.5 km west of the center of Oschatz and 200 m south of the road to Wermsdorf in a wooded area. To the south of the Osterland Castle is a pond that was only created in the 20th century and through which the Stranggraben, a tributary of the Döllnitz , flows. The road Am Wüsten Schloß leads past ruins and a pond .

  • Pond side

  • inner space

  • Location of the water house

The remaining structural remains are two wall parts up to 9.6 meters high, in the course of which and at the corners risalits emerge, which give a defensive impression. The masonry, which is up to a meter thick, consists of rubble stones , while the carefully worked corner cuboids are made of sandstone or porphyry . The course of the edges results in a former square floor plan with a side length of around 44 meters, the corners of which point to the four cardinal directions. An interior space eight meters wide can be seen at the west corner.

Reconstructed from the findings, the building was a four-wing complex with three floors around a square inner courtyard measuring 19 × 19 meters in which two oaks now stand. The upper two floors were reached via two stone spiral staircases that ran inside the wall. While the lower floor had only loopholes-like slits, there were larger windows on the upper floors.

During archaeological excavations, the base part of the circular, so-called water house with a diameter of six meters was uncovered in the east corner of the courtyard. It contained a five-tiered underground basin three meters in diameter, to which steps led down from the neighboring parts of the building and which was fed by a spring. At the edge of the pool there were eight round carnies to accommodate columns. A drain from the basin led outside under the southeast wing. For safety reasons, the water house was backfilled. A square stone border marks its location today.

history

For wood recovered from the foundations during excavations in 1991/92, a dendrochronological date of felling was found in the winter of 1211/12, which at the same time suggests that construction had started. This falls during the reign of Margrave Dietrich the Oppressed , which lasted from 1198 to 1221. Because of the size of the facility, the same is accepted as the client.

Representation around 1840
(with a false name)

The excavations revealed the four-wing foundation, but also showed that the northeast wing was not built and was instead replaced by a simple outer wall. The above-ground part of the water house was also missing, so that one must assume that the system will be completed in a reduced form compared to the planning, possibly also due to the death of Margrave Dietrich. His successor, Heinrich the Illustrious, was only six years old at the time.

The building was not intended to be used for a long time, as the first written testimony about it, a deed of donation from 1379, already referred to it as a desolate steynhuse , desolate in the sense of abandoned and abandoned. A feudal letter for Wolfgang von Schleinitz from the year 1501 documents meadows, ponds, dams and woods in the direct vicinity of what was then known as the “Old Stone House”, which belonged to the fiefdom of the Oschatz Vogtshaus across from the Oschatz town church . Even in later documents, the word "wüst" no longer appears, but instead there is talk of "alden steynhuze" or "alden slosse".

The first archaeological excavations at the ruins took place from 1903 to 1907 under the direction of the Oschatz city councilor Hans Julius Schmorl. More extensive excavations with exposure of the entire floor plan and the water house were carried out in 1991/1992 by the State Office for Archeology of Saxony under the direction of Reinhard Spehr . These excavations support, among other things, the assumption that the lack of “wüst” in the name could be related to a later use.

In 2006, the city of Oschatz, as the owner, had to close the site due to its dilapidation and the associated risk of accidents. The renovation work carried out from 2007 to 2009 secured the preservation of the ruins for posterity.

Surname

The name Schloß Osterland for the ruin previously known as the Old Stone House appears for the first time in the maps created by the priest and cartographer Adam Friedrich Zürner on behalf of Augustus the Strong and published in 1752 as Atlas Saxonicus novus . Since Oschatz never belonged to the historical Osterland landscape , the name cannot be related to it.

Gabriele Teumer points out that in the 15th century there was a citizen named Thomas Osterland who was resident in Dahlen , but was also a stake citizen in Oschatz, that is, as a foreigner, he had Oschatz's civil rights. After a murder committed by him, he concluded an atonement contract with the brothers of the victim , which, among other things, dealt with sums of money that made him well-to-do. When he did not fulfill this contract, he lost his citizenship in Oschatz and had to sell his property. Nevertheless, the city council issued him a letter of recommendation. Given the overall situation, it cannot be ruled out that the “alde sloss” might have belonged to him and that his name was transferred to the walls, which Zürner then learned from the local population.

use

Since there are no records from the short period of use, the purpose and use of the building can only be inferred from the building design and accompanying circumstances. The assumptions range from the ruler's seat to monastery, order castle and knight's castle to hunting lodge. Ritterburg is ruled out because of its location on level ground and insufficient defensive structures. The size and type of complex justify the name lock. The church and cloister are missing for a monastery. The floor plan, type and time of the construction speak in favor of an order castle , but here too there is no sacred space.

A connection between the complex as the residence of the Margraves of Meißen and the most important medieval court of the Mark Meißen , the Thingplatz on the 1000-year-old judicial linden tree in neighboring Collm , suggests itself.

A frequently cited possibility of use is as a hunting palace, especially since hunting accessories were found during the excavations, such as a bell for pickling , and there were later game reserves in the area.

A final conclusive determination will also be difficult in the future.

literature

  • Reinhard Spehr : Osterland - a sensation in Saxon castle archeology , in: Burgenforschung aus Sachsen 2 (1993), pp. 28–35.
  • Reinhard Spehr: Osterlant , in: Götze, Castel del Monte. Geometric Marvel (1998), pp. 93-98.
  • Reinhard Spehr: Preliminary report on the building research in "Schloss Osterlant" near Oschatz , in: Historical building research in Saxony (2000), pp. 18–46.
  • Reinhard Spehr: The margravial hunting castles Osterland near Oschatz and Grillenburg near Freiberg , lecture at the Freiberger Altertumsverein eV, in the Freiberg City and Mining Museum , on January 17th, 2002
  • Robert Schmidt: Hunting Palace or Chapel? The desert castle Osterlant near Oschatz , Verlag R. Schmidt, Oschatz 2003.
  • Reinhard Spehr: The desert castle Osterlant - An archaeological consideration of the building history , Verlag R. Schmidt, Oschatz 2005.
  • Robert Schmidt: The desert castle Osterlant and the German order . An order castle in central Germany? , Verlag R. Schmidt, Oschatz 2006.
  • Thomas Biller: The "desert Steynhus" near Oschatz in Saxony - early Gothic on the way east. R. Schmidt, Oschatz 2007 ( PDF ; 16 MB).
  • Reinhard Spehr: The water house of the margraves' hunting lodge "Osterlant" near Oschatz , in: Water on Burgen im Mittelalter (2007), pp. 255–262.
  • Reinhard Spehr: Osterlant Castle. A house for the knight's association of Margrave Dietrichs von Meißen and von der Ostmark , in: Salzgitter-Jahrbuch 2009 (2009), pp. 89–156.
  • Reinhard Spehr: Riddles about Osterlant Castle. An archaeological picture book , Dresden 2012, ISBN 978-3-9815272-0-9

Web links

Commons : Schloss Osterland  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of cultural monuments in Oschatz , ID number 08973833
  2. ^ Oschatz / Osterland. In: Historical Saxony. Retrieved September 15, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Thomas Biller: The "desert Steynhus" near Oschatz in Saxony ...
  4. ↑ Cash injection for Wüstes Schloss. Retrieved September 20, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Osterlant Castle - a unique specimen that is more than 800 years old. Retrieved September 20, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Creis-AMMT Meissen. In: Atlas Saxonicus novus. Retrieved September 19, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Gabriele Teumer: Who was Thomas Osterland - councilor, murderer, castle owner? , Verlag R. Schmidt, Oschatz 2004.

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 26.4 "  N , 13 ° 4 ′ 13"  E