City castle Hamm
| City castle Hamm | ||
|---|---|---|
| Alternative name (s): | Castle of the Counts of the Mark | |
| Creation time : | after 1226 | |
| Castle type : | Location | |
| Conservation status: | Remnants of the wall of the foundation | |
| Standing position : | Counts (temporarily seat of sovereigns) | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone | |
| Place: | Hamm | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 41 '2.4 " N , 7 ° 49' 28" E | |
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The Stadtburg Hamm or Castle of the Counts von der Mark was a castle complex in the northeast area of the old town of Hamm . In the north it was directly adjacent to the city wall . The castle was built in the years after the city was founded in 1226 as a citadel , a fortified base for the counts in the city. It also served over the centuries as the seat of the sovereign, rentierhof and court seat as well as the commandant's office of the garrison. During excavations in the vicinity of the new building measures for the senior citizens' center An St. Agnes, the foundation walls were found in the ground. They will remain permanently accessible to the public by marking them in the pavement and by partially presenting the original findings.
history
It is no longer possible to determine in which year the construction of the Counts von der Mark's castle began. No reliable sources have come down to this. Presumably the castle was the citadel of the city, a fortified point from which the counts tried to keep the city in their hands. From this it can be concluded that the founding of the city of Hamm in 1226 and the time when construction began on the castle should not be too far apart.
There is evidence that the city castle of the Counts von der Mark on the north wall was included in the construction of the city fortifications in the course of the 13th century. Count Adolf I von der Mark granted the city of Hamm the right to fortify the city on May 1, 1243 after the decades of inheritance disputes between the various counts' lines had ended. As a result, the city was built into a fortress that was considered impregnable. The connection of the two rivers Lippe and Ahse was also established in the east of the city by the Ostblütergräft. As a result, Hamm was strategically located on an island. This was additionally secured by double walls and palisades. Documents confirm the existence of a city wall, to which the castle directly adjoined, in 1290 at the latest.
The castle complex included a chapel dedicated to Saint Agnes, which is first mentioned in a document from 1328 (alternative information: 1338), but is said to have been built by Count Eberhard I. von der Mark as early as 1296 . This chapel was given by Count Gerhard von der Mark zu Hamm on March 20, 1455 as a monastery chapel to the monks of the newly founded Franciscan monastery in Hamm .
The granting of far-reaching privileges by the Counts of the Mark and later by the Dukes of Kleve gave Hamm a very extensive right of self-administration for the time. As a result, the city castle may have lost a lot of its importance over time. This changed again in 1419. Count Gerhard von der Mark zu Hamm , who struggled with his brother Adolf IV von Kleve-Mark for rule in the county of Mark, used it as a starting point for his claims. He won the support of the citizens of Hammer, who were concerned with maintaining their rights of self-government, among other things through the assurance that they would forego any further fortification of the city castle.
With the support of the Hammer merchants, Gerhard was able to decide the dispute for himself in 1437. He chose the city castle as his residence in his new capital, Hamm. With the death of Count Gerhard in 1461, the city castle finally lost its function as the seat of the sovereigns. Instead, it was used as a " Renteihof " or "Royal Free Court". The castle was the seat of the lordly rent master and as such was freed from all personal and real burdens. In the Fürstenhof zu Hamm [sic!] On October 4, 1628 before the local drosten Ludolph Luther von Hoete and the princely lawyer Henrich Dietherich Hillebringk Friedrich Georg von der Recke zum Braemhofe, Rittmeister, and Jobst Wallraben zum Grönenberg compared over neighborly disputes.
In 1780 the Renteihof was sold to General Karl Friedrich von Wolffersdorff , who was also head of the local Prussian regiment on foot from 1763 to 1782 (1806 No.9). For this reason the castle was also called "Generalshof". According to a description by R. Fr. Ehlert, it can be assumed that Wolfersdorff's actual residence was on his estate while he went about his duties in the "Generalshof" and perhaps dined there with his officers.
R. Fr. Ehlert explains:
He [Wolfersdorf] lived, but rather resided in an old castle, called "Generalshof", on the north wall, shaded by tall linden and chestnut trees. The outbuildings formed the stables, the apartments of the city servants, and the large parade ground adjoined them. The lowland, surrounded by living hedges, had beautiful, sunny, fertile gardens on the banks of the Ahse and Lippe, which were called the vineyard.
And elsewhere:
Adorned with medals as a reward for his services, he [Wolfersdorff] was awarded the excellent regiment of the county of Mark, and a royal domain near the city of Hamm, the beautiful, so-called Ostholz, with the lucrative brickworks, was given to his property ... He was a friend of martial music, and after the table had been lifted, when he first drove through the city to his Ostholz, he had the Hautboisten-Thor on a long, so-called sausage wagon, playing lively on wind instruments, in his entourage.
In 1803 the property passed into private hands.
Up until the 1920s, the castle buildings evidently fell into disrepair, except for a few remnants. Even at that time, little was known about the former position and size of the buildings. On the occasion of the festschrift commemorating the 700th anniversary of the city of Hamm, it was then possible to locate the location of the castle with the help of a city map from 1734, the original of which is in the Secret City Archives in Berlin-Dahlem. Based on the merian engraving from 1647 in connection with a floor plan of the existing building, an elevation of the castle was also created.
In 1944 the area was completely destroyed by the air raids and later built over with a children's clinic, the Catholic St. Elisabeth children's home. This was finally released for demolition in 2006 in favor of the new building of the senior citizen center An St. Agnes. In the course of the excavation work, the foundation walls of the castle could be identified in the ground. They will remain open to the public. For this purpose, a marking in the road surface and a partial presentation of the original finds were made.
Appearance
The name "castle" arouses associations about the size and importance of the building, which are probably not entirely in line with the facts. It is true that the castle in the true sense of the word was quite spacious with the courtyard, outbuildings and chapel. The presumed residential castle, the tower-like structure built into the city wall, was, however, rather tight in terms of space. Their floor space would hardly have been sufficient for the requirements of a medium-sized single-family home. It is therefore questionable whether the building was ever used as an apartment.
The ground plan of the military customs officer resembles that of the fortified tower of the princely palace at Rheda, which presumably dates from the same time as the count's castle. In such systems, stone consoles protruded all around outside the front walls of the Wehrzöllers. In between, square holes went through the entire bark of the wall. If there was a siege, a longitudinal beam could be pushed over the consoles. The heads of the lighter beams that were inserted through the holes in the wall lay on the beam. In this way the battlement was created, which was given a protective wall made of oak planks and had flaps in the floor. These could be opened when besiegers tried to attack the tower using ladders in order to throw or pour hot water, pitch, oil or stones onto the enemy.
The upper storey of the Count's Castle in Hamm, represented by Merian, had a very similar design. In contrast to the system in Rheda, however, the defensive system described is likely to have remained permanently installed. The Frankfurt copperplate engraver was obviously informed about the purpose of a parapet walk, as evidenced by the small excursion windows drawn at eye level in the oak plank wall. There were also flanking towers in the corners to allow the defenders to evade if they were forced to fight on the other side of the tower.
Today's retirement home An St. Agnes, like the Catholic St. Elisabeth nursing home before, stands with its northeast corner on the basement of the castle, which was still completely preserved in 1927 when the commemorative publication for the 700th anniversary of the city was published. This basement room was 14.70 meters long in north-south direction and 7 meters wide from west to east. The surrounding walls were about 90 centimeters thick. The longitudinal partition was 60 centimeters thick. The basement of the house built later did not extend southward beyond the old length of 14.70 meters. However, during the reconstruction it had been extended to the west. The 90 centimeter thick separating wall between the old and the new cellar was obviously formerly an outer wall, as it had bricked up windows. The 90 and 60 centimeter thick walls were made of rubble stones. The cellar extension, on the other hand, was made of bricks of modern format, which proved that these walls were not there when the building was demolished.
Contrary to what was previously assumed, the castle (the city wall tower) did not have a square shape. In reality it was 16.50 meters long and 8.80 meters wide and with the latter width it stood in line with the city wall. If there was an apartment in it at all, it can only have been a subordinate one. This is also obvious, since the Counts of the Mark regularly stayed there only temporarily. For centuries, the ancestral seat of this family was Mark Castle in the neighboring village of Mark, which Hamm was only added to in 1939.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ingrid Bauert-Keertman, Norbert Kattenborn, Liesedore Langhammer, Willy Timm, Herbert Zink, Hamm. Chronicle of a City, Cologne 1965, p. 52.
- ↑ FB A 472 I Wilbring House, documents: III 12 .
literature
- 700 years of the city of Hamm (Westphalia), commemorative publication commemorating the 700th anniversary of the city. Published by the city council of Hamm (Westphalia). Unchanged reprint of the original edition from 1927 with the kind permission of the city of Hamm for the publishing house of A. Stein'schen Buchhandlung, Reinhard Stein, Werl in September 1973. ISBN 3-9209-8008-5 .
- Günter Wiesendahl: The count's district in the old town of Hammer , in: Heimatblätter 7, April 2007, p. 1, again in: Unser Westfalen 2007, p. 49–51.
- Günter Wiesendahl: The Marienhof monastery was next to the Grafenburg , in: Unser Westfalen 2007, pp. 65–67.
- Günter Wiesendahl: The count's district in the old town of Hammer. The use of the Marienhof monastery and the development of the city in the late Middle Ages from 1296 to 1455 , in: Heimatblätter 8, April 2007, p. 4, again in: Unser Westfalen 2007, p. 83–84.
- jm: Outlines of the castle tower are now visible , in: Westfälischer Anzeiger from July 31, 2007.