Wernerseck Castle (), also called the ''Kelterhausburg'', is a

late medieval The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the period of 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 in much of Europe, the Renai ...

hill castle A hill castle or mountain castle is a castle built on a natural feature that stands above the surrounding terrain. It is a term derived from the German ''Höhenburg'' used in categorising castle sites by their topographical location. Hill castles a ...

in the municipality of

Ochtendung Ochtendung is a municipality in the district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. Geography Ochtendung lies between the A 48 and A 61 motorways and has designated junctions from both. The village lies on the Nette and ...

in the county of

Mayen-Koblenz Mayen-Koblenz is a district (''Kreis'') in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from north clockwise) Ahrweiler (district), Ahrweiler, Neuwied (district), Neuwied, Westerwaldkreis, district-free Koblenz, Rhein-Lahn ...

in the German state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

. It owes its name to its founder and lord of the castle, the

Archbishop of Trier The Diocese of Trier (), in English historically also known as ''Treves'' () from French ''Trèves'', is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic church in Germany.Werner of Falkenstein (1388–1418). "Wernerseck" means "Werner's corner".

Location

The

ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

of the

are situated above the River

Nette Nette can refer to: Rivers * Nette (Innerste), a river in Lower Saxony, Germany, tributary to the Innerste * Nette (Hase), a river in Lower Saxony, Germany, tributary to the Hase * Nette (Middle Rhine), a river in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, tri ...

at the foot of the

Eifel The Eifel (; , ) is a low mountain range in western Germany, eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Com ...

mountains in the immediate vicinity of the

Plaidt Plaidt is a municipality in the district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. It is seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Pellenz since 2017. Plaidt is situated south of Andernach Andernach () is a town in the district of May ...

junction on the A 61 motorway. In the eastern part of the hill spur, on the narrowest part of which the castle was built, there was a Roman fortification in the

Late Antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

. The origin of this defensive position, which was probably conceived as a refuge fort, has been dated by coin finds to the first half of the 4th century. On the basis of pottery finds, it is assumed that the fort was used until the early 5th century.Dieter Schmidt, Günther Gries, Annette Lehnigk-Emden: ''Burg Wernerseck, der Burgberg in prähistorischer, spätrömischer und mittelalterlicher Zeit.'' In: ''Ochtendunger Heimatblätter.'' Issue 11, 2001. Similar sites from the Late Antiquity along the Nette are found at

Welling Welling is a town in South East (London sub region), South East London, England, in the London Borough of Bexley, west of Bexleyheath, southeast of Woolwich and of Charing Cross. It was part of Kent prior to the creation of Greater London i ...

, Ruitsch and on the Katzenberg near

Mayen Mayen () is a town in the Mayen-Koblenz, Mayen-Koblenz District of the Rhineland-Palatinate Federal State of Germany, in the eastern part of the Volcanic Eifel Region. As well as the main town, additional settlements include Alzheim, Kürrenberg, ...

History

The

Trier Trier ( , ; ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( , ) and Triers (see also Names of Trier in different languages, names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle (river), Moselle in Germany. It lies in a v ...

prince-elector The prince-electors ( pl. , , ) were the members of the Electoral College of the Holy Roman Empire, which elected the Holy Roman Emperor. Usually, half of the electors were archbishops. From the 13th century onwards, a small group of prince- ...

and

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

, Werner of Falkenstein, began building the castle in late 1401 as part of his expansion policy in the

Pellenz The Pellenz is a hill country in the northwestern part of the Middle Rhine Basin in Germany between Mayen in the southwest and Andernach in the northeast. In addition Pellenz is the name of a ''Verbandsgemeinde'' in the state of Rhineland-Pal ...

area. Thus, the site was not in the district of Ochtendung, which belonged to Electoral Trier, but in the feudal area of the counts of Virneburg. The castle was intended to act as a border fortress, guarding it against the principality of the

Archbishop of Cologne The Archbishop of Cologne governs the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne in western North Rhine-Westphalia. Historically, the archbishop was ''ex officio'' one of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire and ruled the Electorate of Cologne ...

. However, the castle never fulfilled this purpose, as the borders were realigned whilst it was being built. Later the castle was used as an administrative centre. Conrad Colbe of Boppard was probably appointed as the first ''

Amtmann __NOTOC__ The ''Amtmann'' or ''Ammann'' (in Switzerland) was an official in German-speaking countries of Europe and in some of the Nordic countries from the time of the Middle Ages whose office was akin to that of a bailiff A bailiff is a ...

'' (bailiff) in 1412. From the 16th century onwards, the castle was

enfeoffed In the Middle Ages, especially under the European feudal system, feoffment or enfeoffment was the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service. This mechanism was later used to avoid restrictions on the passage of t ...

to the

lords of Eltz The House of Eltz is a noted German noble family, belonging to the ''Uradel''. The Rhenish dynasty has had close ties to the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia since 1736. History Though older sources mentioned one Eberhard zu Eltz, a Frankish citizen ...

, who owned it until the 19th century. From 1966 to 1969 there was a falconry at the castle. A preservation society has set itself the task of securing and renovating the dilapidated castle and, between summer 2006 and November 2007, the

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points ...

was renovated.

Layout

The pentagonal castle has

round tower A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with defensive walls such as curtain wall (fortification), curtain walls. Castle ...

s at three corners, whilst another corner forms the gate system. Its occupants lived in the 22-metre-high, four-storey,

donjon A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residenc ...

(

keep A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residen ...

), which also had the normal function of a ''

bergfried ''Bergfried'' (plural: ''bergfriede''; English: ''belfry''; French: ''tour-beffroi''; Italian: ''torrione''; Castilian: ''torre del homenaje'') is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries an ...

'' (fighting tower). It also contained the

castle chapel Castle chapels () in European architecture are chapels that were built within a castle. They fulfilled the religious requirements of the castle lord and his retinue, while also sometimes serving as a burial site. Because the construction of suc ...

. Access was via an

elevated entrance An elevated entrance is a type of entrance, common in the design of medieval castles, that is not accessible from ground level, but lies at the level of an upper storey. The elevated entrance is the lowest and frequently the only way of ente ...

. The tower house has unusually strong walls (2.5 metres thick) and its lower part has largely survived; the upper floors with their roof platform have become increasingly dilapidated and were repaired in 2007 by a preservation society. The castle is owned by the municipality of Ochtendung. It can be visited at any time, but can only be reached after a walk of about 2 km (from the town centre). Burg Wernerseck

Phases of construction

In the first construction phase at Wernerseck, the tower house was built as part of a simple

enceinte Enceinte (from Latin ''incinctus'' "girdled, surrounded") is a French term that refers to the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification". For a castle, this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the positio ...

. The protruding bricks on the north side of the main tower, which used to join it firmly to a wall, can be seen as evidence of this. Furthermore, on the south and east side, there is a band of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

stones in the brickwork, which could have been decoration on the outside of the castle. The curtain walls largely follow the line of the wall of the older, Ottonian castle, including its gateways. In a later extension, the surrounding wall was extended and provided with corner towers.

Older castle remains

The remains of an older castle, which were used in the construction of Wernerseck, can be found in various parts of the castle and which have thus survived the ravages of time. The masonry at these points differs from that of the later castle in that smaller

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

stone was employed. Particularly noteworthy are the half of a gate system next to the tower house, part of the later inner gateway, and the remains of a building in the centre of the castle. Its predecessor probably followed the uninterrupted rocky hillcrest at that time and included the plateau in the area of the later

outer bailey An outer bailey or outer ward is the defended outer enclosure of a castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It protects the inner bailey and usually contains those ancillary bui ...

. Since there are no definitively dateable finds from the time before the new castle was built, its date of construction can only be estimated from the structural evidence. In the inner gateway, the remains of an older gateway have survived that is almost identical to that of the Waldschlössel at Klingenmünster. This suggests that the original castle should be regarded as an Ottonian build of the 10th to 11th century. There are no written records of the old castle, but it is not unreasonable to attribute its construction to the counts palatine of Laach.

References

Literature

* Günther Gries, Annette Lehnigk-Emden: ''Die Burg Wernerseck''. In: ''Ochtendunger Heimatblätter''. Published by the Ochtendung Local History Society (''Heimatverein Ochtendung''). Issue 4 (1993), pp. 3–18, Issue 5, (1994), pp. 19–30; Issue 6 (1995), pp. 19–21. * Dieter Schmidt, Günther Gries, Annette Lehnigk-Emden: ''Burg Wernerseck, der Burgberg in prähistorischer, spätrömischer und mittelalterlicher Zeit''. Ochtendunger Heimatblätter. Published by the Ochtendung Local History Society. Issue 11 (2001), . * * Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich: ''"... wie ein Monarch mitten in seinem Hofstaate thront". Burgen am unteren Mittelrhein''. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg, 2010, ,pp. 156–161. * Josef Busley und Heinrich Neu: ''Kunstdenkmäler des Kreises Mayen'', L. Schwann, Düsseldorf, 1941, pp. 386–391. * Achim Schmidt: ''Demarkationspunkt oder Bollwerk? – Baugeschichtliche Bemerkungen zur Burgruine Wernerseck bei Ochtendung, Landkreis Mayen-Koblenz.'' In: Olaf Wagener (ed.): ''Symbole der Macht – Aspekte mittelalterlicher und frühneuzeitlicher Architektur.'' (=''Beihefte zur Mediaevistik.'' Vol. 17.) Frankfurt/Main, 2012, pp. 177–196.

External links

*
Heimatverein Ochtendung: Burg Wernerseck
*

' at the website o
burgenwelt.de
{{Authority control 15th-century architecture Castles in the Eifel Castles in Rhineland-Palatinate Heritage sites in Rhineland-Palatinate Mayen-Koblenz