Sinzigburg

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Sinzigburg
Sinzigburg with the central hill and the inner ditch

Sinzigburg with the central hill and the inner ditch

Alternative name (s): Sinzenburg, Trübenbach Castle
Creation time : 10th or 11th century
Castle type : Niederungsburg, moth
Conservation status: Burgstall, moats, ramparts
Standing position : Ministeriale
Construction: Quarry stone
Place: Haunetal - Rhina
Geographical location 50 ° 44 '48 "  N , 9 ° 41' 9"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 44 '48 "  N , 9 ° 41' 9"  E
Height: 235  m above sea level NHN
Sinzigburg (Hesse)
Sinzigburg

The Sinzigburg , also called Sinzenburg or Trübenbach Castle , is an abandoned early medieval low castle of the type of a tower hill castle (Motte). It is located in the district of Haunetal - Rhina in the valley of the Haune , in the district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg , in the northeast of Hesse. The castle is now a ground monument .

location

The castle is located between the villages of Rhina and Rothenkirchen ( belonging to the municipality of Burghaun ) in the Haune valley, in a narrow strip of forest between federal highway 27 and the parallel route of the Bebra – Fulda railway line running in the floodplain . The castle grounds are located here in the narrowest area of ​​the central Haun Valley at 235 meters above sea ​​level , at the transition from the site to the floodplain.

In an easterly direction, the terrain rises beyond the main road in just 1.3 kilometers (as the crow flies) to the Stoppelsberg in the Kuppenrhön , which is 523.9 meters above sea level . This means that Hauneck Castle and the natural monument “The Long Stones” are in close proximity to Sinzigburg. Beyond the railway line and the Haune in a westerly direction, the terrain rises to the plateau of the Fulda-Haune-Tafelland . The Altwehrda castle ruins are about 1.25 kilometers away . In the south, about 1400 meters upstream, the medieval desert of Sinziges is assumed.

The modern Hohenwehrda Castle is 600 meters away and has no previous medieval buildings.

description

The castle is shaped like a moth . It has three moats that run in a semicircle around the central hill. The castle with the moats is about 80 meters long and about 50 meters wide. The trenches are four to five meters deep.

The central hill is now about six meters high from the bottom of the innermost ditch. At the top it has a rectangular area about 13 meters long and 10 meters wide. Remnants of the wall are no longer visible on the surface today. Rubble with mortar traces were Vorburgbereich found the south, towards the deserted village Sintziges was finished. Presumably there was only a tower here, which took up the rectangular area on the central hill and was accessible via ladders or a wooden drawbridge . There are many indications that the moats closed completely around the central hill before the railway was built. The western half of the castle complex could therefore have served to fill the embankment. In the past, the castle complex could have had a diameter of 80 meters and the central hill a square basic shape with a side length of about 15 meters. In the east, too, the rampart is slightly cut off by the higher federal road since the road was widened.

history

It is difficult to fathom the origins and the purpose of this complex, as there are no documentary references to it. In the few documents in which the Sinzigburg is mentioned, it is not always clear whether the Sinzigburg, the medieval desert of Sintziges or the Altwehrda castle ruins are meant.

and display information about the image
Panorama of the central hill and the moats

Notes regarding the history of the name

The name Sinzig comes from the Celtic language and means "constantly seeping water in the swampy forest". The castle and the medieval desert were therefore named after the Celtic name for this area.

The “Saltzborn” follows a little further upstream. The Celts saw magical powers at work in salt springs . They were holy places where the mother goddess of nature was worshiped. Finally, only about 500 meters away, south of the source above the Totenkirche (former burial church of the von Haune family, today the cemetery church of the village of Rothenkirchen), a Paleolithic settlement was found. There are also some stone carvings on the natural monument "Long Stone", which suggest the presence of the Celts.

In 801 the Bifang Berghoe came with the Villa Berghoe ( Burghaun ) as a donation from Germanic nobles to the Fulda monastery. Thus, after the Celts, the area was populated by Germanic tribes.

Where the Kreisstraße 47 branches off from the main road to Oberstoppel, there is still a field name “Im Sinzig” today. Here the medieval desert is assumed, which is mentioned in a document from 1409 as "Sintziges".

Notes on the purpose and time of construction

The design of the moth is an early form of medieval castles. These castles were essentially built between the 10th and 11th centuries by the service nobility .

The earliest cause that could have led to the building of the castle were the invasions of Hungary. Heinrich I (the castle builder) issued orders to build trenches, palisades and refuges. This can be proven in the region in 925 at the Hersfeld Monastery , when the fortifications there were additionally reinforced. The Motte in the Haunetal, which served as a refuge for the people who settled here, could therefore also have been built during this time.

The area on which the castle stands today belonged to the Bifang Berghoe at that time. It was donated to the Fulda monastery in 801 with the villa Berghoe by 14 named Germanic nobles. Further donations were made by the Franconian nobility, such as the Rasdorf and Soisdorf brands in 780 , and the donation of Hunfeld ( Hünfeld ) from Charlemagne in 781 . This suggests that Carolingian nobles from the Middle Rhine area received land here as a fiefdom and played a key role in promoting the settlement of the Bramfirst (prohibited forest district, which included the area of ​​the Hunfeld and the Bifang Berghoe), which began in 980.

It is also noteworthy that the shape of the castle with ramparts is mainly detectable in the Rhine-Moselle area today. Here you come across the name Sinzig (sentiacum), a city and at that time a Palatinate in the Middle Rhine area. The castle shape of the moth was therefore probably introduced by the Franks who immigrated here . When the area around Burghaun was settled around 980, as described above, the Sinzigburg could also have been built by the newly created local nobility ( ministerial ) to protect the newly built farms and settlements further up the valley. One of these settlements could have been today's desolation of Sintziges.

Another building purpose can be derived from the location in the narrow valley area. The castle is located directly on the slopes of the stubble mountain. This indicates that it was not built to be defended any longer. It is much closer, however, that the castle in the narrow valley served to control a trade route. With the increasing population density in the valleys, such valley paths began to prevail in the early Middle Ages (see also Altstraße ). After the above-mentioned settlement, the Haunetal offered itself as a north-south connection from the Fulda area.

All of the above assumptions about the building purpose point to the early Romanesque period . However, this has not yet been substantiated archaeologically, as there are no finds that can be assigned to this period.

Document mentions

The above mentioned ministerials or the builders of the Sinzigburg are not known. In the High Middle Ages, the area around the castle belonged to the Knights of Haune.

Both the von Haune and von Trümbach families had notarized property in the vicinity. At the beginning of the 14th century, Hauneck Castle belonged to the Haunes and Altwehrda Castle belonged to the Trümbachs since 1310.

In 1460 the Landgrave Thuringian chief clerk Thomas Buttelstadt made a "Reyse from Isenach to Frankfurt" on the Altstrasse through the short Hesse . He wrote that “Hauneck Castle is close to his travel route”, and Sinzigburg in the Haunetal, southwest of the stubble mountain “lies desolate”. The castle complex was therefore abandoned by this time at the latest.

In the next development step of the castle building (after the Motten), the towers that previously stood on the central hill were placed on high mountains. It emerged tower castles . The keep in Hauneck Castle could have been such a castle complex. It has Staufer corner hump blocks and could therefore have been the successor to Sinzigburg. The Burgstall in Haunetal-Holzheim, with the “Big Tower”, could also be considered.

Georg Landau (* 1807; † 1865, Hessian archivist and historian) saw a facility in Sinzigburg that was directed against Hauneck Castle. Landau probably came to this assumption because the Landgraves of Hesse conquered Hauneck Castle around 1400. Paul Illgner contradicted this and assumed that the Sinzigburg was the first family castle of the von Trümbach family, since the knightly family was enfeoffed from around 1310 with the nearby Altwehrda Castle on the plateau of the Fulda-Haune-Tafelland. He therefore called the Sinzigburg Castle Trübenbach.

Desolation Sintziges

The desert called Sintziges is believed to be upstream from the Sinzigburg. About 1400 meters away there is the field name "Im Sinzig", below the point where the district road 47 branches off from the federal road. This village place was mentioned by Georg Landau in his work "Historical-topographical description of the desert places" in 1858. In it he quoted a document from 1409.

References and Notes

  1. ↑ The river names Sinna near Vacha or Sinn in the Rhön can be traced back to the same origin of the name in the region . Celtic ramparts are also known nearby. So on the Stallberg and the Kleinberg in the Hessian skittles .
  2. ↑ Georg Landau, Historical-topographical description of the desert locations in the Electorate of Hesse (1858), Historical Edition Carl Vellmar, reprint 1999 Vellmar, ISBN 978-3-9806580-1-0
  3. ↑ Countess Emhilt, the abbess of Milz (Thuringia), was among the donors of the two brands . It is believed that she belonged to Charlemagne's immediate family
  4. ↑ This could be confused with the deserted settlement of Sintziges, because the Sinzigburg lies west of the stubble mountain. The presumed settlement of Sintziges is southwest of the stubble mountain
  5. ^ Paul Illgner, About castles and other former fortifications in the Hünfeld district. Fulda History Papers No. 11, 1912

literature

  • Lutz Fiedler: The Sinzigburg in the middle Haunetal. Leaflet for medieval castles near Haunetal-Rhina, -Wehrda and -Oberstoppel in the district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg . In: State Office for Monument Preservation Wiesbaden (Ed.): Archaeological Monuments in Hessen . Issue 42. 1985, ISBN 978-3-89822-042-2
  • 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. 200.

Web links

Commons : Sinzigburg  - Collection of Images