Wanfried Castle
| Wanfried Castle | ||
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 Today's main building of the former landgrave castle |
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| Alternative name (s): | Landgrave Castle Wanfried, Wanfried Castle | |
| Creation time : | first mentioned February 5, 1015 | |
| Castle type : | Location | |
| Conservation status: | Residential construction, agricultural buildings | |
| Standing position : | Landgraves | |
| Construction: | Sandstone, half-timbered | |
| Place: | Wanfried | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 10 '51.6 " N , 10 ° 10' 8.4" E | |
| Height: | 170 m above sea level NN | |
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The Wanfried Castle , also Landgrafenschloss Wanfried called, is a former castle of the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Wanfried in the west of the local situation of the small town of Wanfried in Werra-Meissner in northern Hesse .
The construction
The facility was changed a lot in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a regular square complex that is surrounded in the north, east and south by a small park with old trees. On the north side of the small inner courtyard is a two-storey solid building with a floor space of around 35 × 9 m with a beautiful half-timbered upper floor, which essentially dates from the 16th century. This building is probably the oldest surviving residential building in the city. The lower courtyard on the west side, where the outer bailey once was, is surrounded by the former stables and other agricultural buildings. The only partially preserved trenches are now dry.
history
At the site of the current site, at the time of the Ottonian emperors, there was a royal estate surrounded by moats , the "royal estate in Wanifredum", which Emperor Heinrich II gave to the Hersfeld Abbey on February 5, 1015 , as a replacement for other courts belonging to the abbey ceded to the bishopric of Bamberg . From 1293 the development of the estate into a moated castle began , which was supposed to protect the trade route to Mühlhausen , Eisenach and Leipzig .
With the increasing dependence of the Hersfeld Abbey on the Landgraves of Hesse , who had owned the place Wanfried since 1306, the castle came under their sphere of influence and after the Reformation and the Peasants' War in 1525 it finally came into the possession of Landgrave Philip I. He left the complex in Enlarging and strengthening considerably in 1534. His son Wilhelm IV of Hessen-Kassel had it expanded again in 1589, with the old castle partially demolished and replaced by new buildings, so that in the following it was usually referred to as a palace.
Around 1600 the complex was divided into several parts. The larger, western part was surrounded by farm buildings, the stables and apartments for the servants. From this one reached the so-called small castle courtyard via a drawbridge and through a gate with an archway. In the southern wing of the castle were the landgrave's apartments, the knight's hall and the castle chapel , which was dedicated to the five sacred wounds . The north wing contained the office and living quarters of the bailiff . On the first floor of the former east wing, which was demolished in 1906, were the white goods and pantries, on the upper floor the so-called princess chambers.
After the elevation of Wanfried to town by Landgrave Moritz in 1608, the complex was reinforced again. Nevertheless, like the city itself, it was almost completely destroyed by Tilly's troops in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1848) on June 25, 1626 .
When Landgrave Moritz established the partially independent principality of Hessen-Rotenburg , the so-called "Rotenburger Quart", in 1627/28, the city and Castle Wanfried came under the rule of this branch line of the House of Hessen-Kassel, which subsequently branched out and reunited several times. However, the reconstruction of the palace did not begin until 1645. In 1667, Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Wanfried , the second son of Landgrave Ernst I von Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg , moved into the palace. After he had received the former part of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Eschwege in 1676 after inheritance disputes in the "Rotenburger Quart" , he had the palace expanded into his residence , because the residential palace in Eschwege had been pledged to Braunschweig-Bevern since 1667 . Karl's son and successor Wilhelm ruled at Wanfried Castle from 1711 to 1731. He was followed by his half-brother Christian , who had lived in Eschwege Castle, which was released that year, from 1713 and gradually moved the manorial residence from Wanfried to Eschwege. When Christian died childless in 1755, the castle with the Landgraviate of Hessen-Wanfried- (Eschwege) returned to Landgrave Konstantin von Hessen-Rotenburg. After the loss of its function as a stately residence, it was administered by a “Fürstlich-Rotenburgischen mayor” and only occasionally visited by members of the landgrave's house. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) the castle served as a military hospital , after which it was rebuilt several times and until 1928 the seat of a local court . After the death of Victor Amadeus von Hessen-Rotenburg in 1834, the castle and the entire sub- county fell back to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel .
With the annexation of Kurhessen by Prussia in 1866, it came into Prussian state ownership. It was used agriculturally as a state domain from 1868 and redesigned accordingly. In 1878 the cavalry master and royal Prussian chamberlain Carl Xaver von Scharfenberg acquired the castle from the Dominialverwaltung. While the Prussian district court remained in the rooms of the palace building until 1928, the buildings in the lower courtyard, where the farm workers' apartments were also located, were used for agricultural operations.
Todays use
From 1946 until the mid-1970s, the von Scharfenberg family ran a canning factory in one wing of the castle , while the other part served as a residence for the property manager. In 1982 Gernot von Hagen, a son-in-law of the von Scharfenberg family, set up a textile printing shop in the premises of the former canning factory . The other part of the castle is used as a residence by the von Hagen family, who purchased the property in 1998. The Unterhof is still owned by the von Scharfenberg family and is still used for agriculture.
literature
- Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 70 f.
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Hessen I: Gießen and Kassel administrative districts. P. 913.
Web links
- Entry by Stefan Eismann on Wanfried in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Wanfried in the "Burgenlexikon"
- The Landgrave Castle on the website of the city of Wanfried
- Entry on Wanfried Castle in the private database "Alle Burgen".
- Landgrave Castle Wanfried at "burgen-und-schloesser.net"
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Wanfried was for a long time the outpost of the Landgraviate of Hesse that was advanced furthest to the east.
- ^ Wanfried Castle, Werra-Meißner district. Historical local lexicon for Hesse (as of July 23, 2012). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on November 27, 2012 .
- ↑ His widow Maria Franziska, b. Countess von Hohenlohe-Bartenstein, died in Frankfurt am Main in 1757.
- ↑ * November 28, 1849 in Bremen; † April 17, 1922 in Wanfried; Long-term city councilor, honorary citizen of Wanfrieder in 1919.