Stefling

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Stefling (2013)

Stefling is a district of the city of Nittenau in the Upper Palatinate district of Schwandorf in Bavaria , formerly the seat of a Landgraviate of the Babones .

history

Early days

In terms of natural conditions, Stefling and its surroundings lie on the border between the Falkensteiner Vorwald and the Upper Palatinate Bruchschollenland , cut through by the Regental .

This location in Nordgau (Bavaria) on the one hand offered the opportunity to farm on the slopes and plateaus, to use the forests and, on the other hand, to participate in trade because of the favorable traffic situation to Bohemia . Since there are hardly any precise written reports on the Regen river basin in the prehistory of Bavaria , archaeological finds are the only evidence of settlement. The first finds from the Stefling area are almost entirely coincidental. They are kept in the Regensburg City Museum and date from the 18th century. Since 1962, the area around Nittenau has been archaeologically recorded more precisely through systematic collection and mapping of surface finds.

The place name Stefling contains the Christian personal name Stephan in the first syllable and the affiliation suffix -ing in the second syllable, from which it can be seen that the locator must have already been of Christian faith. Since the beginning of Christianization in the district of Cham with the city of Cham (Upper Palatinate) can be set in the first half of the 8th century during the formation of the diocese of Regensburg , when Duke Odilo of Bavaria around 740 AD the area was transferred to the St. Emmeram in Regensburg gave the place with the place name Stefling in the second half of the 8th century at the earliest. In a note of the traditions of the monastery from the year 996, a Slavic population of dependent farmers is mentioned, which is also important in connection with the Christianization of the nearby Künisches Gebirge . It is likely that in the Further Cham valley next to Celts , Variskern and armalausi and western Slavs , probably Chods , were established in the course of the Carolingian colonization of the Bavarian Forest since the 8th century, and later in the resulting manors depending came.

First documented mention as ancestral seat of the Babones

With the first written mention in the year 996 Stefling is one of the oldest verifiable places in the Regental . A traditional note (note about a handover, donation) in the oldest tradition book of the St. Emmeram Monastery in Regensburg, written in church Latin , says that its citizen Pabo from the Babonen family as Burgrave of Regensburg after his son Liutolf had entered the St. Emmeram Monastery , transfers a forest property and its use to the abbot and his friars in the Bavarian Forest , which lay between the Frankenbach and the Jugenberg and in his possession Steuininga (= Stefling). Since Stefling is referred to elsewhere as locus (= district organized by manor ), the place must have already been a manor at that time. This is also supported by the fact that an inherited Slavic column (forest workers) lived on this forest property.

End of administrative independence

On July 1, 1971, the Stefling community was incorporated into the city of Nittenau .

The Landgraviate of Stefling

Stefling Castle

Origin and duration of administration

The Pabo named in 996, a member of the Babonen family , had been a burgrave since about 976 ; H. Deputy of the Emperor , in Regensburg . At the same time he became a count in the western part of the old Danube valley and in parts of the former northern part . The original territory of the Babones was the land wedge between Naab and Regen. From here they pushed the rain upriver into the foothills of the Bavarian Forest and persistently expanded their domain. As representatives of the emperor in Regensburg and as counts, whose task it was to safeguard peace and to administer justice, they played an important role in the politics of the time, always standing faithfully at the emperor's side.

When the fifth burgrave, Babone Otto I, died in 1143, an inheritance was divided among his sons, which resulted in two lines of the family: the castle counts line and the landgraves line. The castle counts in Regensburg and the count's rights to the west of it to the middle Altmühl , which later became the county of Hirschberg , fell to the castle counts . The landgrave line was given a county that stretched north and east of Regensburg, which later became the Landgrave of Leuchtenberg . The designation "land" count is based on the fact that the line only exercised count rights in the countryside, in contrast to "city" counts.

In the 12th century, an area that included large parts of what is now Upper Palatinate belonged to this landgraviate of the Babones . The core area was the lordship around Stefling Castle, which is why this line was also called "Landgraves of Stefling". They extended their domain to the Falkenstein area . The founding of the house monastery Walderbach (1143), which was actually already in the area of ​​interest of the Diepoldinger , testifies to the power consciousness of the Stefling landgraves as well as the main castle Stefling, whose earliest parts date from the middle of the 12th century. Like other families or monasteries during this time, the landgraves also served ministerials , who were based in small castles or noble estates in the area and administered landlords and their income.

This Landgraviate of Stefling existed for about half a century. In 1196, the last Landgrave, Otto IV. From the Babonen family, died and the Landgraves of Leuchtenberg , who have been attested with the title of Landgrave since 1199, took over his functions as a count. They sold this title to the Counts of Wittelsbach in 1283 . Due to family relationships, they had already acquired the allodial property in 1196.

Although the Landgraviate of Stefling only existed in this legal form for around 50 years in the 12th century AD, it has left its mark to this day, mainly through the colonization activities of the locators . Place names with the final syllable -thann, -schlag, -schwand, -loh and -berg go back to this time. The place names Grafenwinn (part of Regenstauf ) and Grafenhofen (part of Wenzenbach ) arose from the direct counts' settlement activities by their ministerials .

Manorial and Hofmark Stefling

Stefling, Überfuhr, Weißenhof (2013)

The basic rule Stefling, since the mid-12th century AD in the legal form Hofmark - among Babonen a Landgraviate with manorial rights over land and people - remained the core of the Hofmark. In addition to the landgraves, Ministeriale also named themselves after Stefling, which is documented from 1160 to 1190. On behalf of the landgraves, these provided the castle hat, other administrative tasks and formed the beginning of the legal and administrative situation of Hofmark Stefling and its owners. The manorial legal claim of the Babones over their subjects at Stefling Castle was transferred to Duke Ludwig I of Bavaria on the death of Otto IV, the last Landgrave, due to inheritance claims . In Stefling, the ducal ministerials also had the residence name: zu Stefling u. Ä.

The scope of that basic rule is Stefling from the oldest Bavarian ducal Urbar apparent from 1231/37. After that, an administrative office in Regenstauf belonged to the rule and, in addition to Stefling, included the places Weinting, Hengersbach and Überfuhr. The rulers of Stefling had blood jurisdiction , i. H. the power to pass death sentences and have them carried out. This is evidenced by a document from 1438. In addition, the rulers also had the lower jurisdiction , had the income from the inheritance of the peasants, their compulsory and tension services and the ius primae noctis . Stefling therefore had the legal status of a closed Hofmark until the peasant liberation in 1848 .

The history of Hofmark Stefling was shaped from the 13th to the 17th century AD by the division of lands, pledges and changing owners. A decisive change came about through the house contract of Pavia (1329), in which Stefling was removed from his previous membership in the administrative office in Regenstauf and assigned to the office in Wetterfeld, which belonged to the Upper Palatinate and thus to the Palatinate line of the Wittelsbach family, while Regenstauf was part of the old Bavarian line Line remained.

As early as 1318, the then Bavarian Duke Burg and Hofmark Stefling and their income pledged to the Hofers at Burg Hof am Regen , who held the castle until 1340. After that, until 1386 it came to the Auer, a Regensburg patrician family who also owned Stockenfels. Stefling had experienced troubled times through their disputes. The successor Peter Ecker, a clever economist and calculator, gave the Wittelsbach family a loan and received the income from the administration office in Wetterfeld as a pledge. Through the marriage of his heir to Count Heinrich von Ortenburg, he received the manor Stefling in 1426 as a fief. Stefling owned the von Ortenburgs until the end of the 15th century, temporarily interrupted by the von Raitenbach . During this time the Hussites , coming from Bohemia, devastated the area in 1426 and 1433 , but were unable to take Stefling Castle. Towards the end of the 14th century, the Stefling manor also included an iron hammer, which is mentioned in the middle of the 16th century. Thomas von Reitzenstein , who owned Fischbach and Stockenfels at the same time, took over the manor from the von Raitenbach in 1517 . Since the Reitzenstein were in debt, they sold the rule to Georg Heinrich Bos in 1580.

Stefling came from the Bos in 1612 to the Hofer von Urfahrn, who lost Stefling during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and the re-Catholicization in Bavaria. When Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria had received the Evangelical-Lutheran Upper Palatinate since the Augsburg Imperial and Religious Peace in 1555 in 1623/1628 , he demanded that all classes and subjects convert to the Roman Catholic faith or have to leave the country. Therefore Wolf Christoph Hofer left Stefling and first went to the Evangelical Lutheran imperial city of Regensburg . The Hofmark Stefling was administered by the government in Amberg after 1618 . When Protestant-Swedish troops occupied the Upper Palatinate in 1633, several evangelical aristocrats stood on their side. a. also Wolf Christoph Hofer. But as early as 1634 the imperial-Catholic army was able to recapture the Upper Palatinate and Wolf Christoph had to leave the country again and died in 1636 while emigrating.

After the death of Wolf Christoph Hofer, a Sebastian Poysl tried for the manor Stefling, who belonged to a well-to-do family. a. Wulkersdorf also owned. Poysl, who had his residence in Nittenau , described in several letters to the government in Amberg in vain the poor condition of the castle and the rule that he wanted to acquire. The purchase did not go through.

When the son of the late Wolf Christoph Hofer was unable to get Stefling back for himself after the Thirty Years' War in 1648, he sold Stefling Castle and property to the Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria in 1656. In the same year he sold the Hofmark Stefling to a Christoph Münsterer, who was raised to imperial nobility by Emperor Leopold I on March 12, 1660 and who was now called Christoph von Münster. Since he had no son, he was followed in 1696 by his grandchildren Johann Christoph and Johann Friedrich Josef, who initially owned Stefling together. From 1725 to 1740 Johann Friedrich Josef was the sole owner. The castle and property in Stefling remained in the possession of the descendants until 1793.

In 1738 or 1739 the mountain castle Stefling was badly damaged by storms and storms. The son of Friedrich von Münster and his successor Rudolf Adam Ferdinand von Münster (1749–1786) began the reconstruction, which was completed in 1748, according to an inscription above the entrance. The chapel on the west side of the castle building, which was probably built at the beginning of the 16th century, was also rebuilt and equipped at this time. Rudolf Adam Ferdinand was followed in 1783 by his eldest son Matthias Emanuel. He sold building sites to his Stefling subjects. In 1786 he was followed by his brother Georg Joseph, who also sold building sites to Stefling villagers and in 1793 sold the entire Stefling property, presumably for economic reasons.

After 1793 the new owner of Stefling was Count Carl Theodor von Bettschart. Like his father, he held various administrative activities in the Upper Palatinate Principality of Pfalz-Sulzbach and was elevated to the rank of imperial count in 1790. Since Count Bettschart paid the purchase in installments, with which he was in default, an administrator ( burgrave ) was placed over Stefling, who checked all income and created inventories and construction invoices. Therefore, u. a. a new rain barrier and an ice wall were built to protect the mill against the ice rush of the rain (river) . In 1812/13 the castle, chapel and several buildings were repaired and the partly collapsed castle courtyard wall was rebuilt.

In 1817 Wilhelm Carl Graf von Eckart, who had owned Fischbach with Stockenfels and Hof am Regen Castle with the Zangenfels castle stable since 1801, succeeded in getting Stefling by making payments to Georg Joseph von Münster and Count Bettschart. This started the newer story of Stefling.

As early as 1806, with the establishment of the Kingdom of Bavaria , Stefling had lost the high judiciary and thus the status of a manor . From then on it was a Hofmark with lower jurisdiction, or after the revolutionary year 1848 it was part of a patrimonial court . The Hofmark Stefling, which was bounded to the north by the Fischbach rulership, to the east by the Lower Court of Nittenau and the Hofmark Hof and to the west by the ducal nursing office Regenstauf , was an administrative area of ​​limited spatial extent. At the end of the 18th century it comprised 23 properties in the villages of Stefling (17 properties), Haarhof, Hammerhang, Harthöfl, Ödgarten, Rummelsölden and Weinting. At the beginning of the 19th century, Hengersbach, Geiseck, Überfuhr and Weißenhof were added. In Stefling, the rulers owned the castle with chapel, the courtyard buildings, the brewery, a mill, the hunter's house, a garden house, the office building and another house. Today the castle with chapel and the hunter's house next to the castle have been preserved. The brewery was demolished and an electricity station was built in the Mühle am Regen.

Though small in terms of area and number of residents, Stefling received its historical importance as the headquarters of the Babonen Landgraviate and later as the seat of a Hofmark , the owner of which was not subordinate to the keeper of Wetterfeld, but directly to the Palatinate or Bavarian rulers.

Stefling and the Counts of Mühle-Eckart

Stefling Castle

In 1817 Wilhelm Carl Graf Du Moulin-Eckart - in the counts since 1790 - acquired Hofmark Bertoldsheim in Upper Bavaria and Schloss und Hofmark Stefling. He came from a family whose members were councilors at the Electoral Mainz court and who received a diploma for nobility and barons in 1748. He was hereditary imperial councilor in the Kingdom of Bavaria , treasurer , lieutenant general and in the Upper Palatinate owned besides Stefling Leonberg , Pirkensee , Fischbach , Hof am Regen Castle and Winklarn (Upper Palatinate) . At his instigation, Stefling, which after the loss of high jurisdiction in 1806 was a simple Hofmark with low jurisdiction, was assigned to the Leonberg Patrimonial Court in 1820 , to which Fischbach and Hof also belonged.

As part of a patrimonial court, Stefling was a patrimonial rural community to which the towns of Stefling, Geiseck, Haarhof, Hammerhang, Hengersbach, Hartlhöf, Ödgarten, Rumelsölden, Überfuhr, Weinting and Weißenhof belonged. The community had 56 families with 243 inhabitants.

Eugenie, heir daughter of Wilhelm Carl Graf von Eckart, married the French Lieutenant General Charles Dumoulin in 1806 with the new name Du Moulin-Eckart , whose elevation to Count in 1822 was also recognized in the Kingdom of Bavaria . The three eldest sons from this connection changed their family name to the German-speaking Eckart von der Mühle in 1822 at the request of the Bavarian King Ludwig I and with his approval . Karl Count Du Moulin, who died in 1847, had determined in his will that his wife Eugenie should be the beneficiary of the entire property in Bavaria and that his two eldest sons should inherit the property.

After Eugenie Eckart von der Mühle died in 1856, the eldest son Karl Eduard Graf Du Moulin-Eckart (who again took the French name) inherited the property in the Neuburg ad Donau area ( Winklarn Castle and Bertoldsheim Castle , the latter was sold in 2008) . He is the progenitor of the older line of the Du Moulin-Eckart family.

The second eldest son Gustav Eckart von der Mühle inherited property in the Upper Palatinate, became the progenitor of the younger line and called himself from 1857 as the royal Bavarian treasurer Count von der Mühle-Eckart. He died in 1869 and left no legitimate offspring. He was followed as heir by his nephew Karl Heinrich Wenzeslaus, son of Count Karl Heinrich Leopold (1810–1855), the third eldest son of Count Karl Du Moulin. Karl Heinrich Wenzeslaus, who called himself like his uncle Count von der Mühle-Eckart and was hereditary imperial councilor of the Bavarian Crown, owned Stefling until 1889. He was followed by his younger brother, Heinrich Karl Ludwig Graf von der Mühle-Eckart (1851-1922 ). He, too, was the hereditary Imperial Councilor of the Crown of Bavaria until 1918. The mother of the two counts was Juliane Freiin von Woellwarth , Chief Chamberlain of Marie Friederike von Prussia , wife of the Bavarian King Maximilians II and mother of King Ludwig II.

Count Heinrich von der Mühle-Eckart arranged for a new mill to be built in Stefling in 1897 and in 1911 leased the overpass on the Regen with the fisherman's house to the community. In 1881 he became an honorary member of the Stefling volunteer fire department . At that time, Count Eckart von der Mühle lived in Leonberg or Pirkensee. The Steflinger Schloss was inhabited by counts officials and used for offices. After Count Heinrich's death (1922), his eldest son, Karl Heinrich Leopold Graf von der Mühle-Eckart (1922–1968) took over the successor. The marriage with Gabriele Freiin von Gise resulted in three children: Katharina Maria Karoline, Heinrich Karl Gabriel and Karola Maria Gabriele.

After the death of Karl Heinrich Leopold Graf von der Mühle-Eckart in 1968, the property was split up: His son Heinrich Karl Gabriel Graf von der Mühle-Eckart (born 1910) took over the Leonberg castle and property, where he lived until his death in 2005 lived. His daughter Katharina, married to Alexander von Falkenhausen (racing driver) (1907–1989) received the Fischbach estate, and his daughter Karola Countess von der Mühle-Eckart the agricultural and forestry property of Stefling. Karola von der Mühle-Eckart († January 2006), who had lived in Stefling since she was born, lived in the Meierhof belonging to the manor complex, which Count Karl had rebuilt in 1877. The castle was given to Gabriele in 1982, the daughter of Heinrich Karl zu Leonberg, who married Count Ferdinand von Drechsel in the same year. The castle and the hunter's apartment were given to a couple as heritable building rights in 1987, who renovated both buildings.

literature

  • Genealogical manual of the nobility . CAStarke Verlag Limburg ad Lahn, Graefliche Häuser, Volume III, 1965, Stammliste Moulin-Eckart (Du Moulin-Eckart) (from Mühle-Eckart).
  • Josef Klose: 991 or 996? On the first mention of Stefling. Negotiations of the historical association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg, vol. 130, Regensburg 1990, pp. 217–292.
  • Ernst Heinrich Kneschke : New general German nobility lexicon . Volume 6, Leipzig 1929.
  • Josef Knott: Chronicle of the parish Fischbach in the Upper Palatinate. Modern revision by Josef Denk. Flier, Amberg 1976.
  • Alois Schmid : Investigations into Gau, Grafschaft and Vogtei in the Front Bavarian Forest. In: From Bavaria's History. St. Ottilien 1992, pp. 117-177.
  • Ingrid Schmitz-Pesch: Roding: The Wetterfeld and Bruck care offices. In: Historical Atlas of Bavaria, part of Old Bavaria. Issue 44, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7696-9907-6 .
  • Hans Schneider: County and regional court on the Nordgau. In: Research on Bavarian History. Festschrift for Wilhelm Volkert. Frankfurt 1993, pp. 15-38.
  • Johann Schmuck: "Is this whole Gut Stöffling ..." Contribution to the history of Stefling in the 17th century. In: Annual volume on culture and history of the Schwandorf district. 1995.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Volkert (Ed.): Handbook of Bavarian Offices, Municipalities and Courts 1799–1980, 1983, CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung Munich, ISBN 3-406-09669-7 , page 559.
  2. ^ Andreas Boos : Castles in the south of the Upper Palatinate. The high medieval fortifications of the Regensburg area, Regensburg 1998, ISBN 3-930480-03-4 .

Web links

Commons : Stefling  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 13 '  N , 12 ° 12'  E