Stedebach moated castle

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Stedebach moated castle
Creation time : 15th century
Castle type : Niederungsburg, moated castle
Conservation status: Remains of the moat system
Standing position : German medal
Place: Stedebach
Geographical location 50 ° 43 '41.5 "  N , 8 ° 40' 28.2"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 43 '41.5 "  N , 8 ° 40' 28.2"  E
Height: 205  m above sea level NHN
Stedebach moated castle (Hesse)
Stedebach moated castle

The moated castle Stedebach is a lost moated castle in Stedebach , a district of the municipality Weimar in the district of Marburg-Biedenkopf in Hesse .

history

The complex was probably built in the second half of the 15th century by the Deutschordensballei Hessen or the Landkommende Marburg of the Teutonic Order , which had considerable property in Stedebach since 1263 at the latest and from 1476 all farms, including the farm that was still called landgrave in 1409, in Place owned. That year, on August 20, 1476, Landgrave Heinrich III freed . , the regent of Upper Hesse , and his son Ludwig (III.) the castle (which is referred to for the first time as a castle in this context) and the courtyards of the order in Stedebach from all services, duties and army succession and also transferred the high and low to the order Jurisdiction .

The new castle of the order probably replaced a much older small castle complex on site and probably also in the same place, Stedebach Castle , which was probably just a moth and of which no remains have survived today.

The attachment

The complex of the order, on the eastern edge of the small settlement, had an almost square floor plan of 25 × 28 meters and was surrounded on all four sides by a very wide moat , so that one spoke of a castle pond , in the middle of which the complex stood. The castle itself was initially more of a pond , which was only expanded into a three-wing complex towards the end of the 15th century. From this a wooden footbridge with a drawbridge led across the castle pond and to the farm and auxiliary buildings located outside the pond.

It is uncertain to what extent drawings that were published in the Weimar “Heimatwelt” in 2008, 1983 and 1995 reproduced the appearance of the Festes Haus or what would later become the castle, or merely indicate what it might have looked like. The representation of the three-wing system is based on a model, which in turn was made from older drawings and therefore has some credibility. Both representations show a substructure that is massive, at least on the outside, which contains a basement and the ground floor, and above that one or, in some cases, two half-timbered upper floors and an attic under a slate-covered hipped roof . The walls on the courtyard side were probably made of plastered timber framing with brickwork in between.

The representation of the later castle is compatible with the floor plan drawings of the four floors, which were made in the first half of the 18th century. These show a strong resemblance to Hessenstein Castle near Ederbringhausen in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district . According to this, the castle was three-winged and U-shaped around an inner courtyard about eight meters wide and 20 meters long. The fourth side was closed off by a wall with the courtyard gate, on which there was a covered battlement across the width. All three wings had hip roofs; the intermediate mounting between the two sides and parallel to each other and about 28 x 8 m wide main wings had to the yard side a to the roof ridge reaching Zwerchhaus . The castle complex was used by friars and employees of the order - such as the mayor appointed by the order and the foresters, hunters, etc. who were temporarily active on site - as a residence; it also contained a prison. The main building with the living quarters for members of the order was to the left of the courtyard; Servants had their quarters in the opposite wing. It is uncertain whether and how long members of the Order resided permanently in Stedebach. It is certain, however, that a mayor was appointed and paid for by the order in the 16th century at the latest; he probably lived in the adjoining wing.

Until 1561 the real estate of the order administered by its branch in Stedebach was worked on by the landgrave's serfs . In 1561, the Order awarded this land to three courtiers for the first time for nine years. From 1577 the Stedebach property of the order was divided into four farms, which from 1617 were initially leased to four so-called court estates in practically permanent leases under the state settlement law. In the 18th century these leases were converted into inheritance and the farm farmers became hereditary estates. The paid mayor was transferred to another post in 1679, and his duties were now carried out by one of the courtiers, with the office rotating annually among the four.

cancellation

The castle complex was already in rapid decline in the first half of the 18th century. The residential building on the eastern side was demolished in 1778 or shortly before it was in disrepair . The western one was the country commander's apartment. At the request of the court inventory, it was not torn down in 1778, but continued to be used by them. The castle pond of the property, now known as Freihof , was drained in 1781 and then leased from one of the four farm stocks and used as a vegetable garden.

When the French Emperor Napoléon declared the Teutonic Order in the Confederation of the Rhine to be dissolved on April 24, 1809 , the order property in Stedebach became the property of the Kingdom of Westphalia , which was formed in 1807 and , after its end in 1813, was owned by the restored Electorate of Hesse . Since the old castle building was no longer of any use and was ripe for demolition, it was demolished in 1857.

The four courtiers in Stedebach became free landowners in 1878 after they had paid off the agreed redemption and interest in installments.

Current condition

Today only remnants of the outer lining wall of the castle pond remain. The area is used for agriculture.

literature

  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 2nd Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1995, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 269.
  • Ewald Gutbier: The Stedebach Castle . In: Hessenland, Volume 44, 1933, pp. 45 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b http://www.gemeinde-weimar.de/upload/pdf/Heimatwelt/Heimatwelt14.pdf (link not available), in: Heimatwelt , Weimar / Lahn, 1983, issue 14 (pdf; 6.5 MB)
  2. ↑ Johann Bapt. Rady (Johann Michael Raich, ed.): History of the Catholic Church in Hesse (722-1526). Mainz publishing house, Mainz, 1904, p. 386
  3. ^ Already on August 19, 1466, Landgrave Heinrich III. the three courtyards of the order in Stedebach transferred to the order as Freihöfe. (Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, inventory JL 425: Breitenbach collection on the history of the Teutonic Order; second part: the mastery and the balleies of the German order in the empire; Tom.XXXI: balleien German territory; part 2: ballei Marburg and Hesse; JL 425 vol. 31 col. 28)
  4. ↑ Heimatwelt , Gemeinde Weimar (Lahn), Issue 44, 2008, p. 25 (PDF; 6.1 MB)
  5. ↑ Heimatwelt , Weimar Municipal Administration, issue 14, 1983 (PDF; 6.5 MB)
  6. ↑ It is uncertain whether the roofing has always been made of slate or only since the renovations in the 16th century ; However, it is documented that on December 31, 1318 Landgrave Otto I of Hesse donated a slate quarry to the Teutonic Order House in Marburg near the grove of Blankenstein Castle (Gladenbach) , only a few kilometers away ( December 31, 1318 (?): Landgrave Otto donated to the Teutonic Order House a slate quarry. Regest No. 690. Regest of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).)
  7. ↑ This can be deduced from a drawing of the then still standing wing from 1842 (see Herbert Kosog, Heinrich Ehlich: Die Burg zu Stedebach , in: Heimatwelt , Weimar / Lahn 1978, issue 5 (pdf) (4.4 MB) ).
  8. ↑ Floor plans of Stedebach, in: Reinhard Gutbier: The Hessenstein Castle and its structural development up to around 1800 ; in: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies 81, 1970, p. 96, Plan 9. ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )