Scheibbs Castle

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View of the castle from the town hall square

The Schloss Scheibbs is located on the main square in the center of Scheibbs ( Lower Austria ) and forms an ensemble of the parish church , ramparts and parsonage. The former secular administrative seat of the Carthusian monastery is now home to the district administration of the Scheibbs district.

history

Entire system, detail from a painting from 1678/1764. All towers still with onion hoods

Even Roman legionaries had a shelter on this conveniently located place, a high plateau above the nearby Erlauf , bordered by the Schöllgraben to the south. Under the Romans and the Celts who were dependent on them , there was a fortification in the province of Noricum around 250 AD . This fell into disrepair during the migration of the peoples, but served the local population as a refuge again and again in troubled times .

In the Middle Ages, a castle stood here as the center of a craft settlement. Scheibbs Castle is probably a castle-church complex from the early Middle Ages, which was built by the ancestors of the Counts of Peilstein at a strategically favorable point in the Erlauftal (crossing with the Ybbstal - Melktal connection) and later became an essential part of the Scheibbs fortifications has been. Konrad I. von Peilstein made the "walls" the administrative center of his rule. His fiefdom was Otto de (von) Scibes at the time - the name Scheibbs can be traced back to him after a document mentioning it in 1160. He had been appointed by them as administrator of the small fortification. The forerunner of the later castle was, with the exception of the church, the only brick building far and wide and was therefore referred to as " walls ". Scheibbs was then a border settlement against Carantania . There was great respect for the Slavs living there in the 11th and 12th centuries. From Scheibbs, the traffic in the Erlauftal could be controlled at any time.

After the Peilsteiners died out, Scheibbs fell to the Babenbergs around 1218 and became sovereign. In 1338 Duke Albrecht II donated the Scheibbs market to his favorite foundation, the Carthusian Monastery of Gaming . Thus Scheibbs became the secular administrative center of the monastery rule and the castle became its center, with which the centuries-old tradition as the administrative seat began. The Carthusian Order built the castle into the administrative seat of its extensive possessions. In 1342 Friedrich the Häusler bought " half the house at Scheibbs " from Weichard the Plankensteiner . The other half was still in the possession of Wernhard dem Schafferfelder, a brother-in-law of the Plankensteiner. In 1349 Friedrich the Häusler sold the defense structure together with his lord Liebegg to Duke Albrecht II, who, after temporarily leaving it to the Plankensteiners , gave it to the Carthusian Order in Gaming he founded in 1330. From this point on, the fate of Scheibbs was closely linked to the Charterhouse for centuries. Until the abolition of the monastery in 1782, Scheibbs was the secular administrative center of the monastery rule. The Gamingen officials and court judges had their seat in the castle and later in the castle. After Scheibbs town was raised in 1352, the construction of the fortification began, the castle was an essential part of it. The respective prior of the Charterhouse liked to stay in Scheibbs Castle. A large box building accommodated the tithing of the landholders - mostly grain.

Arcade entrance

When the Lower Austrian farmers on both sides of the Danube rose up against their landlords in autumn 1595, the market judge Walberger, the Marktmüller Urberger and the Kastner Preuss from Scheibbs took the lead of the rebels and besieged the prior Bartholomäus, who was in Scheibbs Castle had barricaded. As the Kartäuseroberen managed to escape and he in Prague by Emperor Rudolf II. Had made representations, began in the spring of 1596, the punitive expedition under the command of the Supreme Wenzel Morakschi to Litschau standing Black Riders . After the rebels were put down in the Waldviertel, the imperial forces also drove the farmers south of the Danube to mate. The heads of the miller and Kastner fell by the sword in the market square of Scheibbs, the executioner first cut off the market judge's right hand with which he had sworn allegiance to his landlord and hung it on the pillory before the delinquent himself between Scheibbs and gaming was tied to a tree. Marakschy had a dozen of the other ringleaders brought to Vienna for digging work. They were also tried there.

Prior Hilarius Danisius had the medieval building expanded into a four-wing castle in 1611, with older components from the 13th to 15th centuries being included in the new building. After the Carthusian Monastery of Gaming was abolished in 1782, the castle's owners changed repeatedly; first it came into the possession of the Imperial State Property Administration, which sold the castle to Ignaz Müller in 1826 . In 1829, Wenzel Joseph Ritter von Sallaba acquired the castle, Johann Heinrich Freiherr von Sallaba sold it to Andreas Töpper in 1867 , and the district court and district administration have been housed here ever since. His widow Amalia Horst sold it to Eduard Musil Edlen von Mollenbruck , the owner of the Neubruck paper mill. The subsequent owner of the paper mill, Fritz Hamburger , also acquired the castle in 1906, and since 1954 it has been owned by the State of Lower Austria.

architecture

Renaissance portal, sundial and window baskets at Scheibbs Castle
Fountain lion with Gaminger coat of arms in Scheibbs castle courtyard

Scheibbs Castle emerged from a castle-church complex from the early Middle Ages. It is still connected to the parish church by a flying buttress . The castle is located at the highest point of the old town in the southeast corner of the former market fortification. The local area was largely protected on the south side by the natural cut of the Schöllgraben. The east side, on the other hand, required additional protection by means of an artificial ditch, which has now disappeared. The southern and eastern curtain wall of the castle was also part of the market wall. Two round corner towers with conical roofs are still preserved. They are equipped with key slots and light slots. The castle was protected on three sides by a kennel that was reinforced with slender round towers. However, they were more for representation than defense. The only thing missing is the kennel on the side of the neighboring parish church. The castle is an almost square complex with a side length of approx. 53 m. The large inner courtyard is also almost square. It is surrounded on all sides by two-story, 7 to 11 m wide former residential wings. The slope of the northwest edge towards the main square marks the former gate construction. The access to the inner courtyard is still here today. A balcony with a wrought iron grille is attached over the entrance.

Scheibbs Castle in front of Töpper, who rebuilt the entrance in a neoclassical style

A simple triangular gable is attached to the portal, a neoclassical entrance area from 1868, which was built by Andreas Töpper one year after the purchase . On the left is the defiant keep, which may have worn a baroque hood in the past. Although he is relatively weak with a side length of only seven meters, is with him around the former dungeon of the first plant. Today it is five-story and covered with a flat tent roof. It has no windows. The interior is only illuminated by narrow, conical slits of light. Access is on the second floor. A narrow, ogival door connects it with the attic of the neighboring north wing. As beam ducts suggest, there was probably a wooden battlement outside on the fifth floor. Due to the small-scale quarry stone masonry , the gusset material of which consists largely of old roof tiles, the tower is likely to have been built in the 14th century. The outer walls in the north, south and east as well as a 47 m long and 10 m wide building on the south front are just as old. The Gothic windows of the courtyard close to it these are the Palas . A four-storey tower, octagonal in the upper half and with an onion dome that was renewed in 1956, is attached to the west wing at the southwest corner . Most of the buildings are still essentially medieval. The north wing is designated 1471. Two-storey arcades are built in front of the south and west wings on the courtyard side. Their groin vaults rest on chamfered square pillars. To the west, the choir adjoins the parish church .

South view of the castle, the turret above the castle chapel is missing

If you enter the inner courtyard of the palace, you will find a romantic arcade courtyard from the Renaissance period with wrought-iron window baskets, fountains, forged ornamental window bars and gargoyles . On the west wing, a steep external stone staircase leads up to the arcade of the upper floor, which is closed off by a magnificent wrought iron grille. The grid was transferred here from the Gaming Charterhouse around 1600. Another external staircase leads up to the anteroom of the former castle chapel on the south wing. This existed since 1510 and was closed around 1850 when the district authority was established in the castle. Their furnishings were later used to decorate the chapel of the state nursing home. This castle chapel was in the south wing above the storage rooms on the ground floor. For this reason, there used to be a small ridge on the roof , which resembled the rider of the Kartause Gaming and was probably modeled on it. It was removed in 1896. The apse of the narrow building protrudes slightly on the eastern front of the eastern Bering. The chapel was more than modest for an ecclesiastical owner, but the Carthusian monks still had the large parish church connected to the castle at their disposal, which arose from the former castle church. The comfortable staircase in the north wing indicates an early baroque renovation. It is accessible through a representative courtyard portal, which is marked 1611. The flanking pilasters are decorated with imitation humpback ashlars. A triangular gable adorned with lateral volutes is built above the lintel . In addition to the portal is a large, in fresco technique seen from 1731 painted sundial. It shows the coat of arms of the Gaming Charterhouse.

The neighboring windows have beautiful wrought-iron rococo baskets from around 1750. They were transferred here in 1953 from Donaudorf Castle , which fell victim to the construction of the Ybbs-Persenbeug power station . In the middle of the courtyard, which is lined with tall trees, is a fountain set up in 1956 with the Gaminger heraldic lion on a Tuscan column. The wrought iron grille surrounding the fountain is dated 1831. The interior rooms, which are modern and functional today, mostly have groin and barrel vaults on the ground floor from the construction period around 1600 or the early 17th century. On the upper floor there are mainly flat ceilings. In the north wing there is a room with a beveled central pillar from the beginning of the 17th century, which carries the lancet barrel vault. The prior's representative rooms were on the upper floor of the west and north wings. They are equipped with floral stucco ceilings and painted ceiling medallions around 1720/30. The ceiling painting in the small meeting room of the west wing depicts the glory, the elevation of heaven, of St. Bruno , the founder of the Carthusian order. It is surrounded by medallions with putti and Carthusian motto and signed in 1723 with Carl Unterhuber . The former horse stables on the ground floor of the west wing served the district court as holding cells for a hundred years. Between 1955 and 1957 they were converted into a boardroom.

literature

  • The art monuments of Austria. Dehio Lower Austria south of the Danube 2003 . Scheibbs, municipality area, Hochbruck, Lehenhof Palace, Hochbruck No. 6, pp. 2115–2116.
  • Gerhard Stenzel: From castle to castle in Austria . Kremayr & Scheriau publishing house. Vienna 1976
  • Erwin Huber: The Counts of Peilstein and Scheibbs Castle . 2013
  • Franz Eppel: The Eisenwurzen . 1968
  • Kaltenegger / Kühtreiber: Castles - Mostviertel . 2007
  • Wilfried Bahnmüller: Castles and palaces in Lower Austria . 2005
  • Rudolf Büttner: Castles and palaces between Araburg and Gresten . 1975

Web links

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

Coordinates: 48 ° 0 ′ 17.5 ″  N , 15 ° 10 ′ 6.9 ″  E