Burgstall Dasing: A Medieval Castle Site in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
Burgstall Dasing is a medieval castle site in Germany, established around the middle of the thirteenth century under Arnold I of Massenhausen, a follower of Duke Ludwig II the Strict of Bavaria. The name Burgstall refers to a castle whose buildings and fortifications have largely disappeared, leaving earthworks and archaeological remains. The site developed as a high- to late-medieval castle and later became the centre of a manorial jurisdiction known as a Hofmark.
The Massenhausen lordship
The Massenhausen family remained closely associated with Dasing for several generations. Ortlieb of Taesingen appears in written records in 1334, and in 1352 the five sons of the Massenhausen family endowed a chaplaincy for the castle chapel. The Kärpf family of Dasing served the Massenhausens as hereditary knights and castle men. In 1324, Arnold III and Ortlieb of Massenhausen referred to Johann of Taesingen as “our knight.”
Friedrich Massenhauser of Dasing and his cousin Wilhelm were mentioned in documents in 1397 and 1400 as the last recorded members of their line. After the Massenhausen family died out, the lordship passed by inheritance to Arnold Ebran of Wildenberg, the husband of Elisabeth I of Massenhausen. In 1424, Arnold’s heirs, the daughters of Arnold VI of Massenhausen, sold their shares, amounting to half the castle, to Hans Fraunberger of Massenhausen. The Fraunbergers administered the property through a castle administrator rather than living there.
Wars, inheritance, and changing ownership
During the imperial war against Duke Ludwig IX the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut, about 400 mounted troops from Augsburg devastated the settlement of Dasing. The fate of the castle during this attack is unknown. After Hans Fraunperger died in 1477, his widow, Anna of Pappenheim, sold her claims to Duke Ludwig IX in return for a life annuity. His two daughters challenged the will successfully before the Imperial Chamber Court, the central judicial institution of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1478.
In 1482 and 1490, the daughters transferred their shares to Siegmund Prüschenk, an imperial chamberlain and court marshal. His brother Heinrich was already serving as castle administrator in February 1490. In October of that year, the heirs of the Fraunberger sisters reclaimed the property. Later owners included Johannes of Gegenberg, Marquard of Schellenberg, and Jörg Pienzenauer. Siegmund Prüschenk, later known as Hardegg, described himself in 1490 as the new lord of Dasing. The brothers Siegmund and Heinrich acquired the Schellenberg share in 1492 and Jörg Pienzenauer’s share in 1494.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the lordship belonged to Count Heinrich of Hardegg. He sold the castle to the Augsburg patrician Georg Ilsung, who transferred it to the wealthy merchant Philipp Adler. Adler was an imperial councillor and financier of the Habsburgs. He later sold Dasing to Wolf II of Weichs of Griesbach, who used the designation “of Dasing” from 1518 onward. The Weichs family held the lordship for five generations.
Destruction and later use
Swedish troops destroyed the castle in 1632 during the Thirty Years’ War, the major European conflict of 1618 to 1648. The destruction brought further devastation to the lordship. In 1644, the guardians of Eva Maria of Weichs sold the Hofmark to Abbot Ulrich Hertfelder of the Augsburg monastery of St Ulrich and Afra for 19,000 Rhenish florins, with an additional ceremonial payment of 400 florins. The contract was formally receipted in 1656 after the price had been paid in full. The Imperial Abbey of St Ulrich and Afra retained the Hofmark until secularization, when ecclesiastical territories were transferred to secular control during the territorial reorganizations around 1802 and 1803.
Michael Wening’s 1701 view showed a planned palace on the site of the destroyed castle. The project, begun under Abbot Willibald Popp, was never completed. A gardener still lived in the lower level of the former main building at that time. The gardener’s property, called the “Gärtnergütl,” was bought by the adjoining farm owner in 1877. An old photograph from around 1904 shows a two-storey smallholding with an attached L-shaped barn, probably demolished around 1910. A local tradition states that its last inhabitants died from verdigris poisoning. The farm owner also removed many stones from the ruins for building material.
In 1889, the same farm owner acquired the “Jägergütl” on the former outer bailey. The property burned down and was demolished in 1938. The interior of the outer bailey was then levelled, and the old castle well was filled. An information board was installed beside the surviving vaulted cellar for the 2005 Day of the Open Monument, and the municipality later erected a wooden protective roof over the cellar entrance. The Bavarian State Office for Monument Protection lists Burgstall Dasing as a medieval castle earthwork under monument number D-7-7632-0003.
Remains
Hilltop layout and earthworks
Burgstall Dasing occupies a low hill spur in the Wessiszell cadastral area of Dasing, in the Aichach-Friedberg district of Swabia. The site stands at about 497.5 metres above sea level, and the main-castle plateau rises approximately 13 metres above the valley floor. The medium-sized hilltop castle had an oval main-castle mound measuring about 23 by 25 metres. An outer bailey extended to the north and east and was associated with a farmyard.
Approach ditch and ramparts
The former ditch across the neck of the hill spur is now crossed by the local road to Sankt Franziskus. Sections of the ditch and its outer rampart survive along the northeastern side. A large borrow pit destroyed the rampart system in the northwest, while the ground drops steeply to the west. The southern fortification has been largely levelled. The outer-bailey interior was also flattened in 1938, leaving the surviving earthworks as the main evidence of the castle’s former defensive layout.
Central castle buildings
Main building and curtain wall
The principal building on the central mound probably stood three storeys high. An elevated outdoor platform, or altane, projected from its eastern side, while a square tower, probably the castle’s main defensive tower, occupied the southwest. Philipp Apian’s 1568 land map depicts the tower with several windows and a crenellated crown. A curtain wall surrounded the plateau, and slight traces remain visible on the western side.
Vaulted cellar
The best-preserved masonry feature is the vaulted cellar of the former palas, the castle’s principal residential and representative building. Constructed entirely of brick, it retains much of its original floor. Two entrances descended into the cellar from the south. The northern stairway remains usable, while the southern stairway survives only in fragments. A rectangular light shaft cuts through the upper part of the western wall. The cellar was later used for storage by the Gärtnergütl and is now protected by a wooden roof over its entrance.
Eastern cellar and castle well
A second, smaller vaulted cellar lies beneath the former eastern altane. It belongs to a later period, probably the nineteenth century. The castle well, once approximately 38 metres deep, was completely filled after the outer-bailey area was levelled. The site now retains the earthworks and the vaulted cellar of the main building, while the former structures above ground have disappeared.
