Solms Castle

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The Solmser Schloss (also Solmssches Schloss ) is a palace complex of the Counts of Solms-Lich in Butzbach in the Wetterau district in Hesse .

View of Solms Castle, back with round tower.
City and castle Butzbach 1646 in the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian . On the right in the picture the Solms Castle, recognizable by the tower and the central risaliten
Opposite side with entrance risalit.
South-west side with adjoining city wall

history

Both castles in Butzbach, both the landgrave's and the Solms castle, were built on the site of an earlier castle complex on the south-eastern edge of Butzbach's old town. The place was first mentioned in a document in 773 and was built near the remains of a Roman fort at a fork in several old roads , including the Weinstrasse and the Long Hesse . It is not certain whether this moated castle in a city location ( Stadtburg ) goes back to the Niederobligen von Buetsbach named 1243 , followers of the Lords of Hagen-Münzenberg , or whether it was built later by the Falkensteiners , who inherited the Münzenbergs.

In 1321 Philip IV of Falkenstein received city rights for the place and had a fortification built. With the extinction of the Falkensteiner in 1418, Butzbach fell to the Lords of Eppstein , half of them to "von Eppstein-Munzenberg" and half from "Eppstein-Königstein". As a result, the property was further divided. In the 15th century, the Munzenberger Line sold a quarter to the County of Katzenelnbogen , which fell to Hesse in 1479 , and another quarter to Count Otto von Solms-Braunfels . The Königsteiner Line sold a quarter to Solms-Lich in 1479 and their last quarter to Hessen-Marburg in 1595.

The parts of the medieval castle that were formerly included in the city wall are likely to have largely fallen into disrepair by this time. Around 1462 Werner von Eppstein-Münzenberg had a large fruit store built next to the southern gate of the city wall, which in 1479 came to the Counts of Solms. They had it rebuilt in a representative way and supplemented with a fortified round tower in the style of the time. The resulting Solms Castle subsequently served as the official and widow's seat, the latter verifiably in 1524 and 1555.

During the Thirty Years War , the Counts of Solms-Lich and Solms-Braunfels temporarily lost their stake in Butzbach, as they had fallen out of favor with the Kaiser. The castle first fell to Philip III. von Hessen-Butzbach , after his death to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt . From 1648 until the final sale to Hessen-Darmstadt in 1741, it was used by the Solms-Braunfels line as an administrative headquarters and again as a fruit store. After a renovation in 1876–79, the Butzbach District Court moved in here .

investment

The castle is a two-storey rectangular building, the back of which is based on the city wall. A four-story round tower of the city wall is integrated into the castle. The outwardly quite simple Renaissance building has an elaborate interior. According to older considerations, the building only had two large halls on each floor, which is supported by the arrangement of the windows on the outside. In fact, however, there was probably a different room layout in the 16th century. A detailed examination of the building structure will only be possible once the building has been renovated.

Particularly worth seeing in the interior design is the Renaissance-era staircase, which is located in the entrance risalit . It contains inscriptions by a humanist that have not yet been fully deciphered.

literature

  • Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district. (Ed .: Folkhard Cremer and Tobias Michael Wolf), 3rd edition, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 , p. 129.
  • Georg Ulrich Großmann : Central and South Hesse: Lahntal, Taunus, Rheingau, Wetterau, Frankfurt and Maintal, Kinzig, Vogelsberg, Rhön, Bergstrasse and Odenwald. DuMont, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-7701-2957-1 (= DuMont art travel guide ), p. 76f.
  • 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. 322f.
  • Gail Schunk-Larrabee / Winfried Schunk: New archaeological findings and finds on the castle grounds in Butzbach. In: hessenARCHÄOLOGIE 2003 Theiss, Stuttgart 2004 ISBN 3-8062-1912-5 , pp. 142–144.
  • Heinz Wionski: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Wetteraukreis II, Part 1, Bad Nauheim to Florstadt. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen , Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-528-06227-4 , p. 314. ( Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ).
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 69f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Palaces, castles, old walls. , P. 70; Renaissance castles in Hesse (project at the Germanic National Museum by Georg Ulrich Großmann ), with complete inscription.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 50 ° 25 ′ 56.1 ″  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 24.1 ″  E