Weinberg Castle (Austria)
The Weinberg Castle is a castle complex in Upper Austria and is located on the vineyard above the village of Kefermarkt in the Mühlviertel . The first castle on this site was built in the 12th century. The conversion to a renaissance castle was carried out by Hans Wilhelm von Zelking around 1600. The Thürheimers bought the property in 1629. After it became almost uninhabitable in the early 1980s, the state of Upper Austria leased the castle in 1986 for 99 years, renovated it and held a state exhibition in the premises in 1988 . Since 1989 the castle has served as a state education and music center.
location
The imposing castle is around 600 m above sea level. A. on a ridge of the Buchberg sloping south-west.
history
Originally, Weinberg was in the rule of Freistadt and was split off as a sovereign fiefdom . This process is likely to be related to the castle captain of Freistadt, Otto II von Zelking. Otto is likely to have received a part of the castle back then. Weinberg was first mentioned in a document in 1274. The Piber and the Wildungsmauer received further partial loans from Weinberg. The castle itself had existed for a long time and was built after the clearing of the surrounding forest had been completed. Only from the year 1378 there is a purchase contract in which the Zelkingers are shown as the sole castle owners.
The brothers Ruger and Alber von Zelking were the first lords of the noble family. Particularly noteworthy is Christoph von Zelking († 1491), who considerably enlarged the rule of Weinberg through acquisitions and thus rose to become an important landlord in the region. He was also the keeper of Freistadt. Under Christoph, the parish church of Kefermarkt was built in 1490, including the late Gothic winged altar, and the town was elevated to a market on September 17, 1479. In 1510, Emperor Maximilian I lifted the sovereign fiefdom and the rule of Weinberg was from then on a free property . Alterations were made under Hanns Wilhelm and the castle served as a place of refuge for the people of Kefermarkt during the time of the Turkish threat (1594). For this reason, the castle had a good military equipment. Since the Zelkingers were Protestant, they were forced to sell the castle in the course of the Counter Reformation . Christoph Wilhelm von Zelking, Hanns Wilhelm's cousin, sold the castle on June 15, 1629 for 210,000 guilders and 1200 Reichstaler to Hans Christoph von Thürheim zu Bibrachzell , caretaker of the Passauian rule of Ebelsberg .
The Thürheimers themselves climbed the career ladder and were appointed imperial counts in 1666. In the 18th century they appointed two governors and held the post of master of the hereditary land falcon. During this time the castle was repeatedly changed and rebuilt.
In 1945, during the Second World War , Soviet soldiers devastated the castle so that the main building was no longer habitable. In May 1946 the occupying forces restored the castle after everything valuable had been removed. Between 1946 and 1954, the castle served as a training home for the construction and woodworkers' union. For a short time it served the war victims association as a children's rest home.
Weinberg Castle remained in his possession until the Thürheim family died out in 1961. Thereafter ownership passed to Hans Ludwig von Gablenz-Thürheim and Christian von Zimmermann-Thürheim. In 1983 the association “Schloss Weinberg” was founded with the aim of saving the almost ruined castle. In 1986 the state of Upper Austria leased the castle for 99 years and renovated it for around 6 million euros. In 1988 the castle was reopened with a state exhibition on the subject of The Mühlviertel - nature, culture, life . The exhibition counted around 400,000 visitors. Since 1989 it has been housed in a state education and music center on the premises, in the same year a brewery was set up in the historic stables of the 400-year-old Meierhof. Every second weekend in Advent, the Weinberger Advent Christmas market has been held in and in front of the castle since 1989 . Handicraft products are exhibited in the castle. Concerts and other cultural events are occasionally held in the former state rooms, such as an Easter market (since 1999) and a senior fair (since 2007).
Building history
Weinberg Castle is essentially a Gothic castle that was converted into a Renaissance castle in the 16th century . The medieval castle with a rectangular, multi-storey residential tower (26 x 27 meters) can be seen in the northern part of today's castle. At the beginning of the 14th century, the castle was surrounded by a curtain wall with defensive towers. At the end of the 14th century, a wall 18 meters high, 3 meters thick and 26 meters long followed in the east in order to be better protected against attacks. This wall was rebuilt in the 17th century and has served as the exterior for living quarters ever since.
description
The castle is accessed from the east through two gates. The outer gate was secured with a rocker bridge and a stone bridge is in front of it. The inner gate sits on the former kennel wall , where the former battlements can still be seen. In front of the curtain wall there is a trench in which wolves were allegedly kept. The narrow outer courtyard of the castle surrounds the main building, the actual castle. This is a four-story building with a rectangular courtyard. A cistern in the inner courtyard drains the 42-meter deep draw well from 1589.
A square tower built around 1600 dominates the castle. The onion dome was only put on it after the fire of 1882. In the west there are two round corner towers with conical roofs at the corners of the house.
Spaces
The former state rooms are stuccoed ceilings and equipped with lancet vaults. Some of the doors have massive, ornate portal frames. During the last renovation, the colorful wall frescoes were restored. In the former ancestral hall there is a beautiful renaissance tiled stove with colorful figure tiles of ancient and mythological rulers. 16 painted heraldic pyramids embellish the room. The knight's hall , which takes up the entire eastern front, is spanned by a barrel vault with frescoes by Johann Philipp Ruckerbauer.
The rich interiors of the 220 rooms as well as the weapons collection and the family museum were lost in 1945 due to looting. Only the baroque castle pharmacy and the extensive castle archive could be saved. The former is in the Schlossmuseum Linz , the latter is in the Upper Austrian Provincial Archives .
One of the two half-shell defense towers in the palace garden was rededicated as a falconer's house in the 16th century. Its renaissance ornamentation consists of granite stones of different colors.
Castle chapel
There was probably never a Gothic castle chapel, at least no remains of it could be found during the renovation work in the 1980s. In 1635 the baroque palace chapel was built from the northern half-shell defense tower. Christoph Wilhelm Thürheim enlarged the chapel from 1689 to 1699, had stucco decorations by Bartolomeo Carlone and a marble altar built by the Linz stonemason Johann Baptist Spatz. The altarpiece in the chapel is believed to be by Bartolomeo Altomonte . The chapel was only inaugurated on August 26, 1731 by Cardinal Lamberg , Bishop of Passau , as evidenced by a stone built into the chapel. During the renovation in 1987, a tin box with 10 objects was found that had been deposited in the chapel in 1700.
Varia
The Weinberg Castle Archive also includes the files of the regional court in which, for example, the witch trial against Abraham Endtschlöger in 1694 is documented.
See also
literature
- Georg Grüll : Vineyard. The history of the origins of a Mühlviertel economic rule. In: Communications from the Upper Austrian Provincial Archives. Linz 1955, pp. 5–203 ( pp. 5–26 (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at, pp. 27–59 (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at, pp. 60–95 (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at , Pp. 96–125 (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at, pp. 126–154 (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at, pp. 155–176 (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at, pp. 177–203 (PDF ) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at).
- Bernd Euler : Schloss Weinberg - history of architecture and art. In: Catalogs of Upper Austria. State Museum. 1988, pp. 17-28 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
- Georg Heilingsetzer : Weinberg Castle as the center of power and its owners. In: Catalogs of Upper Austria. State Museum. 1988, pp. 29-40 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
- Benedikt Pillwein (Ed.): History, geography and statistics of the Archduchy of Austria above the Enns and the Duchy of Salzburg . With a register, which is also the topographical and genealogical lexicon and the district map. Geographical-historical-statistical detail according to district commissariats. 1st edition. First part: the mill circle . Joh. Christ. Quandt, Linz 1827, 34 Weinberg District Commissariat; esp. vineyard, vineyards, a village ..., p. 430 ff ( Google eBook ). 2nd edition 1843 ( Google Book )
- Oskar Hille: Castles and palaces of Upper Austria. 2nd edition, Wilhelm Ennsthaler, Steyr 1992, ISBN 3850683230 .
Web links
- Entry via Schloss Weinberg to Burgen-Austria
- State education center Weinberg
- Weinberger Advent
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mimi Eckmair-Freudenthaler: The medicine cabinet in Schloss Weinberg near Kefermarkt. In: Mühlviertler Heimatblätter . Volume 3, Issue 5/6, Linz 1963, pp. 125–127 ( online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at).
- ^ Vineyard archives. In: landesarchiv-ooe.at. Retrieved August 8, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Heidelinde Dimt: "House and protection letter" from the castle chapel in Weinberg. In: Yearbook of the Upper Austrian Museum Association. Year 132, Linz 1987, p. 75 (entire article p. 73–80, online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at).
- ↑ August Zöhrer: A magic process of the baroque period. In: Upper Austrian homeland sheets . Year 7, Linz 1953, pp. 236–241 ( online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at).
Coordinates: 48 ° 26 ′ 55 ″ N , 14 ° 32 ′ 15 ″ E