Residential tower

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Detached Tower House , as in the Middle Ages to the British Isles was common

A residential tower is a medieval tower that was suitable for permanent use as an apartment and at the same time also had military functions. It usually only had one high entrance .

Residential towers were from the early to the late Middle Ages built across Europe and presented a - as opposed to a large castle complex - relatively quickly and with little effort to be built prototype of a well-fortified as well befitting housing for Knight represents They were often additionally. Palisades , Protected moats or small curtain walls . But they could also be included in large castle complexes. Residential towers located in cities, especially in Italy but also in Regensburg or Trier , are referred to as gender towers .

Construction and demarcation

Granus tower of the Aachen imperial palace (788 AD)
Frankenturm in Trier, 11th century
Norman fort in Paternò , Sicily (1072)
Orlamünde bower , 11./12. Century
Golden Tower in Regensburg, 13th century
Tower of Eltville Castle , 14th century
The Reinstädt bower , 15th century
Restored residential tower (around 1250) of a former (partially demolished) castle man's seat in Wandersleben , Thuringia

The term residential tower is used in medieval architecture to distinguish it from that of the defense tower , whereby towers could also combine both functions. The transition between the residential tower and the permanent house is fluid. The only differentiating criterion here is the ratio between the height and width of the structure, with the height of a tower exceeding its width or diameter. Due to their massive construction and their height, they had a fortification value and were therefore often part of a castle . Since they also had to meet stately living and representational needs at the same time, they often had relatively complex interior fittings, could be heated and could also contain a hall-like room. In contrast to uninhabited or only provisionally equipped defensive towers, they were designed as living quarters. A castle complex with a residential tower and subordinate outbuildings is called a tower castle . A special form are towers with an uninhabited stone substructure, which carried a habitable tower - often made of wood - like the Topplerschlösschen .

The keep differs from the residential tower primarily in that it is not intended for residential use. The tower shaft of a keep usually has no or only a few small windows; the lower windows, if any, are so small that an attacker cannot easily climb through. Often the guard room was the only heated room. However, the great variety of shapes in Central European castles also led to many transitional stages between the two types of construction, so that a clear classification is not always possible. Otto Piper spoke of the habitable Berchfrit as an intermediate stage between the keep and the residential tower, when a tower characterized by its construction as a keep was equipped with upper floors intended for residential use. Due to these different terminology, it can happen that one and the same tower is listed as a residential tower in one specialist publication and as a habitable keep in the other . Examples of this are the two round residential towers / keep of Vorburg II of Neuchâtel and Stolpe Castle . The latter also fulfills the type of a tower castle . Also on the Runneburg , the five-storey, square keep-like residential tower with a high entrance, which is directly connected to the Palas, was originally designed for residential purposes: with chimneys, toilet bay and several staircases laid in the wall.

For representative defense and residential towers, especially in France , the term donjon is common in castle research . In Ireland and Great Britain there are so-called tower houses, which are free-standing, defensive residential towers. Towers of castles that were used as a dining house were called Muthaus .

Function and use

In the Middle Ages, regional towers were built as a stately home and to protect against enemy attacks. As individual buildings, they could also serve as fortified aristocratic residences within cities.

In some Italian cities such residential towers were built by citizens with patrician or knightly self-image as so-called gender towers . Well-known examples are the towers of San Gimignano or Bologna . In Germany there are still a few , especially in Regensburg .

Medieval cities sometimes still build so-called fortifications in the late Middle Ages , castle-like fortifications that were part of an advanced Landwehr or, more rarely, part of the city ​​wall . The town fortifications of Demmin were even referred to as castles in town documents. Such defense yards often contained residential towers as a central component. From the Frankfurter Landwehr , the residential tower from the demolished Kühhornshof has been preserved to this day.

The majority of the residential towers were single-standing buildings of the lower nobility . Sometimes high-altitude castles were first started with a free-standing, habitable tower and then expanded over time with walls, palas, chapels and other buildings, such as Sargans Castle .

Some of the buildings have now been renovated to such an extent that they can be used again while retaining the original dimensions . The Jerusalem Tower in Trier is now home to the registry office, while the Dreikönigenhaus in Trier is once again a normal residential building.

In the south-east of Europe, residential tower-like buildings still offered protection against wandering gangs in the 19th century. For example in the Albanian Alps , where the residential towers ( Kulla ) also served as retreats for men who were threatened by blood revenge between warring families.

In the Arab region, especially in Yemen , well-fortified residential towers are still in use today.

To the present day, residential towers are still being built as core buildings for individual homesteads in the rural regions of Iran , Afghanistan , Turkmenistan , Tibet and northern China .

In the 20th century, water towers that were also used for residential purposes were referred to as residential water towers . Today, occasionally inhabited high-rise buildings are referred to as residential towers .

Other forms are

Examples

Germany

Topplerschlösschen

In Germany there are still some residential towers, most of which are listed . The oldest known residential tower is the Granus Tower in Aachen, formerly part of the Aachen imperial palace of Charlemagne , the exact purpose of which, however, is unclear. The oldest examples also include the Frankenturm , the Dreikönigenhaus and the Jerusalem Tower in Trier or the almost 1000-year-old "Tower I" in Neuchâtel in Saxony-Anhalt .

The Thuringian wide residential towers could have been built on the southern Italian model (such as the Normannenburg of Paternò ), the best-known examples are the "Kemenaten" Orlamünde , Reinstädt and Ziegenrück .

Examples of wide residential towers:

Unusual residential towers are the central donjon-like residential tower "Dicker Merten" of Frauenstein Castle (Erzgebirge) , which was "composed" of a tower with a second same extension and is "rectangular" with round corners and an internal round Wendelstein, as well as the tower castle ruins Hoher Schwarm in Saalfeld / Saale with a square tower and formerly presumably a round corner tower each (only two corner towers have been preserved).

Further examples of castles with residential towers are:

An example of a Romanesque residential tower within an urban development is the Gmünder bell tower . This building from the 13th century has been preserved to this day due to its conversion to a bell tower. In Saalfeld, Thuringia, a Romanesque residential tower, which has now been converted into a house - today a market pharmacy - has been preserved, which was the former seat of the mayor. The castle courtyard at the rain was a 12th century church, which was soon increased to a residential tower.

Switzerland

Austria

Greece

Italy

Poland

Czech Republic

photos

literature

  • Uwe Albrecht : The noble seat in the Middle Ages. Studies on the relationship between architecture and way of life in Western and Northern Europe. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich a. a. 1995, ISBN 3-422-06100-2 , p. 37 ff. (Also: Kiel, Universität, habilitation paper, 1989).
  • Uwe Albrecht: From the residential tower to the manor house. On the type and functional history of North German and Danish castle architecture from the 14th to 16th centuries. In: G. Ulrich Großmann (Hrsg.): Renaissance in Northern Central Europe (= writings of the Weser Renaissance Museum Castle Brake. 4). Volume 1. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich a. a. 1990, ISBN 3-422-06069-3 , pp. 30-59.
  • Christofer Herrmann: Residential towers of the late Middle Ages on castles in the Rhine-Moselle area (= publications of the German Castle Association. Series A: Research. Volume 2). Leidorf, Espelkamp 1995, ISBN 3-924734-14-3 (also: Mainz, University, dissertation, 1993).

Web links

Commons : residential towers  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Castle World of Thuringia. Magazine. Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, spring / summer 2017.
  2. ^ Elisabeth Lichtenberger: The city. From the polis to the metropolis . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, p. 29.