Willibaldsburg

Willibaldsburg
	Willibaldsburg from the west
Creation time :	1070/1353
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	Received or received substantial parts
Place:	Eichstatt
Geographical location	48 ° 53 '40.5 " N , 11 ° 10' 10.2" E Coordinates: 48 ° 53 '40.5 " N , 11 ° 10' 10.2" E
Height:	464 m above sea level NN

The Willibaldsburg is a spur castle built around 1353 in Eichstätt in Upper Bavaria . It was a representative castle and seat of the Eichstätt prince-bishops until the 18th century .

Geographical location

Willibaldsburg

The castle fortress is located west of the old town on an elongated mountain spur, the Willibaldsberg ( 464 m above sea level ; see Willibald von Eichstätt ), above the Altmühltal . The entire facility is around 420 m long and is already well secured by its location. The Altmühl makes an acute bend here, the resulting ridge was an ideal location for the medieval castle and later fortress .

The high medieval castle of Bishop Berthold was on the western spur of the castle hill. This first castle complex is said to have consisted of a large stone house, a tower and a chapel and was secured by circular walls and moats.

history

The Willibaldsburg via Eichstätt ( Matthäus Merian : Topographia Franconiae. 1648)

The main gate (east side / access to the inner courtyard) with the statue of St. Willibald

The inner courtyard of the Willibaldsburg with the east side of the "Gemmingen Building"

The inner courtyard of the "Gemmingen Building"

The "Gemmingenbau" with the bastions in front of it

The first fortification on the castle hill is mentioned as early as 1070. Under Bishop Berthold von Zollern , the expansion into the fortified residence of the bishops of Eichstätt began around 1355; the old bishopric was in the city next to the cathedral. After the protective counts of Hirschberg died out in 1305, the bishop had to organize the military security of the diocese himself. The cathedral chapter initially contradicted the expansion plans because of the high costs, but the bishop was able to prevail.

Bishop Friedrich IV of Oettingen (1383–1415) strengthened the fortifications by building a kennel and had an "aestuarium magnum aestivale" built. This is likely to have been a hall building, a summer house, as can be proven on other castles of this time.

Under the bishops Albrecht II of Hohenrechberg (1429–1445) and Martin von Schaumberg (1560–1590) the castle fortress was expanded and reinforced. The "foam mining" created under the latter shaped the view of the castle together with the expansion of the late Renaissance into the 19th century.

Under Bishop Johann Konrad von Gemmingen (1595–1612) the castle received, among other things, a botanical garden, the Hortus Eystettensis . Also under him, from 1609, the construction of a representative Renaissance castle based on the Italian model began. The plans for this were provided by the Augsburg city architect Elias Holl . Together with Holl's Augsburg town hall, this princely palace, even in its reduced form, is one of the most important works of the German Renaissance. The two-tower facade was built from 1629 with the help of Hans Alberthal and his successor Martin Barbieri .

Bishop Johann Christoph von Westerstetten (1612–1636) completed the new building, which nevertheless remained fragmentary, and initiated further renovations. The fortifications were reinforced by five modern bastions and the spacious outer bailey was created.

Nevertheless, in the Thirty Years' War a Swedish army under the command of Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar was able to take the castle fortress in the spring of 1633. A Bavarian army under the command of Colonel Johann von Werth surprisingly succeeded in retaking the fortress and successfully defending it at the end of October 1633, although the Swedish army was in the immediate vicinity. Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar had the Swedish fortress commander Anton Klaudius von Rasch executed on December 9, 1633 for prematurely abandoning the fortress in Regensburg. Bishop Marquard II. Schenk von Castell (1636–1685) ordered the removal of the damage and had gun casemates built into the bastions.

In 1725 the bishops moved the residence to the new city palace by the cathedral. The Willibaldsburg became the seat of several offices, later a hospital and prison . After the secularization of the Eichstätt Monastery, the Bavarian state sold the complex to private individuals. All useful furnishings disappeared from the room, partial demolitions reduced the building fabric.

In 1829 Bavaria bought back the half-ruin and poorly repaired the fortifications. During this time, the onion towers were demolished by one and a half stories and made crenellated. The huge facility later served as barracks for the Bavarian Army ( 3rd Royal Bavarian Jäger Battalion ).

The city of Eichstätt had owned the castle since 1880. In 1900 it was acquired by the Bavarian state and placed under monument protection. The first efforts to preserve the substance began around 1900.

Between 1926 and 1934, the Congregation of the Oblates of St. Franz von Sales part of the Willibaldsburg. From 1945 to 1955 the castle was accommodation for displaced persons from East Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, etc.

In 1962 the Bavarian administration of the state palaces, gardens and lakes took over the Willibaldsburg and extensive renovation measures began.

In 1976 the Jura Museum was opened in the Gemmingen building. In 1980 the Museum of Prehistory and Early History was opened to the public, and the reconstructed Bastion Garden was inaugurated in 1998. After 2000, a circular path was laid out around the entire complex and the rubble in front of the two main bastions was removed, so that the fortification concept can now be fully experienced.

Todays use

Archeopteryx in the Jura Museum

Mammoth in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History

View into the castle fountain

Today the castle houses a natural history museum, the Jura Museum . It has numerous fossil pieces, including the famous Eichstatt Archeopteryx . The Jura Museum is based on the extensive natural science collections of the Episcopal Seminary in Eichstätt and is looked after by the General Management of the State Natural Science Collections of Bavaria . There are regular special exhibitions, guided tours and lectures by the “Friends of the Jura Museum Eichstätt e. V. ”instead. The Jura Museum was closed at the end of 2018 due to the unclear financing situation. In July 2019 the Catholic University of Eichstätt took over the sponsorship, the museum has been open again since May 2020.

The Eichstätt Historical Association owns the Museum of Prehistory and Early History on the Willibaldsburg . It shows the development history of the region from the Stone Age to the early Middle Ages. The focus is on the Ice Age animal skeletons of mammoths , reindeers and hyenas, the section with extensive Roman archaeological finds and a model of the Pfünz Roman fort with over 400 painted tin figures. In the last room of the museum there is a late Merovingian grave complex that is well worth seeing . There are special exhibitions on historical topics.

Another part of the castle is used by the Bavarian state for archiving purposes.

One of the two towers can be climbed to the view. A deep castle fountain can also be visited . It is 3.25 meters in diameter and 76.5 meters deep, after three meters of rubble was removed from the ground in 1977. An old bucket and a halberd were also recovered.

description

The bastionary fortifications in front of the main building

The Bastion Garden, in the background the old town

Today's Burgweg stretches up the slope from the east to the outer bailey . The simple portal with the statue of St. Willibald is secured by two bastions (1612), which are set up so that the access can be crossed by guns. The drawbridge has long been removed. The path leads through a 63 meter long gate hall up to the castle courtyard. The barrel vault is 9 meters high. In the north, the stables adjoin the gate, followed by the single-storey wings of the former hospital or prison with the round building of the prison chapel. However, the eastern outer bailey is not open to the public.

The spacious courtyard that followed was only created when the 19th century was demolished and is now used as a parking lot. Only the remnants of the "foam mining" in the north have survived from the former development. The Gothic “Dürnitz”, a five-bay, cross-vaulted courtyard parlor, whose square main hall rests on a round central pillar, is remarkable . The two-aisled cellar with its barrel vaults lies under the Dürnitz . Further basement rooms are located under the courtyard area.

Apart from the shield wall in front of the “Gemmingenbau”, nothing else reminds of the “foam mining”, whose main hall had twenty-nine windows according to the court chamber protocol of 1765 and was covered by a splendid wooden ceiling. The other furnishings are also likely to have been artistically significant, as the surviving Dürnitz shows.

Due to the demolition of the "foam mining", the mighty shield wall of the medieval castle is free again in front of the viewer. Formerly, two towers flanked the five-meter thick defensive wall. Behind it are the three wings of the "Gemmingenbau". This so-called New Palace surrounds a late Renaissance courtyard, which, however, could only be partially completed according to Holl's plans. For example, the north wing was to be shifted to the north by two window axes. The portal of the west building is therefore on the north corner, the ground floor arcades of the south wing are missing their northern counterparts. In addition, the upper floors in the south and west were demolished in 1826 after the roofs had already been covered after the secularization.

Nevertheless, the monumental west building with its two square corner towers and the proposed bastion fortifications are the city's landmarks. To the outside, the “Gemmingenbau” appears to be four-storey (formerly five-storey), the towers protrude powerfully and are closed off by octagons with crenellated parapets , formed from half windows.

The western bastions were built under Bishop Marquard Schenk von Castell (re. MDCLV = 1660) to replace older bastions. As a ravelin or lunette , the "half moon" bastion was also placed in front of the western front in 1658.

literature

The art monuments of Bavaria, administrative region Middle Franconia, I. City of Eichstätt ; Munich, 1924 (Reprint Munich, Vienna, 1981)
Oskar Freiherr Lochner von Hüttenbach : The Willibaldsburg near Eichstätt . In: Collecting sheet of the historical Eichstätt association. Vol. 27, 1914.
Alexander Rauch: City of Eichstätt (Monument Topography Federal Republic of Germany, Monuments in Bavaria, Volume I.9 / 1). Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-7954-1004-5 .
The Willibaldsburg, part 1: From the pre-Germanic refugee castle to the medieval prince seat ; Beltz's reading sheet. The beautiful Franconia, sheet 6; Edited by the NSLB Jugendschriftenstelle, Gau Franken; Langensalza, Berlin, Leipzig: Beltz. [around 1938]; 16 p.m. Fig.
Willibaldsburg, part 3: centuries of decline ; Beltz's reading sheet. The beautiful Franconia, sheet 8 D; Edited by the NSLB Jugendschriftenstelle, Gau Franken; Langensalza, Berlin, Leipzig: Beltz [around 1938]; 32 p. With ill.
Manfred F. Fischer: The Willibaldsburg in Eichstätt. Official leader ; 31st - 38th thousand; Munich: Bayer. Administration of the State Castles, gardens, etc. Seen, 1987; 34, 10 pp.
Sabine Glaser: The Willibaldsburg in Eichstätt. Official leader ; 23rd, newly designed edition; Munich: Bayer. Administration of the State Castles, gardens, etc. Seen, 2000; 48, 16 pp.
Albert J. Günther: inventory of coats of arms and Building inscriptions on the Willibaldsburg ; Scrapbook of the historical association Eichstätt 96/2003.
Albert J. Günther: Flyer with data on the history of Willibaldsburg , available free of charge in the museum.
Karl Zecherle (editor): Castles and palaces . Eichstätt district in the Altmühltal nature park. Ed .: District of Eichstätt. 2nd unchanged edition. Hercynia-Verlag, Kipfenberg 1987, DNB 944206697 , p. 12-13 .
Stephan Lehmann / Dagmar Stutzinger: The Roman imperator gallery of the 16th century on the Willibaldsburg - interim report , in: Collections. of the Historical Association Eichstätt , 106/2014, pp. 7–26.