Elmarshausen Castle: A Weser Renaissance Residence in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page9 sections
History
Elmarshausen Castle is a sixteenth-century Weser Renaissance residence in Elmarshausen, Germany, within Wolfhagen, transformed from a medieval moated castle by the Lords of Gudenberg and the von der Malsburg family. The Weser Renaissance was a regional style of aristocratic architecture known for elaborate facades, ornamental gables, and Renaissance detail. The castle stood near an important route between Paderborn and Fritzlar and formed the centre of an estate whose history reaches back to the twelfth century.
Village, lordship, and the medieval castle
Elmarshausen was first recorded in 1123 as the church village of Egelmareshusen, occupying the area of the present estate. During the thirteenth century, the Lords of Helfenberg held the village, its court, and the right to appoint the church’s priest from the Counts of Everstein. After a dispute over the Everstein succession, these rights were held from the Dukes of Brunswick-Luneburg from 1408. Breitenau Abbey also owned property at Elmarshausen, which it granted as a fief to the Lords of Helfenberg. A fief was land or another right held from a superior lord in return for service and allegiance.
Between 1309 and 1403, the Lords of Helfenberg gradually sold the village, court, and church patronage to the Lords of Gudenberg. By 1370, the Gudenbergs owned three-quarters of the settlement. They built a moated castle on the Erpe, first mentioned in 1442. Its position a few hundred metres east of the trade route from Paderborn to Fritzlar gave the castle a strategic setting.
The von der Malsburg transformation
In 1515, Hermann von der Malsburg, a councillor and later marshal serving the Hessian landgraviate, purchased the Elmarshausen estate from his father-in-law, Eberhard von Gudenberg. When Eberhard’s death in 1534 ended the Gudenberg male line, Hermann inherited Elmarshausen as a fief from Landgrave Philip I of Hesse, the sixteenth-century ruling prince of the Hessian landgraviate.
Hermann commanded the Hessian cavalry for Philip at the Battle of Lauffen on 13 May 1534. His forces supported Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, helping Ulrich regain his duchy. Ulrich then granted Hermann a substantial endowment, which Hermann used at least partly to turn the moated castle into a residence in the Weser Renaissance style. Hermann’s son Christoph completed the construction by 1563.
Art historian Gottfried Ganßauge proposed that the Swabian master builder Jörg Unkair may have worked on the castle because of stylistic similarities. Also known as Master Jürgen of Tübingen, Unkair built several castles between 1524 and 1553. His master’s mark has not been found at Elmarshausen, although stone-mason’s marks from Schloss Neuhaus recur there.
Chapel, damage, and restoration
The castle chapel was remodeled and renovated around 1740. Friedrich Anton von der Malsburg and his wife Agnes, née von Spörken, consecrated it on 18 October 1742 and established an annual endowment to provide food for the poor. In 1747, the chapel was a filial church of Oberelsungen, meaning that it depended on the principal parish while retaining a local religious function. It was later incorporated into that parish and is now a filial church of the Renitent congregation of Balhorn. Church registers have been kept since 1600.
Lightning destroyed the southwest tower, which was rebuilt in 1906. The main courtyard portal was renewed in 1909. Allied troops occupied the castle several times in 1945 and 1946, causing its destruction. The furnishings were stolen or carried away and remain largely unaccounted for. Between 1947 and 1959, two associated estate farms were expropriated without compensation for settlement purposes. One was later sold by a settler to the regional church of Hesse-Kassel in the 1970s.
The east, north, and west facades were restored between 1979 and 1984. The castle remains in the ownership of descendants of a branch of the von der Malsburg family.
Remains
Courtyard complex and construction
Elmarshausen Castle stands at approximately 230 metres above sea level on the north bank of the Erpe, in the Habichtswald Nature Park, about two kilometres north-northeast of central Wolfhagen. The estate adjoins the castle directly to the east. The largely preserved complex encloses an almost square courtyard and is surrounded by a partly masonry-lined moat that reaches the buildings directly in places. Sections of the moat survive along the southern edge, where it is now mostly dry.
Residential building and gate
The residential building occupies the southern and western sides of the courtyard. A gatekeeper’s residence stands on the west, with the gate adjoining it to the north. The complex is built mainly from rubble stone and dressed stone, supplemented in places by clay-and-timber framing and brickwork. A continuous cove-shaped plinth, string course, and eaves cove unify the building quadrangle.
The gate wing of the residential building and the ancillary building have pitched roofs covered with beaver-tail tiles, while the taller remaining roofs are covered with slate. The principal floors were fitted out in the modern period and are inhabited. Much of the castle complex survives, together with substantial parts of the Baroque garden.
Chapel and later northern range
The chapel occupies the eastern side of the complex. A later residential building with a passageway and fortified gate was added to the north, and an inserted connecting wing links the eastern and western wings north of the gate. These additions form part of the enclosed courtyard arrangement and preserve the layered development of the residence.
The complex originally featured semicircular stone gables finished with ball finials, a form known as Italian gables. Surviving examples stand above the northern section, on the east facade, over the north gable of the residential building, and above the northern stair gable of the east gable. Other gables were replaced by shallow triangular forms around 1800.
Associated estate features
A small mausoleum stands about 250 metres west of the castle, approximately 70 metres north of the Erpe at the edge of the woods. The neighbouring Elmarshausen estate operates as a riding farm and breeds Trakehner horses, linking the surviving castle complex with the continuing use of the associated estate.
