Blankenau Castle: A Medieval Motte Castle near Chemnitz, Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page8 sections
History
Blankenau Castle was a medieval motte-type water castle near Chemnitz in Germany, probably established before 1269 as the fortified ancestral seat of the Lords of Blankenau. Its position beside the Siedelbahn, an old route linking Altenburg, Penig, Chemnitz, and Rubenau toward Bohemia, gave the castle a strategic place on a regional trade connection between Altenburg, Chemnitz, and the Bohemian lands.
The Lords of Blankenau
Albert of Blankenau, a nobleman of the thirteenth century, first appears in 1269. The surviving document does not directly describe the site as a castle, but the family probably took the name Blankenau from the new stronghold. Evidence from their seals connects the Lords of Blankenau with the earlier Lords of Gersdorf. The family had moved from the Leisnig area to the Chemnitz region by 1269 and was related through marriage and lineage to the Reichministeriales of Crimmitschau and the Lords of Schonburg. Reichministeriales were imperial service nobles who carried out administrative, military, or courtly duties.
The castle occupied a favorable position near the crossing of the Chemnitz at Glosa. It stood on the higher left bank of the river, close to the mouth of the Bahrebach. The river and stream formed part of the site’s natural setting, while the castle’s water defences strengthened its control over the surrounding route and estate.
Destruction and the end of the lordship
Blankenau Castle was probably destroyed in 1307 during the conflict between the Wettins and Albrecht I, the Habsburg king of Germany. A letter from Chemnitz dating to about 1307 or 1308 describes an impending incursion by Friedrich, the Wettin margrave of Meissen, into the Blankenau district and indicates that the area around Heinersdorf and Blankenau had been devastated, probably in connection with the Battle of Lucka. The Wettins were a major German ruling dynasty whose territories included central Germany.
The Lords of Blankenau continued to appear in Saxony until 1318. That year, Otto and Johann of Blankenau sold possessions including Altchemnitz and the later deserted village of Streitdorf. Their former property passed in stages to Chemnitz Benedictine Abbey between 1318 and 1378. In 1338, Ludwig the Bavarian transferred the five villages of the Blankenau district, Glosa, Furth, Borna, Draisdorf, and Heinersdorf, to the abbey as a fief. In 1378, the abbey acquired another third of the local court. A Benedictine abbey combined religious functions with the management of extensive landed property.
The associated lordship covered the Blankenau district, including the forest-strip villages of Furth, Glosa, Borna, and Heinersdorf, the village of Draisdorf, and apparently Altchemnitz and Streitdorf. A village named Blankenau beside the castle is suspected, but it has no historical record. After the castle’s presumed destruction, its economic estate was probably combined with neighboring Glosa. The Glosa estate and an outlying farm appear in 1469. During the sixteenth century, the fief was divided, and some portions became peasant freehold farms that still carried feudal obligations.
Ruin, destruction of the remains, and investigation
By the sixteenth century, the castle was probably already a ruin and no longer useful. In 1548, following the Reformation and the dissolution of Chemnitz Abbey, the former Blankenau lordship passed to the Chemnitz administrative district of Electoral Saxony. The remaining recognizable earthworks were levelled by the tenant and later owner of the grounds in 1874. Complete plowing reportedly removed the last directly visible traces of the ditches and banks in 1924.
The site became a protected archaeological monument on 16 March 1960. When the Chemnitz-Glosa motorway exit was planned in the 1990s, it was moved eastward after coordination between the Saxon State Office for Archaeology and the Saxon motorway authority. No archaeological excavation had taken place by 2022 because the former castle ground remained an unplowed meadow. Aerial photography from 31 January 1995, laser scanning in 2012, and later scans provided the main evidence for reconstructing the fortification. The street name Blankenburgstraße preserves the memory of the site, although the name Blankenburg is historically incorrect and appears to have developed through popular usage.
Remains
Blankenau Castle survives as a Burgstall, an abandoned castle site with almost no visible surface remains. It was a lowland water castle of motte type, built around a raised central mound or island and enclosed by two concentric ditches with an intervening bank. The entire fortification probably measured about 156 metres across, while the central core measured approximately 60 metres.
Motte and water defences
The central area was probably an artificially raised, mound-like island on which the castle stood. A nineteenth-century description mentions two circular, concentric, grass-covered ditches and banks surrounding a wooded central area with small stone masses and depressions. Before the Chemnitz was straightened, bends in the river reached directly to the castle banks and ditches, protecting the south-western side. The Bahrebach apparently protected the northern side. Recent airborne laser scans show three concentric bank rings, although they are barely perceptible at ground level. Aerial photography from 1995 makes the inner ditch and traces of a bank visible, while the outer ditch is difficult to distinguish.
Water features and changing landscape
A Saxon mile sheet produced after 1790 depicts the ringwork beside two fishponds separated by a bank. The ponds were probably removed during the nineteenth century. An 1886 map shows the ringwork without them, directly beside the Chemnitz between Heinersdorf and Glosa. The river was probably straightened in the early twentieth century, altering the relationship between the watercourse and the castle earthworks.
Surface finds
The surviving material evidence comes from surface finds rather than excavation. Pottery sherds and a large Gothic key were found at the site, while a 2022 museum inventory listed a fired brick and the Gothic castle key as finds made in the nineteenth century. The objects are held by the Schlossbergmuseum Chemnitz. The pottery has been dated broadly to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The continued presence of the brick in the museum depot was uncertain in 2022. The available archaeological evidence has not established when the fortification was built or when it was abandoned.
