Wednesday 21 January 2009

"The Wolfstein Castle" - our town's landmark

The history of the castle “Wolfstein”

The origins of the castle, still, lie in darkness.

One thing is sure, however, at about 1120 a certain Ulrich V was there.

After the present archaeological findings the castle was established in the late Staufer time (1st half till the middle of the 13th century) as an imperial ministerial seat.
Since 1283 this landmark of Neumarkt was called after the "Wolfstein" family.
In the 14th century the Wolfstein family could increase its possessions in the neighbourhood of the castle more and more.
From king Karl the IV the family got in 1349 the privilege of beeing allowed to build a town below the castle, with all rights a middle aged town at that time had.

From the middle of the 14th century on two famlilies had to share the possessions of the castle, however, which appeared to be very difficult.

In 1434 they received from emperor Sigismund a privilege after which the castle and all people there should have the same rights as the town Neumarkt and its citizens.

This imperial privilege was above all also directed against the "Wittelsbacher" princes who wanted to enforce their ruling over the area.

In spite of all rivalry between Wolfstein and Wittelsbach sovereigns there were also periods of good cooperation.

Above all Friedrich v. Wolfstein often stood in sovereign services; among other things he was also active as a princely advice for the count palatine and Dane's king Christof.
His "loyal services" gave him in 1442 the "high jurisdiction" privilege about the castle district and two other villages.

The Wolfsteiner could not profit from this power increase, nevertheless, very long.

The pressure on the Wolfsteiner rule became obvious under count palatine Otto I.

Now that was a little part of the history of Wolfstein.

http://www.wolfsteinfreunde.de/besucher/bildergalerie2.php?k=6&kp=Notice:%20%20Undefined%20variable:%20kp%20in%20/www/vhosts/wolfsteinfreunde.de/html/besucher/bildergalerie2.php%20on%20line%2064


Tobias Fürst, class 9c, KRS Neumarkt

1 comment:

Oetzi's Group said...

Nice place and nice view!

Your teachers took me and the rest of foreign teachers during our October meeting at Neumarkt.

Greetings from Mallorca!


Toni