Imperial Palace Gelnhausen: A Staufen Imperial Residence in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page15 sections
History
Imperial Palace Gelnhausen is a twelfth-century Staufen imperial residence in Gelnhausen, Germany, founded under Frederick I Barbarossa in connection with the town’s establishment in 1170. The palace helped administer and secure imperial possessions in the Wetterau and control the Via Regia, the major route between Frankfurt and Leipzig through the Kinzig valley. It formed part of an imperial network that included palaces at Frankfurt, Friedberg, Wetzlar, Trebur, and Seligenstadt, as well as castles held by imperial servants at Münzenberg and Büdingen.
Construction under the Staufen rulers
Most of the building work probably took place between about 1160 and 1180. Mason’s marks indicate a sequence that began with the square keep beside the gate and the western ring wall. Work then continued with the palas, the principal residential and ceremonial hall, followed by an interruption, the two upper floors of the palas, the gate hall and chapel, and finally the southern ring wall. More than 60 masons worked on the palace over time, though only 10 to 20 were active simultaneously. Final work may have continued during the reign of Henry VI, under the direction of Hartmann of Büdingen or Goswin of Ortenberg.
Three oak foundation piles beneath the gate-building area were examined in 1992 using dendrochronology, a method that dates timber through its annual growth rings. They were dated to the winter of 1169–1170 or the summer of 1170. Since the gate hall belonged to the later part of the construction sequence, these dates help place the main building activity within the period around 1160–1180.
An imperial centre
In 1180, the palace hosted the great Imperial Diet of Gelnhausen. An Imperial Diet was a formal assembly where a medieval emperor conducted major judicial, political, and administrative business. At this meeting, Henry the Lion was tried in absentia, and his imperial fiefs were redistributed. Further imperial courts met at Gelnhausen in the following years.
During the Staufen period, the palace was an imperial castle administered by a burgrave and defended by castle retainers. Its estate included the Büdingen Forest, whose inhabitants kept rights to obtain construction timber and firewood until the nineteenth century. A mint initially operated at the palace. Visits by successive rulers show its continuing place within imperial government: Frederick I came seven times, Henry VI eight times, Philip of Swabia twice, and Frederick II at least four times. Henry VII visited seven or eight times, while Conrad IV came once, William of Holland twice, Rudolf I three times, and Adolf of Nassau once.
The outer-bailey settlement of the castle retainers developed into the separate community of Burg. The settlement had its own town hall and remained legally and municipally distinct from Gelnhausen until its incorporation into the town in 1897. As the palace deteriorated, later rulers probably stayed in the town instead. Maximilian I, for example, lodged at the Lower Market during each of his three visits to Gelnhausen.
Decline, damage, and changing ownership
The palace’s decline began after the end of the thirteenth century. In 1349, Charles IV pawned both the palace and the town, and neither he nor his successors redeemed the pledge. After several transfers, the pledge was held jointly from 1431 by the County of Hanau and the Electoral Palatinate. Following the death of Johann Reinhard III of Hanau-Lichtenberg in 1736, Hesse-Kassel inherited Hanau’s share and later acquired the share belonging to the Electoral Palatinate.
Serious damage occurred in 1363, when the Landvogt of the Wetterau, a territorial governor, fought outlaws who had barricaded themselves inside the palace. As imperial rulers increasingly abandoned the complex, residents of Burg adapted its buildings for their own purposes. King Wenceslaus complained about this encroachment in 1398. The partly ruined palace received repeated repairs, but continued to decay because it no longer served its former political and administrative function.
Further destruction came in 1634 during the Thirty Years’ War, the prolonged European conflict that began in 1618 and involved religious, dynastic, and territorial struggles. Jakob von Ramsay, commander of the Swedish-occupied fortress of Hanau, carried out a sortie that heavily damaged both the palace and the town.
Rediscovery and conservation
A sustained scholarly and artistic interest in the palace developed around 1810, when it became one of the earliest Romanesque buildings in Germany to attract this level of attention. In 1816, Elector William I of Hesse prohibited further quarrying of its stone. Bernhard Hundeshagen published a comprehensive study in 1819, and Georg Moller later investigated the building.
Romantic interest in medieval castles led to initial stabilization in 1827. The chapel was nevertheless largely demolished in 1856 because its restoration was expected to be too costly. In 1860, the gate-hall vaults were dismantled and rebuilt, and side buttresses were added. Their concrete foundations were installed in 1881, while exposed wall tops were capped with cement. Buildings erected in the courtyard by the Schelme von Bergen and Boyneburg families were also removed that year, revealing numerous reused architectural fragments.
Continuous stabilization has taken place since 1961. The palace is owned by the State of Hesse and maintained by the State Castles and Gardens of Hesse. Together with its museum, it remains open to the public.
Remains
The palace occupies the southeastern end of a former island in the Kinzig River, below Gelnhausen on the northern valley slope. It consists of a core castle and an outer bailey that contained the settlement of the castle retainers. The water castle has a polygonal plan and was separated from the rest of the island by an additional ditch protecting the gate building. Three bridges connected the island with its surroundings, leading northwest toward Gelnhausen, northeast toward the upper Kinzig valley, and south toward the road to Altenhaßlau.
Foundations and enclosing walls
The buildings stand on about 12,000 oak piles, each driven approximately 1.5 metres into the ground. The soft subsoil of the island has created substantial structural problems. Only parts of the complex survive, and the surviving fabric is almost entirely original. These remains rank among the important surviving secular Romanesque buildings of Central Europe.
The ring wall, a continuous enclosing defensive wall, is 2.10 metres thick and surrounds the complex through eight changes of direction. Most of the buildings used it as a rear wall, leaving the inner face smooth where structures adjoined it. The outer face and other sections are built with projecting, humped ashlar blocks. Some stretches survive to 5.50 metres high. The wall walk was probably about 5.80 metres above ground, based on surviving connections at the square keep.
Gate defenses and chapel
Gate building
The gate building has a round-arched entrance on its outer side and a two-arch arcade facing the courtyard. Its gate hall extends across three bays. Columns stand on bases with an Attic profile and support cushion-shaped cubic capitals. The central capital of the courtyard arcade carries an eagle. A staircase from the gate hall led north into the palas.
The southern vault of the gate hall dates from the fifteenth century, while the northern vault is essentially part of the original construction. Both vaults were removed and rebuilt in 1860. The three oak foundation piles examined in 1992 lay beneath this building and supplied the tree-ring dates that helped refine the construction sequence.
Square keep
A rectangular keep adjoins the gate building on the south. It measures 11 by 12.10 metres and survives to a height of 13 metres. The tower originally stood about twice as high, with its entrance roughly 7 metres above ground. Its upper part was removed in 1431 and replaced by a guardroom and a polygonal turret.
Chapel
The chapel stood directly above the gate hall and followed the same ground plan. It was roofless in 1431 but was repaired. During the fifteenth or sixteenth century, its eastern wall facing the courtyard was renewed with three round-arched windows. After the chapel was largely demolished in 1856, slight structural remains continued to show its original five-tiered wall articulation and round-arched niches.
Residential buildings
Palas
The palas occupies the northern part of the complex, with its rear wall attached to the ring wall. It covered about 29 by 15.7 metres and had a low basement beneath a principal floor, probably reached from the courtyard by a two-flight open staircase. The courtyard facade is asymmetrical, with an offset of 1.30 metres. Its western side has two groups of three window axes, while the eastern side has five. The windows form arcades and are divided internally by pairs of columns with block capitals decorated with plant motifs. Between the western groups, the entrance portal has a richly vine-decorated, clover-shaped upper termination.
A later stone carving known as the Barbarossa head is set above the palas portal, although its origin is unknown. The upper-floor facade has been reconstructed in different ways. It may have contained a large window corresponding to the portal below or a double window, while the remaining arrangement is thought to have repeated the pattern of the lower floor.
Archaeological investigation revealed five basement rooms entered from a central room behind an arched entrance that remains recognizable. Much of the interior was constructed in wood. A corridor is inferred behind the facade on the lower principal level, with two living rooms on the west and a hall on the east, where a large chimney survives. The main hall probably occupied the floor above. A staircase may have stood at the angle between the palas and the gate building.
Privy and eastern building
A privy was built into the north side of the palas ring wall and could be reached from both principal levels. Its structural remains survive. Another building adjoined the palas to the east. Only slight remains rise above ground, but its existence is established archaeologically and it is thought to have provided additional living quarters.
Courtyard and service structures
The courtyard contains the foundations of a free-standing round keep, the only independent structure within the complex. Its walls were 4 metres thick and its diameter was 16 metres. Excavated in 1931, the foundations remain level and retain a carefully profiled plinth. The keep was probably never completed because its size would have created serious problems in the soft ground.
Service and residential buildings also stood along the southern ring wall, though they have not survived. The courtyard clearance of 1881 removed later buildings associated with the Schelme von Bergen and Boyneburg families and brought numerous reused architectural fragments to light. These elements, known as spolia, were architectural pieces reused from an earlier building or from a demolished part of the same complex.
