Dankwarderode Castle: A Ducal Palatine Residence in Braunschweig
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page9 sections
History
Dankwarderode Castle is a medieval Saxon lowland castle in Braunschweig, Germany, built as a palatine residence by Henry the Lion between about 1160 and 1175 in the Romanesque period. For centuries it served as a residence of the Dukes of Brunswick and is now part of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum.
Early Fortifications
Archaeological excavation beneath the Vieweg House revealed a settlement layer from the second half of the ninth century. By the eleventh century, a fortification stood on the natural Oker island, and the site was first mentioned in 1134 as castrum Tanquarderoth. A rampart measuring about 140 by 120 metres had been built in the tenth century, although its builders and original purpose remain uncertain.
After a fire probably before 1030, the rampart was strengthened with a stone facing wall. In the second half of the eleventh century, this was replaced by a mortared stone wall. The early works were carried out by the Brunonen counts. When the male Brunonian line ended in 1090 and the female line in 1117, the castle passed from the last Brunonian, Gertrud, through her daughter Richenza to Lothar of Supplinburg, a Saxon nobleman who later became German king and Holy Roman Emperor.
Henry the Lion’s Residence
Lothar’s grandson, Henry the Lion, developed Dankwarderode as his palatine residence between about 1160 and 1175. A palatine residence was a ruler’s principal court and administrative seat. The complex was partly modelled on the imperial palace at Goslar. Its principal building was a two-storey palas, the main residential and ceremonial building of a medieval castle or palace, with a double chapel and a direct connection from its upper floor to the north transept of the cathedral, then under construction since 1173.
The name Dankwarderode has sometimes been linked to a Duke Dankward, but that attribution is not historically documented. Dankwarderode and large parts of Braunschweig’s old town were destroyed by fire in 1252. The castle continued as the ducal residence until 1282, when the court of the Principality of Brunswick moved to Wolfenbüttel.
Decline and Rebuilding
The Duchy of Brunswick was divided into two principalities between 1267 and 1269, and later into three. Dankwarderode consequently became joint property of the branches of the Welf dynasty, a major European ruling house whose Brunswick lines governed the duchy and its successor states. As new urban districts grew around the castle, it lost its defensive importance and became militarily insignificant.
The palas burned during the first half of the sixteenth century. It was not repaired, partly because relations between Braunschweig and the Welfs were strained and partly because the other principalities refused to share the expense. The walls were dismantled during the 1580s. Between 1616 and 1640, the palas was replaced by a Renaissance building extended towards the south, while the remaining castle structures gradually decayed and were removed. The moat survived until 1798, when it was channelled underground to make room for new construction. Afterward, the name Dankwarderode referred only to the surviving palas.
From 1635 to 1643, the building, then also called the Mosthaus, served as the seat of Duke Augustus the Younger before he moved his residence to Wolfenbüttel. Duke Anton Ulrich commissioned further additions between 1690 and 1700, directed by Völcker and Korb. The castle chapel of Saint George and Saint Gertrude was demolished at the end of the seventeenth century after a fire. Carl Christoph Wilhelm Fleischer remodelled the southern part of the palas between 1763 and 1765 for Ferdinand, the brother of Duke Charles I. This section became known as the Ferdinandsbau. From 1808, the palas was used as a barracks, and the castle gate was demolished in 1797 and 1798.
Preservation and Museum Use
After a fire during the night of 21 July 1873, demolition was proposed to facilitate road construction. Public protests prevented the plan, and the city acquired the ruins in 1878 with state assistance. City architect Ludwig Winter reconstructed the palas between 1887 and 1906 after extensive archaeological investigation. Regent Prince Albrecht financed the work, which recreated the building in a Neo-Romanesque historicist form and recovered much of the medieval ground plan. Historicism was a modern approach that consciously revived earlier architectural styles.
During the Second World War, an explosive bomb struck the building directly. The roof structure of the Rittersaal and most of its historicist painted decoration were destroyed, although the damage was provisionally repaired after the war. Since 1963, the ground-floor Knappensaal has housed the medieval department of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. The Rittersaal was extensively reconstructed in the early 1990s, and its painted decoration was restored from original models. It is used for events and temporary exhibitions and is otherwise not open for viewing.
Remains
Castle Island and Early Defences
The medieval castle occupied the former natural island in the Oker, extending approximately from Münzstraße to the Vieweg House and from Ruhfäutchenplatz to Domplatz. The island no longer survives in its nineteenth-century form. Early defensive works included a rampart about 140 by 120 metres across, later strengthened first with a stone facing and then with mortared stone walls. Evidence for these phases was recovered beneath the Vieweg House under difficult excavation conditions.
The Palas
The medieval palas measured approximately 42 by 15 metres and rose two storeys. It contained a double chapel and underfloor heating on the ground floor. The castle chapel, aristocratic residential rooms, and a Kemenate, a heated chamber or building for elite domestic accommodation, stood to its southeast.
The present reconstructed building is a two-storey hall block measuring about 15 by 42 metres. Its ground floor contains the Knappensaal, while the upper floor contains the Rittersaal. The latter was designed as a free reconstruction. Medieval fabric survives in the column arcade of the lower storey and in the rear wall facing Münzstraße, which retains the Romanesque windows of the Rittersaal. Much of the rest, particularly the familiar façade facing Burgplatz, is a historicist reconstruction and probably did not exist in that form during the medieval period.
Interior Features and Collections
The room immediately north of the Rittersaal contains two open fireplaces. Each fireplace has two columns made from aqueduct marble, a very rare stone. Court decorator Adolf Quensen executed the historicist interior paintings. Wartime destruction removed much of this work, and the decoration in the Rittersaal was later restored from original models.
The Knappensaal contains the original Braunschweig Lion, a renowned medieval lion monument erected on the adjoining Burgplatz in the twelfth century. It also houses the imperial mantle of Otto IV, a medieval German king and Holy Roman Emperor.
Nearby sites
