Castle Gleichen
| Castle Gleichen | ||
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.png) Gleichen Castle from the south (aerial view) |
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| Alternative name (s): | Wanderslebener Gleiche, Wandersleber Castle | |
| Creation time : | 1000 to 1100 | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, summit location | |
| Conservation status: | Keep, gatehouse, remains of walls | |
| Standing position : | Counts, clericals | |
| Place: | Hiking life | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 52 '49 " N , 10 ° 50' 20" E | |
| Height: | 369.6 m above sea level NN | |
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The castle Gleichen (also Wanderslebener Gleiche , Wandersleber Castle, Wanderslebener Burg ) is a medieval castle ruin in Thuringia in the corridor of Wandersleben near Gotha . It is part of the castles ensemble of the Three Equals and today belongs to the Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation .
geography
The hilltop castle was built on a conical mountain ( 369.6 m above sea level ), it rises about 100 meters above the surrounding landscape modeled by the Gera and Apfelstädt rivers . The Burgberg and the following elevations to the west, Kaffberg ( 399 m above sea level ), Röhnberg ( 382.2 m above sea level ) and the north-western Kallenberg ( 341 m above sea level ) are part of the Eichenberg – Gotha – Saalfeld fault zone , they belong to the Triassic formation and consist essentially of stone marl keuper ( Arnstadt formation ), which is covered by a cap made of red sandstone .
The castle hill has no natural springs. The Keuper layers exposed to the elements on the southern slope are unsuitable for agricultural purposes, they are referred to in the literature as badlands . At the foot of the castle hill one encounters layers of travertine , which were valued as a building material for building castles because of their easy extraction. The extreme climatic conditions on the south side of the castle hill with exposed sunny and mostly dry slopes are also shown by a conspicuous vegetation ( xerophytes ) in which rare steppe heather plants occur. The Drei Gleichen landscape protection area has existed since February 3, 1960, and additional nature reserves have been designated.
Gleichen Castle dominated a section of the long-distance trade route known as Via Regia , to which the Autobahn route and Bundesstraße 7 run parallel today . The state road (L 2163) runs over a saddle between the Kaffberg and the Burgberg in the section Mühlberg , Bundesautobahn 4 and Wandersleben . Between the Gleichen Castle and the neighboring Mühlburg in the south-west there is a valley basin in which there was a shallow body of water in the Middle Ages - the “Steinsee” belonging to the castle. Today you can see individual bodies of water from the castle tower in the plain on the other side of the motorway in front of the “Schlossleite”. They were created partly by peat extraction , partly by flooded gravel pits during the construction of the motorway.
history
The Gleichen Castle was first mentioned in 1034 in the annals of the Reinhardsbrunn Monastery as "Gliche". The name is believed to come from the Celtic synonymous , which means rock .
Already in the early 8th century there was a site on the mountain, occupied by cultural layers , which is said to go back to the time of the Franconian conquest , structural remains have not been preserved.
Even from the first medieval fortification that at the end of the Saxon war was besieged Thuringian uprising designated and Saxon nobleman since 14 August 1088 an imperial army, nothing remained. Margrave Ekbert II of Meissen, the leader of the Saxon aristocratic opposition to Emperor Heinrich IV, entrenched himself in the castle . A surprising outbreak on Christmas Eve blew up the siege ring , and Siegwin , the Archbishop of Cologne and the Bishops of Lausanne, Burkhard and Otto von Regensburg , who were housed with their troop contingents in the imperial army camp, died or were taken prisoner.
The castle was the turn of the 12th century in the possession of the Emperor Henry IV. And affiliated with the Thuringian count's daughter Adelheid von Weimar-Orlamünde married Henry II. Of Laach , the first known Count Palatine of the Rhine . He was thus a relative of the Ascanians and used the castle complex as a stopover and to manage his Thuringian and Saxon possessions. Between 1134 and 1137 the castle came into the possession of the Archbishop of Mainz as a gift from his grandson, Count Palatine Wilhelm and his mother .
The castle is owned by the Counts of Tonna-Gleichen
The takeover of the strategically located Gleichen Castle was a significant gain for the Archdiocese of Mainz and strengthened its position of power in the struggle with the up-and-coming Thuringian counts of the Ludowinger , Schwarzburger and Kevernburger .
The Archbishops of Mainz were able to win the Counts of Tonna as allies and made them guardian of the city of Erfurt , the local Peterkloster and many other possessions in Central Thuringia. In 1162 the Counts of Tonna received the Gleichen Castle from the Archbishop of Mainz as a fief . A branch of the count's family, headed by Count Ernst I, was now called Count von Tonna und Gleichen , later shortened to Count von Gleichen, but after Polack it is said to have been his brother, Count Lambrecht I, to whom the castle was handed over during Ernst continued to sit on the chain castle. The Thuringian Landgraves were often hostile to the Counts of Tonna and Gleichen as neighbors in Eichsfeld and Central Thuringia. During the defense of Harburg in Eichsfeld, Count Ernst II von Gleichen-Gleichenstein, a brother of Count Erwin von Tonna-Gleichen, and a representative of a sideline of the Counts of Gleichen, who acted as governors of the archbishopric in Eichsfeld, was taken prisoner in 1170 Landgrave and was executed with the consent of the emperor. The feud with the landgraves led to another siege and destruction of Gleichen Castle in 1178.
Following the struggles, which were also part of the power struggle in the Hohenstaufen-Welf throne dispute, the relationship between the Landgraves and the House of the Counts of Gleichen improved, thanks to a series of donations and the transfer of bailiffs to the Counts of Gleichen to expression. In the apple town valley, today's Emleben , Günthersleben , Wechmar and Schwabhausen and the village of Graefenhain on the northern edge of the Thuringian Forest came into the possession of the Counts of Gleichen. At that time, the property already included several courtyards in Erfurt's old town, mainly in the area of the Anger and the Bartholomäuskirche .
The Counts von Gleichen, who were also involved in the Crusades, developed a close relationship with Denmark around 1200 : Count Ernst IV. And other family members entered into armed conflicts there in community with Count Albert von Orlamünde, they temporarily assumed influential positions at the Danish royal court.
The financing of the count's court and the official business were covered by the farm income of the subjects, increasingly also by pledges and sales, so the remote place Graefenhain was sold to the monastery Georgenthal in 1230 . On May 31, 1231, there was a major fire at Gleichen Castle, which was triggered by a lightning strike. The repair of the damage happened at a time of growing tensions with the city of Erfurt. The city, which belongs to the Archdiocese of Mainz, tried in vain to become an imperial city as early as the 12th century and thus came into conflict with the Counts of Gleichen, who were present as court lords, archbishop bailiffs of the Peterskloster (from 1134) and governors. The influence of the Counts of Gleichen on the prosperous city steadily decreased due to financial problems. In 1283 the Counts were forced to pledge their bailiwick rights to the Erfurt magistrate. The rule Vieselbach, a property of the Counts of Gleichen bordering on Erfurt, could not be bought back and also fell to the city of Erfurt. In 1308 the Lauentor was walled up in the Erfurt city wall, the Counts of Gleichen thus lost an important privilege to pass this city gate at any time and tax-free. In 1373 the bailiwick of the Peterskloster also ended.
This phase of decline ended surprisingly: In 1385 the last Count of Kevernburg died on a pilgrimage, the Thuringian Landgrave Balthasar handed over an area that had fallen to him with the city of Ohrdruf in the center to the Count of Gleichen as a fief. Count Hermann von Gleichen had already acquired the mayor's office in Ohrdruf in 1332, and two aristocratic families residing in the city ( Witzleben and Stutternheim ) had handed over their goods in Ohrdruf and Wechmar to the Gleichen counts in 1351. The property around Ohrdruf was increased again in 1409 through an inheritance from the property of the Lords of Salza , with which the Tonna line was originally intended.
Last in 1416 an area south of Weimar came to the Counts of Gleichen, which had been decreed by inheritance contract when a baron Ludwig von Blankenhain married . In this advantageous location, the three sons of the Gleichen-Counts had agreed to divide the entire property. Ludwig von Gleichen took over Blankenhain Castle and founded the Gleichen-Blankenhain line. His wife was a daughter of Count Günther XXXII. von Schwarzburg and brought in the (imperial direct) lordship of Ehrenstein as a dowry. Ludwig's descendants also bought the rulership of the Lower Castle (Lower Castle) in Kranichfeld and owned the Gleichenschen Hof in Weimar. In 1627 the already heavily indebted Gleichen-Blankenstein line died out. The second son - Hans Ludwig von Gleichen - had chosen Tonna . He resided on the chain castle and was the master of Mülverstedt , Burgtonna, Gräfentonna, Eschenbergen, Bischleben, Töttelstädt, Hochheim and other places in the east of today's Gotha district. The third son (Count Ernst V) retained the core property of the Grafschaft Gleichen, to which the towns of Günthersleben, Wechmar, Emleben, Sülzenbrücken, Wandersleben, Schwabhausen and Ohrdruf as well as the Steinsee below the Gleichen Castle belonged.
In the 16th century, the turmoil of the Peasants' War and the Reformation also affected the rulers of Grafschaft Gleichen. In 1525, the local monastery in Ohrdruf was closed and handed over by the monks to the Counts of Gleichen to set up a school there. The count's family complied with this request, but around 1550 took advantage of the advantageous location and decided to convert part of the former monastery into the Ehrenstein Castle residence . The main building is the one that Count Georg II von Gleichen began in 1556. His widow Walburga (from his second marriage) initially had Ehrenstein Castle expanded for the count's three sons.
This was connected with the abandonment of Gleichen Castle as a residence, Gleichen Castle was still used as an official residence and prison and began to deteriorate. The imminent division of the count's property had been decided by the brothers. Count Philipp Ernst von Gleichen had received the Gleichen Castle and had a renaissance castle built in the western part of the castle in 1588. His brother, who ruled in Tonna, died in 1590, and the residence of the Counts of Gleichen was now officially relocated to Ohrdruf. In 1599 Philipp Ernst von Gleichen gave up the mountain castle Gleichen and moved to the residential castle in Ohrdruf. In 1631 the dynasty of the same counts died out.
The castle is owned by the Counts of Hatzfeld
With the extinction of the male line of the Counts of Gleichen, the Archdiocese of Mainz became the owner of Gleichen Castle again. For the now again Catholic enclave in the center of the Protestant duchies a fatal situation in the midst of the turmoil of the Thirty Years War . The castle was uninhabited until 1639 and was plundered. It was not until 1651 that the Counts of Hatzfeld received the rule of Gleichen (Castle Gleichen and Wandersleben) as a fief. They now called themselves Counts von Gleichen and Hatzfeld. Since the Hatzfelder only sent an administrator to Thuringia and remained in their home countries, the castle continued to deteriorate. A hunter in the service of Hatsfeld was responsible for the maintenance of the ruin, but he lived in the rooms assigned to him in the Freudenthal works. In 1717 a Countess von Hatzfeld visited the castle ruins and planned a new building in the castle ruins. However, it did not succeed in enforcing the compulsory labor of the neighboring towns, derived from medieval times. The administrators of the estate in Wandersleben viewed the ruins as a quarry and asked permission to break down the walls, which they were never allowed to do. In 1793 the Hatzfeld dynasty also died out, the fiefdom fell back to the Archbishopric of Mainz.
The castle in the 19th century
Castle Gleichen remained in the possession of the archbishop until 1803 and fell to Prussia through the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , in 1806 it came under the rule of the French and should be blown up in order to extract building materials. The courageous request of the Erfurt university professor Placidus Muth, which he expressed in an interview with Napoleon, to stop this project, resulted in the donation of the castle to the Erfurt University. In 1816 it came back into Prussian state ownership , as the Erfurt University was dissolved on November 12, 1816.
A timely description of the ruin appeared in 1812:
“A high arched gate, which can still be locked, leads into the large, wide courtyard; All around you can see ruins, and only one building still has a tiled roof. This building, which is at 100 feet long, could easily be restored. The walls are still good, as are the beams, and with some caution you can climb the stairs. One room on the upper floor is still called the Junckernkammer. Until a few years ago there was a large, broad bedspond, which was supposed to be the same that Count Ernst von Gleichen shared with his two wives in peaceful harmony. The ruins of the castle chapel adjoin this building. "
The Prussian general, Baron Karl von Müffling , bought the castle ruins for 800 thalers in 1817, and had some stairs repaired. In 1841 the roof of the renaissance castle that was still in place was demolished. The reason given was that there were concerns about the static stability of the load-bearing walls, as there were already clear cracks. On the contrary, the lack of a roof accelerated the further deterioration of the building, as rainwater could now seep into the masonry joints unhindered.
“The Gleichen Castle, the old ancestral seat of an illustrious family of counts, is facing its decline more and more. The damaged roof of the apartment building has been removed, the floors have been taken out, and the horrors of destruction peek out through all the window openings. The walls are still standing, but they are completely exposed to wind and weather. "
Securing and tourist development
In the winter of 1897, the first repair work began, which had been commissioned by the Erfurt section of the Thuringian Forest Association. Up until the First World War, emergency safeguards financed with donations were carried out at the castle, which was still owned by the von Müffling family, and a new cistern was built to improve the water supply. The work, which was welcomed and financially supported by countless hikers and homeland friends, was destroyed several times by the vandalism of some drunkards, and the timber and equipment donated were often used as campfires in the unguarded castle courtyard. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha therefore had the castle secured with barbed wire and forbade entering the ruins for security reasons.
During the Weimar Republic , the castle ruins were no longer of any importance to the ducal family, and the funds made available for the protection of historical monuments were not used. Only a new gate was acquired, it blocked the main entrance to the castle ruins. The section of the German Heritage Association based in Erfurt finally managed to hold talks with the duke about an intended lease of the castle. As a result, the city of Erfurt was given the castle ruins in 1934, which left the heritable building right to the Heimatschutzbund for 90 years. On October 31, 1934, after decades of inaccessibility, visitors were able to return to the ruins.
After the Second World War - officially since 1960 - took over the Cultural Association belonging Section Working Group for the care and preservation of the castle likes taking care of the ruined castle, which was used as an open air museum. The keep was made into a lookout tower, inside a collection of materials on the castle history was presented.
In the 1970s, music events not controlled by the state took place in the castle ruins, with up to 2500 young people attending the concerts. Since 1984 the museums of the city of Erfurt have taken over the administration of the castle ruins, from 1998 the Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation took over.
description
Architectural archaeological investigations of the castle plateau have only been carried out since the 1960s and provided evidence for eleven construction phases, starting from the first half of the 12th century. The current appearance of the castle is thus a jigsaw puzzle of various construction phases and architectural forms.
The fortification, which was built as a hilltop castle , was adapted several times to different siege techniques. When this was no longer possible in the 16th century due to the improvement of artillery weapons, it was expanded to a residential palace.
The floor plan of the castle has a polygonal shape that corresponds to the shape of the mountain plateau. The first ring wall of the castle was excavated under the buildings of the castle construction in still fragmentary wall sections, it therefore enclosed a smaller total area. Already in the first construction phase, the gateway on the north side led into the castle; in the late Middle Ages a palisade in front of it, and later a wall with a front gate, improved this area of the complex that was most threatened. The gate fence created in this way was secured by a ditch in front and the front gate with a drawbridge. According to the building findings, this security was only made around 1500 to protect the castle from attacks. The enlargement of the castle area could be effected by a circular wall stabilized with supporting pillars, the buildings attached to the wall form the basic shape of a circular wall castle. The original gate was preserved and was lengthened with sloping wall flanks. The parts of the wall above the gate should belong to the castle chapel. After entering the castle courtyard, the ruins of the two-storey residential building with small Romanesque windows on the ground floor can be seen on the right, which the castle guide identifies as a 12th century palace. The clearly recognizable change in the masonry on the upper floor can be explained by the major fire of 1231, which also destroyed the Palas (with its wooden false ceilings and roof structure). In the new building, new needs of the residents were evidently taken into account; further separate entrances were created to the courtyard via wooden external stairs, which can still be recognized through the door openings and console stones. For this purpose, a stone platform was created in the eastern part, it arches the courtyard-side entrance into the vaulted cellar. To the left of the gatehouse you can see the ruins of several buildings that were still important in the late phase of the castle; they served the administration as archive cellars, kitchen and storage areas as well as accommodation for the castle's guards and servants. The building complex was completed in the 14th and 15th centuries when the count's family began to avoid the castle. The most striking building of the castle is the square keep with bossed masonry on the south-east side of the castle. The ruin has a remaining height of 18.85 m and has three construction phases, which in turn are clearly visible in the masonry. The tower foundation equipped with embossed stones or humpback blocks is a design feature popular with stone castles from the Staufer period. As the last refuge, the tower was able to protect the lord of the castle for a certain time in the event of a siege, which is why the towers in high medieval castles were often provided with living rooms (plank wood rooms) on the upper floors. In the fire of 1231, triggered by lightning, this dwelling, protected by meter-thick walls, went up in flames.
When the tower was rebuilt, the fire-damaged parts of the wall were renewed right up to the castle plateau, using a yellow dolomite rock. In order to provide some comfort to the tower crew, who were assigned to the guard duty, this tower also had a toilet bay on the outside. As a result of the tourist development of the castle tower noted in 1897, the upper floor was bricked up and a viewing platform with a parapet wall was added. Inside, the newly built wooden stairs and the required false ceilings were created.
The medieval castle complex had to have a sufficient water supply, for this purpose cisterns and large water barrels were provided in the cellar vaults. A high mediaeval filter cistern was found on the castle, it was located on the west side of the palace, the second cistern in the courtyard was built during the palace construction and dates from around 1600. It was repaired in the 20th century to enable masonry work.
During the construction of the residential palace on the northwest side of the castle courtyard, the structures presumed there (storage building, shed, stables, a brewery) were destroyed; their function was transferred to the Vorwerk Freudenthal built in the valley.
The palace, built in 1588, has two wings. It is the youngest and best preserved part of the entire complex. The portal on the courtyard side, decorated with diamond blocks, again bears the temporarily extended coat of arms of the Counts of Gleichen above the keystone. The door and window reveals, made from easily weatherable travertine stone, have already been partially lost. The remains give a clear picture of this representative building from the Renaissance period.
In the western courtyard one encounters the remains of the former kitchen building. The room, provided with a brick vault and chimney, but otherwise probably attached to the curtain wall in half-timbered construction, still had a use for the last residents and was therefore maintained.
A three-surface stone with a coat of arms decoration was transferred from the flank of the castle hill into the castle courtyard, as a three-man stone it marked an important border point in the corridor.
The legend of the two-woman Count von Gleichen
The castle is known from the legend about a Count Ernst von Gleichen who took part in the fifth crusade in 1227 . He was captured in the process, and the sultan's daughter, Melechsala, helped him escape after he had promised her marriage. The Pope baptized her Angelica and gave her consent to the Count's second marriage. The place where the two women are said to have met for the first time at the foot of the mountain when the Count returned and where there is a restaurant (closed in 2018) was called Freudenthal ( Lage → ).
The historical background of this legend is provided by the grave slab of Count Lambert II von Gleichen in Erfurt Cathedral . On this you can see Lambert with his first wife Ottilia and the woman he married after her death. As early as the 15th century, the Counts of Gleichen had cleverly used the story, embellished into legend , to glorify their social prestige. On behalf of the counts, a valuable tapestry was made, which reproduces the legend in the form of a richly decorated picture story. To prove this, visitors to Gleichen Castle were presented with an ancient, extra-wide bed as a shared sleeping place for the three spouses in the so-called “Junker Room” around 1800.
This rare example of an ecclesiastically legitimized double marriage attracted general attention when Landgrave Philip I of Hesse admitted his affair with the much sought-after Margarethe von der Saale . Since a divorce from his wife was not possible, his supporters looked for a way out to justify another marriage. Veit Winsheim , a student of Philipp Melanchthon , skillfully reshaped the Gleichen saga and presented it as a historical factual report.
The charming material was then repeatedly processed literarily, for example by Johann Karl August Musäus as Melechsala (1786) in his Volksmährchen der Deutschen . Franz Schubert took it as a template for the unfinished opera Der Graf von Gleichen (1827–28), for which Eduard von Bauernfeld wrote the libretto.
There is a short poem by Christian Friedrich Hunold , who spent his early youth in Wandersleben:
" Over the bed at the Gleichen Castle / where Count Ludwig slept with two wives ."
Stone crosses in Freudenthal
There are two medieval stone crosses near the “Freudenthal” restaurant on Mühlberger Straße . They are about 100 m apart.
The more southerly cross from the middle of the 15th century , closer to the castle, was found in March 1998 during excavation work on the old ford through the apple town in Wandersleben. Since a stone cross had previously stood at the current location of the cross, the found cross was placed here on May 21, 1998. It has the dimensions 90 cm (above ground) height, 60 cm width over both arms and 30 cm thickness. The original cross was moved in 1931 by the Wandersleben domain tenant Loth to the moon garden on Burgberg, about 700 m south. It was stolen from there in 1991. A replica of the cross was erected there in 1993.
The second cross from the late 15th century, which continues in the direction of Wandersleben, is popularly known as the "Bishop's Cross" or "Murder Cross" because, according to legend, it refers to the murder of the Bishop of Lausanne, Burkhard von Oltigen , during the siege of Gleichen Castle 1089 should remember. There is also talk of a killed craftsperson, hence the name "Murder Cross". The cross is shown as a prominent point on numerous maps and views of Gleichen Castle. In the 19th century it was provided with signposts, which made old inscriptions unrecognizable. Today you can still decipher the somewhat destroyed writing: "Weg nach Wandersleben". In September 2009, after a renovation on behalf of the municipality of Drei Gleichen, it was erected again unchanged.
Web links
- Gleichen Castle on the website of the Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation
- Pages about Burg Gleichen on the website of the municipality of Drei Gleichen
- Background information on the legend on LexiTV's website
- Count von Gleichen and his double marriage (pictures and texts)
- Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun
- Castle Road Thuringia
literature
- Udo Hopf, Gerd Strickhausen, Elmar Altwasser: The three equals . In: Castles, palaces and fortifications in Central Europe . tape 7 . Verlag Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-1389-7 , pp. 48 .
- Willibald Gutsche, Gerd Reitz, Martin Jaekel: History and landscape significance of the castle Gleichen . Ed .: Collective of the working group of Burg Gleichen. Erfurt 1961, p. 28 .
- Edwin Zeyß: Contributions to the history of the counts of equals and their area . Verlag des Verein der Wachsenburg eV, Gotha 1931, p. 74 .
- Steffen Raßloff : Ruin steeped in history . The legendary Gleichen Castle ruins are closely linked to Erfurt's history . In: Thüringer Allgemeine from May 24, 2014.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Official topographic maps of Thuringia 1: 10,000. Wartburgkreis, district of Gotha, district-free city of Eisenach . In: Thuringian Land Survey Office (Hrsg.): CD-ROM series Top10 . CD 2. Erfurt 1999.
- ↑ Gerd Reitz, Martin Jaekel: History and scenic significance of the castle Gleichen . Ed .: Collective of the working group of Burg Gleichen. Erfurt 1961, The landscape protection area "Drei Gleichen", p. 18-24 .
- ↑ Udo Hopf, Gerd Strickhausen, Elmar Altwasser: The three equals . In: Castles, palaces and fortifications in Central Europe . tape 7 . Verlag Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-1389-7 , pp. 23 .
- ↑ Carl Polack: Wachsenburg, Mühlberg und Gleichen, the Thuringian three equals in their relationship to one another . Verlag JG Müller, Gotha 1859, p. 15-16 .
- ↑ a b E. Zeyss: contributions to the history of the Counts of peers and their territory . Verlag des Verein der Wachsenburg eV, Gotha 1931, p. 11-13 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g Udo Hopf, Gerd Strickhausen, Elmar Altwasser: The three equals . In: Castles, palaces and fortifications in Central Europe . tape 7 . Verlag Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-1389-7 , The Castle of the Counts of Gleichen, p. 19 .
- ↑ a b Willibald Gutsche: History and importance of the landscape of Gleichen Castle . Ed .: Collective of the working group of Burg Gleichen. Erfurt 1961, From the history of Gleichen Castle, p. 5-6 .
- ↑ a b c E. Zeyss: contributions to the history of the Counts of peers and their territory . Verlag des Verein der Wachsenburg eV, Gotha 1931, p. 17-33 .
- ^ A b Kaspar Friedrich Gottschalck : Gleichen, Mühlberg, Wachsenburg . In: The knight's castles and mountain castles in Germany . tape 3 . Halle near Hemmerde and Schwerthe 1826, p. 11-44 .
- ↑ Ulrich Lappe: The late medieval to early modern settlement of Gleichen Castle . In: Museum for Pre- and Early History of Thuringia (ed.): Alt-Thüringen . 19. Vol. Weimar 1983, p. 164-187 . (as digitized version )
- ↑ a b N.N .: About the latest fate of the Gleichen Castle ruins . In: Thuringia . Volume 41, 1842, pp. 651-55 .
- ^ Willibald Gutsche: History and significance of the castle Gleichen . Ed .: Collective of the working group of Burg Gleichen. Erfurt 1961, From the history of Gleichen Castle, p. 9-12 .
- ^ Poem by Hunold at zeno.org
- ↑ Information board on the southern stone cross