Calvörde Castle () is located in

Calvörde Calvörde () is a municipality in the Börde district of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is part of the Verbandsgemeinde ("collective municipality") Flechtingen. Geography Calvörde is situated approximately northwest of Haldensleben and northwe ...

in the German state of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

. Its existence was first recorded in the late 13th century. In the

Late Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...

and

Early Modern Period The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

it was frequently fought over due to its location between the territories of

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...

and Brunswick.

Strategic location

In the areas of the Upper Aller and

Ohre The Ohre () is a river in northern Germany, left tributary to the Elbe. Its total length is . Its source is north of Wolfsburg, in Lower Saxony. It flows generally south-east, at first following the border of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. After ...

rivers, the former medieval principalities of Lüneburg, Altmark, Brunswick, Magdeburg and Halberstadt bordered one another and, in some cases, were even geographically enmeshed. Several noble families made a name for themselves in the area including the Bartenslebens, Alvenslebens and von Schulenburgs. They played an important role as result of their position on either side of these borders. They owned large feudal estates which helped to give them considerable independence for long periods of time. Calvörde formed a key strongpoint in this regard because it lay at the southern end of the formerly impassable marshy forests of the

Drömling Drömling is a sparsely populated depression on the border of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt in Germany with an area of about . The larger part belonging to Saxony-Anhalt in the east has been a nature park since 1990. The former swampland was t ...

at a point that used to be the key crossing of the Ohre river that on the road from Brunswick to the southern

Altmark :''See German tanker Altmark for the ship named after Altmark and Stary Targ for the Polish village named Altmark in German.'' The Altmark (; English: Old MarchHansard, ''The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time ...'', Vo ...

History

originally belonged to the counts of Hillersleben, from whom it was inherited by the counts of Regenstein in the Harz mountains. For a long time Brandenburg, Magdeburg and Brunswick fought for the place against the Welf dukes. The little town, along with several nearby villages, belonged to the castle and formed a Brunswick

exclave An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is s ...

in what later became

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n territory. Presumably through a marriage to the inheriting daughter of the von Wederde family, that died out before 1404 and had been the feudal tenants (''Pfandherren'') at Calvörde, the barony went to the Alvenslebens of Rogätz Castle. Their two estates in Calvörde and Rogätz complicated the ownership situation. The castellans (''Burgherren'') often acted as senior advisors ('' Geheime Räte'') to their landlords. In 1542 the Schulenburgs succeeded the Alvenslebens as feudal tenants. In 1571, the House of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel redeemed the barony again in order to manage it subsequently as an '' Amt''. From 1608 to 1615, Duke Joachim Charles had his court at the castle, becoming a benefactor to the market town of Calvörde. Although the castle had been expanded into a fortress in the 17th century, it fell into ruins not long thereafter.

Artist's impression

The former appearance of the castle has been preserved in two drawings. These are a Merian copperplate and an even older sketch that is now in the Fatherland Museum of Brunswick (''Vaterländischen Museum Braunschweig'') and has been supplements by plans in the Wolfenbüttel state archives. The circular upper ward (''Oberburg'') is a group of buildings of various epochs. It was protected by several branches of the River Ohre and accessible over a

drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable b ...

. The courtyard (''Amtshof''), watermill and the star-shaped gardens are representative of its appearance in the 17th century. The road to

Gardelegen Gardelegen (; ) is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Milde (river), Milde, 20 m. W. from Stendal, on the main line of railway Berlin-Hanover. History Gardelegen has a Roman Catholic and three Evangelical c ...

still runs in a semi-circle on the embankment of the Ohre. The lower part of the round '' bergfried'' in the centre of the inner courtyard is made of

fieldstone Fieldstone is a naturally occurring type of stone, which lies at or near the surface of the Earth. Fieldstone is a nuisance for farmers seeking to expand their land under cultivation, but at some point it began to be used as a construction mate ...

, the upper storeys of red

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

. It was thus called ''de rode Hinrik'' ("the red Henry"). The tower bears the Alvensleben coat of arms and contains the dungeon. Above it, on two storeys, are the armouries and the accommodation for the tower keeper. The southeastern side of the site is occupied by the three-storey reception hall (''

Palas A ''palas'' () is a German term for the imposing or prestigious building of a medieval '' Pfalz'' or castle that contained the great hall. Such buildings appeared during the Romanesque period (11th to 13th century) and, according to Thompson ...

'') with its Gothic staircase tower. On it are the coat of arms of Brunswick and an inscription dated 1590, the year the castle was renovated by Duke Henry Julius. On the upper floor of the great hall are living quarters, above that the

great hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages. It continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great cha ...

(''Rittersaal'') and, in the adjacent wing, the chapel. The castellans (''Burgmannen'') were accommodated in the northern part of the site Between that and the

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most ...

are the brewery, bakery and granary (''Kornhaus''). The

crenellation A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals t ...

and spire of the '' bergfried'' were destroyed in the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

. Other parts of the castle were demolished in 1737. In 1828 the castle was sold for demolition, so that the castle buildings have disappeared apart from an insignificant remnant.

Gallery

File:Calvoerde1.JPG, Cellar vaulting in the castle File:Calvoerde2.JPG, Detail of the cellar vaulting

Literature

* Udo von Alvensleben: ''Alvenslebensche Burgen und Landsitze''. Dortmund 1960. * Berent Schwineköper (ed.): ''Handbuch der historischen Stätten Deutschlands. Elfter Band: Provinz Sachsen-Anhalt''. Kröner, Stuttgart 1987, , . * Siegmund Wilhelm Wohlbrück: ''Geschichtliche Nachrichten von dem Geschlecht von Alvensleben''. Vol. I. 1819, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Calvorde Castle Castles in Saxony-Anhalt Buildings and structures in Börde (district) Water castles in Germany Marsh castles