Veitsburg
| Veitsburg | ||
|---|---|---|
 Bagnato building |
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| Alternative name (s): | Ravensburg | |
| Creation time : | 930/1088 | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | Received or received substantial parts | |
| Standing position : | Free nobles | |
| Place: | Ravensburg | |
| Geographical location | 47 ° 46 '40.2 " N , 9 ° 37' 0" E | |
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Veitsburg (after the castle chapel consecrated to St. Vitus ) is the modern name of Ravensburg , a medieval hilltop castle on the so-called "Burgberg" (525 m) above Ravensburg in the Ravensburg district ( Baden-Württemberg ).
history
There are different explanations for the name of the castle. One says that the castle was founded around 930 by a "Rabanus". Another emphasizes that the earlier spelling “Ravenspvrg” (without differentiating between “u” and “v”) can also be read as “Rauensburg” and a steep slope opposite the northeast side of the castle is called “Rauenegg” . The fact that the “Rauenegg” is now home to the urban vineyard again shows that “rough” in this case cannot - as is sometimes claimed - refer to the climate.
Another interpretation traces the name back to the Guelphs as lords of the castle, who allegedly were also called "ravens" because of their black hair and who moved their ancestral castle from neighboring Altdorf to the strategically located castle hill of Ravensburg around 1050 . The findings of an excavation carried out in the 20th century indicate that the castle plateau was inhabited much earlier.
The name Ravensburg was first mentioned in a document in 1088 . It was not until around the 18th century that the name Veitsberg or Veitsburg began to appear, based on the earlier castle chapel dedicated to St.Veit - at times also a pilgrimage destination . previously the term “Burgberg” was usually used to distinguish it from the city of Ravensburg.
Prehistoric and early historical settlement
Excavation and reading finds on the castle hill prove a prehistoric and prehistoric settlement from the Neolithic to the Early and Middle Bronze Ages as well as the later Urnfield and Hallstatt Ages , while no settlement activity has been proven for the Roman era, although there are individual finds from that time . However, clear evidence of fortifications from this period could not be found, so it remains to be seen whether these early hilltop settlements were already fortified. However, the prehistoric settlement is likely to have extended over the entire summit area, possibly also down the somewhat less steep western slope.
Medieval settlement
Neither the 1980 nor the 2006 excavations provided any evidence of early medieval settlement before the 10th century. Such a settlement and fortification probably already existed at the time when Welf IV. Moved the Guelph seat here. Since the Guelph family called itself Altdorf after the older seat until the 12th century , the exact date of the relocation of the Guelph main residence can no longer be determined.
Welfish ancestral castle
The Welfs administered their home lands in the Duchy of Swabia from Ravensburg . Welf IV was made Duke of Bavaria in 1070 ; his grandson Heinrich the Proud was able to acquire the title of Duke of Saxony through marriage in 1137 .
In 1088 Welf IV. Captured the Augsburg bishop Siegfried on the Ravensburg (still reproduced today in a pageant group of the historical parade at the Rutenfest ).
From 1122 the Guelphs call themselves "Dukes of Ravensburg", Heinrich the Black died in 1126 on the Ravensburg. In 1127 Heinrich the Proud assigned the castle to his wife, the Emperor's daughter Gertrud von Sachsen , as his residence. It is believed that the famous son of Heinrich the Proud , Heinrich the Lion , was born in Ravensburg Castle in 1129 . At that time, the Ravensburg evidently also housed the ducal court, as evidenced by the associated court offices, and it was representative.
After the death of Heinrich the Proud in 1139, the leadership of the House of Guelphs and rule over the Ravensburg fell to his brother Welf VI. , Duke of Spoleto . Although he initially defended the Guelph interests with great success, after the death of his son Welf VII. In 1167 he apparently lost interest in politics and finally bequeathed the Ravensburg and the other Swabian possessions to his Staufer nephew, Emperor Friedrich, by inheritance in 1178 or 1179 I. Barbarossa .
Staufer property management
The Ravensburg then became one of the Hohenstaufen headquarters and served until 1268 as the seat of the property and property administration in Swabia. After the divorce, Barbarossa's first wife was married to a Dieto von Ravensburg. Her grave is in the former Weissenau Monastery near Ravensburg. In 1203 Philipp von Schwaben held a glamorous court day here. Even Frederick II. Is said to have temporarily stopped on the Ravensburg. Allegedly Konradin , the last Staufer, set out from Ravensburg on his fateful march to Italy, which ended with his execution in Naples in 1268 .
The excavations in 1980 and 2006 showed that the high medieval fortification extended from the northern tip to at least the central area of the mountain plateau and also included the area of the former castle chapel St. Veit (today a monument without externally visible building remains ). Remnants of the ring wall on the western edge and the lack of demarcation of the securely occupied castle area to the south suggest that the external fortifications enclosed the entire plateau, 220 m long and 80 m wide.
Post-Staufer period
With the extinction of the Staufer dynasty, there was an interregnum in which the mighty Duchy of Swabia fell apart. In 1278, the Roman-German King Rudolf I of the House of Habsburg finally confirmed the imperial city privileges of the city of Ravensburg below the castle. On the castle itself now on the imperial sat Landvogt the kingdom bailiwick of Swabia . In 1315 the wedding celebrations for Frederick the Beautiful and his wife Elisabeth of Aragón took place on the Ravensburg .
In 1330, Ravensburg came into the hands of King Ludwig from the Wittelsbach family , who appointed his son Stephan II to be bailiff and who himself temporarily stayed at the castle. King Sigismund of Luxemburg pledged the castle in 1415 to Unterlandvogt Truchseß Hans von Waldburg ; The fact that the pledge was increased by 500 Rhenish guilders (Fl.rh.) in 1417 suggests extensive construction work. It is possible that the high mediaeval complex was reduced to today's much smaller area at the northern tip of the mountain. In any case, in the view from Abbot Jakob Murer's Weissenau Chronicle of 1525, the St. Vitus Chapel is already outside the Burgring, referred to as "Castle" in the illustration.
The few surviving representations from the time before the Thirty Years' War show a representative and at the same time defensive residential castle, which, however, only occupied the northern half of the plateau, secured by steep slopes on three sides. The representations of the keep also suggest that some of the upper floors were demolished here.
In 1487 the pledge was transferred from the Waldburgers to Jakob von Landau; Around the same time, the administration of the bailiwick was relocated from Ravensburg to Altdorf , which was then Austrian . In 1529 the Waldburg owners again became the owners of the pledge to the Reichsburg, in 1541 Hans von Laubenberg-Wagegg, in 1546 George Gienger from Ulm, and in 1551 Georg Ilsung from Augsburg .
This Georg Ilsung had extensive construction work carried out on the castle, including a new building of the palace on the west side of the castle, the upper floor of which was completely demolished due to structural damage. When it was found that the stone foundation walls of the first floor had also been severely damaged by an earlier fire, these were also removed. The 1900 florins granted by the Innsbruck government were not sufficient for a new building , whereupon Ilsung applied for a further increase of 400 to 500 florins. From this letter, the construction plans of that time are known, which appear to have been implemented on later depictions of 1616, 1622 and 1625.
During the Thirty Years' War in 1647 the main building of the castle burned down completely after the temporarily stationed imperial soldiers had left; A Ravensburger citizen and a Swedish soldier were identified as the arsonist. The farm buildings in the eastern area of the complex, which later also served as apartments and summer farms, have been preserved; today it is a youth hostel.
In 1748 the Catholic council of the city of Ravensburg - due to the parity council constitution there was a Catholic and a Protestant council - acquired the castle hill as an Austrian fief. Presumably it was planned to revive the pilgrimage tradition to the St. Vitus Chapel from the 16th century profitably and to expand the summit into a pilgrimage center in connection with an imperial guaranteed fair (on June 15th).
In 1751 a bar with a bowling alley was established. At the same time, Johann Caspar Bagnato , a Teutonic order builder who was married to a woman from Ravensburg, was commissioned to build a pleasure palace for the Ravensburger citizens on the ruins of the keep. In 1884 a crenellated turret was added to the facade of this baroque building. Today the Bagnato building is the main feature of the castle, visible from afar.
Todays situation
The Bagnato building was expanded by a few outbuildings in the early 1950s and has been used as a restaurant ever since. The outbuildings of the castle complex - once farm and stable buildings - expanded in the 1980s by an annex, served as a youth hostel .
In 2007/2008 renovation plans with an extensive expansion of the youth hostel led to heated discussions in the city. In particular, the proposal to erect an additional wing (“cross bar”, offset a little towards the back of the former palace in the castle courtyard and with only narrow “loopholes” windows facing the valley), which was awarded first prize in the architectural competition, left the spirits boil up. In an agenda process , several groups worked out proposals. Ultimately, however, the planned big hit turned out to be unaffordable. Instead, the existing youth hostel was refurbished in 2011/2012, and the western part of the two-story north wing, which was added in the 1980s, was replaced by a three-story new building (opened in March 2012) - similar to one of the proposals by the Agenda21 groups.
The restaurant buildings attached to the Bagnato building in the 1950s were largely demolished; In 2010 a newly built restaurant was opened at this location.
literature
- Friedrich Gutermann: The old Rauenspurc, the ancestral castle of the Guelphs, its surroundings and its family. Historical news collected from handwritten documents and printed documents , 1856 ( digitized ).
- The Welfenburg . In: The Gazebo . Issue 33, 1866, pp. 515-517 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- Alfons Dreher, Heinrich Wurm: The Ravensburg and its last renovation before the destruction . In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , 89th year 1971, pp. 49–70 ( digitized version ).
- Dorothee Ade-Rademacher, Reinhard Rademacher: The Veitsberg near Ravensburg. Prehistoric hilltop settlement and medieval-early modern hilltop castle . From the series: Research and reports on the archeology of the Middle Ages in Baden-Württemberg, Volume 16 . Published by the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8062-1075-6 .
- Stefan Uhl: Ravensburg - The Veitsburg. Architectural historical investigation . Office for historical building research, Warthausen 2007.
- Hans Ulrich Rudolf (eds.), Berthold Büchele, Ursula Rückgauer: Places of rule and power - castles and palaces in the Ravensburg district . From the series: Oberschwaben - Views and Prospects, Volume 9. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2013, ISBN 978-3-7995-0508-6 , pp. 329–334.
