Schwanberg Castle (Franconia)

The castle on the mountain

The Schwanberg Castle is a former noble residence in the district of the municipality Rödelsee in Kitzingen . The facility rises on the mountain of the same name in the Steigerwald. The mountain was already fortified in pre-Christian times when the Schwanberg fortifications were built.

history

Section fortification Schwanberg (until around 1250)

The first traces of settlement on the Schwanberg date back to the Mesolithic . The residents of the surrounding settlements withdrew to the densely wooded mountain, which was surrounded by steep slopes. Around 1200 BC The Celtic entrenchments were built on the mountain and the elevation was fortified for the first time. These so-called section walls can still be seen. Around the year 400 BC BC the Celts reached the mountain and renewed the fortifications of the previous cultures.

The last wave of settlement reached the Steigerwald around the 5th century AD. It was the great Germanic tribe of the Franks . The conquerors quickly recognized the strategic value of the mountain and immediately fortified it. Similar to the Staffelberg in Franconian Switzerland, the Vogelsberg in the Volkacher Mainschleife and the Marienberg in Würzburg, the Schwanberg was converted into a fortress that was supposed to secure the Franconian advance.

Schwanberg Castle (until 1525)

Christianization in the Steigerwald area was also promoted with the Franks . A church was built on the mountain, which was dedicated to St. Walpurga. In the course of the Middle Ages, however, the Schwanberg lost its strategically important importance and was downgraded to a simple castle. This building has been handed down from around 1250. At that time the Fuchs family lived in the grounds, which they had probably received as fiefs from the new lords of the area, the Würzburg prince-bishops .

In the course of the 14th century there was another shift in power in Franconia. The burgraves of Nuremberg were able to expand their power base, originally located around the Free Imperial City, and also took action against the possessions of the prince-bishops. Burgrave Friedrich IV was able to acquire the Schwanberg. Until 1344 his family sat in the castle on the Steigerwaldberg. The gentlemen von Seinsheim received the facility later .

During this time, there were also some courtyards on the Schwanberg that were assigned to the castle complex. In 1303 Konrad Fuchs received a garden “in Swanenberge” and a farm as a fief. Friedrich Zollner zu Willanzheim was in 1317/1318 in possession of a "mansionem in castro Swanberg" ( Manse in Schwanberg Castle). In 1322 a village in front of the castle was named (villula). The properties around the fortification appeared in the springs for the last time in 1510.

The chapel on the mountain had become a popular pilgrimage destination for the faithful. This did not change despite the frequent changes of ownership. The Lords of Wenkheim had been the new castle owners since the middle of the 15th century . The sources are largely silent about repairs to the old system. The peasant war of the year resulted in the complete destruction of the facilities on the Schwanberg.

Schwanberg Castle (until today)

The peasant uprising finally ended the pilgrimage to the mountain. The ruins of the castle were acquired and rebuilt in 1605 by the Würzburg Prince-Bishop Julius Echter . It was at this point in time that the largely preserved systems were built. The next destruction followed in the Thirty Years War of the 17th century. The residents of the surrounding places regularly withdrew behind the old Celtic walls during raids. In 1633 the castle was burned down again.

The plant fell into disrepair for more than a hundred years. The reconstruction of the destroyed buildings did not begin until the 18th century. After the secularization of the Principality of Würzburg in 1803, the castle was sold to private individuals. The first buyer was the banker von Hirsch . After several changes of ownership, the ceramics entrepreneur Jean Dern received the castle in 1897 and had it converted into a tourist destination.

The palace courtyard

In 1911, new buyers came into possession of the palace complex. Alexander zu Castell-Rüdenhausen had a large garden built on the mountain from 1919 to 1921, which links elements of the baroque palace garden with the English landscape park. During the Second World War , the Nazi rulers confiscated the castle and planned to set up a management school in the buildings. With the occupation by the Americans, these plans had to be abandoned. Schwanberg Castle served the Americans as a barracks until 1949.

After the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, the castle was converted into an old people's home. In 1957, when the old people's home had been relocated, the sisters of the Casteller Ring community moved into the building under Prioress Christel Felizitas Schmid . In 2004 they bought the facility. In the 1980s, the Church of St. Michael was built in the immediate vicinity of the castle as the spiritual center of the community. The Bavarian State Office classifies the castle as an architectural monument.

description

The early medieval building remains, which had survived the destruction in the Peasants' War, were added to the new building wings at the beginning of the 16th century and can thus still be proven at least on the outside. The complex consists of an irregular pentagon formed by two- and three-story buildings. The center is an inner courtyard with a polygonal stair tower built into the southeast corner .

A spacious, barrel-vaulted cellar can be found below the complex . Simple framing of the windows can be seen. In the northeast and northwest, the respective floors are divided by cornices . The two round towers on the northeast side are particularly characteristic. They were created with humpback blocks. The multiple changes of user resulted in a system on which the most diverse stylistic epochs can be recognized.

literature

Evang. Luth. Parish office Rödelsee, Catholic parish office Rödelsee, Community Casteller Ring (ed.): Places of retreat on the Schwanberg . Bayreuth.
District Administrator and District Council of the District of Kitzingen (Hrsg.): District of Kitzingen . Münsterschwarzach 1984.
Hans Bauer: District of Kitzingen. An art and culture guide . Market wide 1993.
Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Bavaria I: Franconia . Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 .
Peter Rückert: Land expansion and desertification of the high and late Middle Ages in the Franconian Gäuland. Diss . Wuerzburg 1990.
Walter Schilling: The castles, palaces and mansions of Lower Franconia . Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-429-03516-7 , pp. 298-299.
Pleikard Joseph Stumpf : Schwanberg . In: Bavaria: a geographical-statistical-historical handbook of the kingdom; for the Bavarian people . Second part. Munich 1853, p. 698 ( digitized version ).

Web links

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

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Schilling, Walter: The castles, palaces and mansions of Lower Franconia . P. 298.
^ Rückert, Peter: Land expansion and desertification of the high and late Middle Ages . P. 251.
↑ Schilling, Walter: The castles, palaces and mansions of Lower Franconia . P. 299.
^ Bauer, Hans: District of Kitzingen . P. 117.
↑ Evang. Luth. Parish office Rödelsee, Catholic parish office Rödelsee, Community Casteller Ring (ed.): Places of retreat on the Schwanberg . P. 3 f.

49.72614006 10.27203473Coordinates: 49 ° 43 ′ 34.1 ″ N , 10 ° 16 ′ 19.3 ″ E

[Schilling_S._298-1] Schilling, Walter: The castles, palaces and mansions of Lower Franconia . P. 298.

[2] Rückert, Peter: Land expansion and desertification of the high and late Middle Ages . P. 251.

[3] Schilling, Walter: The castles, palaces and mansions of Lower Franconia . P. 299.

[4] Bauer, Hans: District of Kitzingen . P. 117.

[5] Evang. Luth. Parish office Rödelsee, Catholic parish office Rödelsee, Community Casteller Ring (ed.): Places of retreat on the Schwanberg . P. 3 f.