Vitzenburg Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vitzenburg Castle above the Unstruttal

Castle Vitzenburg is a renaissance - and Neo-Renaissance castle at the Unstrut in the same district of the city of Querfurt in Saalekreis in Saxony-Anhalt , which goes back to a well-founded in the 9th century castle.

Description of the location and structure

Entrance gate to Vitzenburg Castle
Castle courtyard
Detail of the castle (2012)

The facility is located on a mountain spur protruding to the west above the Unstrut to the southwest of the village. To the north below the former main castle at the site of today's castle is a terrace that could be the remainder of an old surrounding moat.

History and building history

The beginnings of the castle in Carolingian and Ottonian times

In the tithe list of the Hersfeld monastery, which was created between 881 and 899, both the place where the tithe is compulsory and the Vizenburg itself in Friesenfeld are mentioned for the first time. In 979 the castellum Uitzanburch was mentioned again together with the others in the Hersfeld tithe list (except for the Seeburg ) in a certificate issued by Emperor Otto II in the Palatinate Allstedt , when the emperor received the tithe in Friesenfeld and Hassegau, the monastery founded a few years earlier Memleben transmitted. However, nothing is known about the size and shape of this early castle, as building finds from the early Middle Ages have not been preserved above ground, modern archaeological excavations are still pending and archaeological finds from the late 19th and early 20th centuries have been lost.

The establishment of a nunnery in 991

Before 991, the noble Brun, who can probably be assigned to the Billinge Association , and his wife Adilint founded a women's monastery , which bore the patronage of St. Maria and Dionysius . Presumably, spatial considerations of the Billinge family association were in the foreground when it was founded, especially since Count Billing had already donated a Benedictine monastery in 962/63 in nearby Bibra . The Reformation theologian Cyriakus Spangenberg stated in his Querfurt Chronica published in 1590 that the nunnery in Vitzenburg had already been founded in a Franconian castle in 626 during the reign of the Merovingian king Dagobert I. This assumption, which is related to the almost unanimous localization of the center of the Thuringian Empire on the Unstrut around Burgscheidungen until the 20th century , is undoubtedly a learned invention of the 16th century, for which there is no evidence whatsoever. A Merovingian monastery founding in this area can be ruled out.

In another document issued in Palatinate Allstedt on January 19, 991, the ten-year-old King Otto III confirmed. At the request of his mother Theophanu and on the intervention of Duke Bernhard and Count Egbert, the monastery took it under his protection, made provisions on the appointment of abbess and bailiff in the future and granted the monastery immunity . It was thus included in the circle of imperial abbeys. The nunnery was inside the castle, which continued to exist.

Castle and monastery under Wiprecht von Groitzsch

The written sources have been silent for over 100 years. According to the Pegau Annals , the noble and wealthy Vizo de Vizemburch is said to have transferred his property, including the castle and monastery, to his relative Wiprecht von Groitzsch shortly before his death . Wiprecht's mother, Sigena von Leinungen , who had already become a widow for the second time , withdrew to the monastery and after her death on February 24, 1110 was buried here and not in the family grave in Pegau monastery . The burial place in Vitzenburg and the fact that Wiprecht came into hereditary possession of these private church rights can probably be interpreted as an indication that the sex Sigena came from and that a Count Goswin von Leinungen is named as her father , in connection with the Had stood on the Vitzenburg monastery. According to the annals, Wiprecht had to intervene against the increasing moral decline of the monastery inmates, whereby a distinguished relative of Wiprecht, who is referred to as the niece of his stepfather Count Friedrich von Burglengenfeld , is said to have been responsible for the decline of monastery discipline. Wiprecht is said to have expelled the nuns from the monastery and, on the advice of Bishop Otto von Bamberg , founded a new monastery near the castle in Reinsdorf an der Unstrut, occupied it with monks and transferred the goods of the nunnery to him.

In fact, the Vitzenburg nunnery was probably converted into a monastery as early as 1112. After a failed alliance against the Emperor Heinrich V , Wiprecht was imprisoned in 1113 at the Trifels Imperial Castle and had to cede all goods to Heinrich. He was released in 1118 and also recovered his confiscated property.

On March 25, 1121, Emperor Heinrich V transferred the Vitzenburg Abbey to the Bamberg St. Peter Altar or the Bamberg Bishop . Shortly afterwards, Otto von Bamberg founded a Benedictine monastery in Reinsdorf in collaboration with Wiprecht von Groitzsch and had the monastery at Vitzenburg Castle dissolved in its favor. On April 3, 1123, Pope Calixt II took the Reinsdorf monastery, which Wiprecht von Groitzsch built on the advice of Bishop Otto von Bamberg and transferred the goods of the Vitzenburg monastery to him and transferred to the church, under his protection and confirmed its possessions.

The castle is owned by the Wettins

After Wiprecht's death, the castle came into the possession of the Wettins . From the 1160s onwards, a number of noble free and ministerial groups named after the castle appeared. In a document issued by Margrave Heinrich the Illustrious in Weißenfels in 1235, Albert Knut and the noble Meinher von Querfurt auf Vitzenburg are named among the witnesses.

In the Weißenfels Treaty of 1249, with which several Thuringian nobles recognized the Meissnian Margrave Heinrich the Illustrious as the new regent of the Landgraviate of Thuringia, it was stipulated that all castles located in the Landgraviate and newly listed should be destroyed. The Vitzenburg is also mentioned among these. However, the extent of these building measures and the shape of the castle at the end of the High Middle Ages is not known.

Vitzenburg under the nobles of Querfurt and the lords of Selmenitz

In 1255 Meinhard, Herr auf Vitzenburg, moved to Prussia in the wake of the Teutonic Order . Meinhard, from the family of the nobles of Querfurt , son of Meinhardi de Vicenburc , was named in a Leipzig document on November 8th. In 1261 the Teutonic Knight Meinhard returned from Prussia, arranged his affairs and handed over to his brother Gebhard XI. the Vitzenburg, whereupon he moved back to Prussia. 1262 received the taverns of Saaleck and Nebra, a branch of the taverns of Vargula , the castle Vitzenburg as country Gräfliches Thuringian After fiefdom . From 1282 Frater Meinherus de Querenvord was Landkomtur of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and from 1288 until his death in 1299 Landmeister of Prussia . According to a document from April 1302, the Vitzenburg was in the afterlehn possession of Heinrich Schenk called von Vitzenburg.

In 1316 Count Burchard von Mansfeld appears with his two cousins, the noble Burchard the Elder and Burchard the Younger von Schraplau as feudal bearers of the rule of Nebra. The feudal lordship passed to the Archbishopric of Magdeburg in the same year. Gerhard, noble lord of Querfurt, bought the castle for his son Bruno III. from the heavily indebted Rudolf Schenk von Vitzenburg. Bruno III designated himself from 1317 in various documents (until 1338) as dominus castri Vitzenburg , as lord of Querfurt Castle. In 1323 he was enfeoffed by the Merseburg bishop Gebhard von Schraplau-Querfurt with the Vitzenburg and the episcopal castle Lützen. In 1329 a Dietrich Schenk von Vitzenburg was mentioned for the last time, who presumably administered the burgrave office on the Vitzenburg for the noble lords of Querfurt as their vassal.

Burchard von Querfurt is documented in 1330 as Lord of Nebra and resident of the castle there ( morans in Nevere ). In 1331 and on November 19, 1334 he confessed that he received the house and town of Nebra with all accessories, namely the Vyzzthenburch Castle, from the Archbishop of Magdeburg, Otto von Hessen, as a fief. From 1341 to 1353, Gebhardt XVI appears in the documents. von Querfurt as dominus in Viscenburg . He was followed by his son Bruno VI from 1372 to 1402. as lord of Vitzenburg, who in turn is succeeded by his brother Protze ( Broczo ) in the rule. After Protze von Querfurt fell in the battle of Aussig on June 16, 1426 , Landgrave Friedrich the arguable enfeoffed his two sons Hans and Bruno, among other things, with half the share in Vitzenburg on August 2.

On May 15, 1464 Bruno the Elder sold the permanent Vitzenburgk Castle to Hans von Selmenitz . However, the people of Querfurt reserved the upper fiefdom over the Vitzenburg. In May 1467, Knight Hans II. Von Selmenitz, Lord of Vitzenburg, was also given possession of the Allstedt Castle and Office for four years by the nobles of Querfurt.

In 1492 a fire destroyed the parish homestead and the outer bailey. Some of the walls and some of the cellars that have been preserved are likely to date from the late Middle Ages, but a more detailed historical and archaeological study is still pending.

Another change of ownership and Renaissance renovation under the von Lichtenhayn family

Due to the economic grievances and the high debt, the brothers Hans III. and Friedemann (III.) von Semnitz sell their share in Vitzenburg for 3,000 guilders to their mother's brother, Joachim von Lichtenhayn , in 1521 . On March 11, 1521, Bastian, Lorenz and Balthasar, the von Selmenitz brothers, also sold their stake in the castle, which, together with its courts, was passed on to the von Lichtenhayn family.

The Vitzenburg monastery, which was badly devastated in the Peasants' War 1524–1526, was finally abolished in the course of the Reformation in 1540.

From 1574 to 1587, Nickel and Valten von Lichtenhayn had the partly burned down outer bailey rebuilt and rebuilt. A door arch with the year 1574 and an overbuilt columned hall with the year 1587 are intended to commemorate this renovation. An inscription plaque carved in stone, which is lost, is said to have shown the family's coat of arms, a white comb wheel in the red field. In the Vitzenburg register of inheritance and interest from 1577, Nickel von Lichtenhayn meticulously recorded the entire property, the income from the domain and the tenant relationships of the farmers. After Nickel's death in the same year, his son Valten was enfeoffed with the Vitzenburg by the Elector August of Saxony . In 1586/87 Valten von Lichtenhayn converted Vitzenburg Castle into a two-wing Renaissance castle with a stair tower.

Extensions in the Baroque period by the von Hessler family

Valentin Dietrich on Gleina and Friedrich Wilhelm on Vitzenburg, Gleina, Zinna and Golmsdorff, sons of Nickel von Lichtenhayn, were forced by the effects of the Thirty Years' War and the resulting debt burden, the Vitzenburg Castle with its court villages against the Uhlstedt manor and the Pleissern suburb on April 18, 1649 against cash payment of 42,000 guilders to the Lieutenant Colonel Hans Heinrich II. von Heßler , Lord of Burgheßler and Balgstedt. Hans Heinrich III. von Heßler, lord of Burgheßler, Balgstedt, Vitzenburg and Gößnitz, had a manor built in front of the castle in Vitzenburg in 1665.

In 1695, War Commissioner Georg Friedrich von Heßler had the north wing of the palace expanded in baroque forms. Around the middle of the 18th century, under the direction of Hofrat Friedrich Moritz von Heßler, the rentier was built on the north wing of Vitzenburg Castle. Today there are two heraldic cartouches with rocaille-shaped alliance coats of arms above the door and above two windows, those of Hessler and von Lindenau with the year 1755, and those of the Privy Councilor Johann Moritz von Heßler, who died in 1741, and Henriette Margaretha von Zaschwitz without a date . From 1764 to 1767, the entire castle and the former monastery were rebuilt in the Baroque style under the direction of District Chamber Councilor Friedrich Moritz von Heßler.

The neo-renaissance reconstruction under the Count von der Schulenburg

Vitzenburg Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

On April 12, 1803, the childless district chamber councilor Friedrich Moritz von Heßler died on Vitzenburg. He bequeathed the Saxon chamberlain and governor Count Heinrich Moritz I. von der Schulenburg auf Baumersroda, the second son of his eldest sister Countess Henriette Elisabeth von der Schulenburg, born. Heßler, the Vitzenburg Castle in his will of November 6, 1801.

After 1843, Count Heinrich Moritz II had the palace rebuilt in the neo-renaissance and neo-baroque style while maintaining the basic form and renewed all doors, windows, cornices and gables, erected a number of farm buildings and beautified the park. After Heinrich Moritz II. Von der Schulenburg-Heßler auf Vitzenburg was awarded the dignity of Chamberlain in the Landgraviate of Thuringia at the splendid coronation of Wilhelm I as King of Prussia in Königsberg on October 18, 1861, he put the title in his coat of arms record, tape. On the east side of the south wing of Vitzenburg Castle is his coat of arms, which lists his titles and possessions. From 1880 to 1884 the architect Max Wallenstein carried out further modifications to the castle. Among other things, the entrance gate and the adjoining circular walls with their arches, battlements and towers were rebuilt. Count Werner Christoph Daniel von der Schulenburg-Hessler had further new farm buildings built in 1892, which bear the Schulenburg family coat of arms with his name and the date.

The castle in the 20th century

With the death of Werner Christoph Daniel Graf von der Schulenburg-Heßler, Fideikommissherr on Vitzenburg, on June 17, 1930, the house from Schulenburg on Vitzenburg died out in the male line. In his will from 1925 he had appointed his daughter Auguste Marie Anna Freifrau von Münchhausen as sole heir. With this, the Schulenburg family association finally lost the property in Vitzenburg. In 1934 the manor Vitzenburg was rebuilt using old buildings.

After the end of the Second World War, Augustes husband Rembert Freiherr von Münchhausen , Herr auf Vitzenburg, was a leaseholder in Klein Eichstädt and Oberschmon and a Prussian government and district councilor a. D., still at his castle after the American occupation troops have withdrawn. He was of the opinion that he had done no wrong during the Nazi era and that he had nothing to blame for the treatment of so-called foreign workers on his property. He was arrested by the Soviet occupation forces and taken to special camp No. 2 in Buchenwald , where he died on July 14, 1947.

The property of the von Münchhausen family in Vitzenburg, Steinburg and Herrengosserstedt, which after the acquisition of shares in Spielberg, Pretitz and Zingst since 1913 comprised 2,719 hectares unchanged, was expropriated and divided among new farmers and farm workers. The goods were administered by a trustee. Auguste Freifrau von Münchhausen, née Countess von der Schulenburg-Heßler, mistress of Vitzenburg, Klein Eichstedt and Oberschmon left Vitzenburg after the expropriation and went to West Germany .

The castle was converted into a school estate and a youth home was set up here. For some time it served as a training center for teachers who would later teach apprentices in agriculture. In 1948 the "Vitzenburg Agricultural School with attached Provincial School" was founded. After the agricultural college had moved from Vitzenburg to Naumburg, the castle was converted into a specialist hospital for child and adolescent psychiatry and ceremoniously handed over on December 11, 1969.

Todays use

In 1996 the psychiatric hospital was relocated or closed and then stood empty. In the same year an architect bought it from the Treuhandanstalt for one Deutsche Mark, but with the condition that he invest ten million DM within ten years. While the park, the outdoor areas and vineyards were restored and made accessible through job creation measures, the investor was able to provide the necessary maintenance and care services for the castle mostly in-house, but found no use, so it was still empty.

Due to bankruptcy, the castle was foreclosed at the end of June 2004 for 395,000 euros. The approximately 2.5 hectare vineyards, which are among the oldest vineyards in the region, as well as the castle park remained in the property of the architect and were managed by a receiver. The vineyard with its pavilion was bought back in 2016 by the von Münchhausen family ( Vahlberger Linie), who had already bought back part of the previous estate, 530 hectares of forest in the Ziegelrodaer Forst , in 2001. With the help of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the EU , the German Foundation for Monument Protection and donations, a total of around 290,000 euros were invested in the restoration.

Setting for Bibi & Tina

In 2013 the castle was the location for the film Bibi & Tina . Director Detlev Buck chose it as the backdrop for the fictional Falkenstein Castle. Also in the sequels Bibi & Tina: Fully Bewitched! (2014), Bibi & Tina: Mädchen gegen Jungs (2016) and Bibi & Tina: Tohuwabohu Total (2017) was shot at Vitzenburg Castle.

literature

  • Georg Plath: The Vitzenburg and its residents. In: Journal of the Harz Association for history and antiquity. 26 (1893), ZDB -ID 2464400-6 , pp. 302-373 ( online ).
  • Hermann Großler : Guide through the Unstrut valley from Artern to Naumburg. 2., verm. And verb. Edition. Edited by Joachim Jahns. Finke, Freyburg 1904, pp. 109-124; Reprint: Dingsda-Verlag, Querfurt 1991, ISBN 3-928498-04-5 .
  • Paul Grimm : The prehistoric and early historical castle walls of the districts of Halle and Magdeburg. Manual of prehistoric and early historical ramparts and fortifications. Part 1 (= German Academy of Sciences in Berlin: Writings of the Section for Prehistory and Early History. Vol. 6). Edited by Wilhelm Unverzagt . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1958, DNB 451671341 (see also p. 40 Fig. 11 d, p. 281 No. 485, plate 6 c).
  • Hermann Wäscher : Castles on the lower course of the Unstrut (= series of publications by the Moritzburg State Gallery in Halle. Issue 19). Edited by Karl-Heinz Kukla. Halle 1963, p. 23 f.
  • Reinhard Schmitt : On the status of castle research in the Saale-Unstrut area. In: Saale-Unstrut-Yearbook. 7, 2001, ZDB -ID 1332153-5 , pp. 29-42.
  • Rüdiger Bier: 1500 years of history and stories of the manorial seats for church and castle divisions. Self-published by the manor Kirchscheidungen in 2009 (castle p. 8–377; the parish church Vitzenburg p. 399–407).

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul Grimm 1958, p. 281.
  2. ↑ UB Hersfeld I, 1 No. 37.
  3. ↑ MGH DD O II 191 = Theodor Sickel (Ed.): Diplomata 13: The documents Otto II. And Otto III. (Ottonis II. Et Ottonis III. Diplomata). Hanover 1893, pp. 217-219 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized ).
    UB Hersfeld I, 1 No. 60.
  4. ↑ Reinhard Wenskus : Saxon tribal nobility and Franconian imperial nobility (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, 93). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1976, ISBN 3-525-82368-1 , p. 241. Most recently, approving, among others, Caspar Ehlers: The integration of Saxony in the Franconian Empire (751-1024) (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for History . Vol. 231). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 3-525-35887-3 , p. 180.
  5. ↑ Cf. the founding of the Peterskloster in Erfurt , which was also awarded for a long time to Dagobert I. - allegedly in the year 706: Matthias Werner: The founding tradition of the Erfurt Peterskloster (= lectures and research. Special vol. 12). Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1973, ISBN 3-7995-6672-4 , on this v. a. P. 24 f .:

    “Although Dagobert I's government activities in Thuringia […] are known for this period, one has to doubt that the Merovingian king founded a monastery in this distant and only loosely dependent part of the empire. The time estimate 623–633 / 34 for St. Peter [...] is historically extremely improbable and in the absence of other royal monasteries east of the Rhine can be completely excluded before the middle of the 8th century. Reluctance towards a founding tradition related to Dagobert I also suggests the fact that of all the Merovingian kings it was Dagobert I who found its way into forgeries as the founder of a monastery and pious donor. "

  6. ^ MGH DD O III 68 = Theodor Sickel (Hrsg.): Diplomata 13: The documents Otto II and Otto III. (Ottonis II. Et Ottonis III. Diplomata). Hannover 1893, pp. 475-476 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ).
  7. ↑ Annales Pegavienses et Bosovienses. In: Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 16: Annales aevi Suevici. Hannover 1859, pp. 232-270 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ), on this p. 250 ( digitized version ).
    See also Lutz Fenske: Nobility Opposition and Church Reform Movement in Eastern Saxony. Origin and effect of the Saxon resistance against the Salian kingship during the investiture dispute (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for History. Vol. 47). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1977, ISBN 3-525-35356-1 .
  8. ↑ Holger Kunde: Bamberg's own monastery in Reinsdorf an der Unstrut. In: Report of the Historical Association Bamberg. No. 132. Bamberg 1996, pp. 19-50.
  9. ^ Printing of the documents: Monumenta Boica . Volume 29, Part 1, pp. 240 f., No. 445 ( online ); see. Holger customer on this: Bamberg's own monastery Reinsdorf an der Unstrut. Pp. 19-50.
  10. ↑ Cf. Holger Kunde, Stefan Tebruck and Helge Wittmann: The Weissenfels Treaty of 1249. The Landgraviate of Thuringia at the beginning of the late Middle Ages (= Thuringia yesterday & today. Vol. 8). State Center for Civic Education Thuringia , Erfurt 2000, ISBN 3-931426-38-6 .
  11. ↑ Volkhard Knigge , Bodo Ritscher (ed.): Book of the Dead. Buchenwald special camp 1945–1950. Buchenwald and Mittelbau Dora Memorials Foundation, Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-935598-08-4 , p. 96.
  12. ↑ Anke Losack ( Mitteldeutsche Zeitung ): Querfurt: The Baron and the Pavilion: Freiherr von Münchhausen for the restoration of the Schlossberg. In: Focus Online . December 12, 2018, accessed January 27, 2019 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 56.3 "  N , 11 ° 34 ′ 6.4"  E