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His­to­ry of Com­burg Cast­le

The name „Com­burg“ is pro­bab­ly de­ri­ved from a Cel­tic word mea­ning „rock“ or  „stone“. Count Burk­hard von Com­burg-Ro­then­burg, the el­dest of four bro­thers, born around 1040/1050, con­ver­ted the cast­le into a Be­ne­dic­ti­ne mo­nastry  in 1078 and be­ca­me a monk in his own foun­da­ti­on.

After a pe­ri­od of con­struc­tion las­ting only ten years, the Ro­ma­nes­que pil­la­red ba­si­li­ca was con­se­cra­ted in 1088. In the 12 th cen­tu­ry, the third abbot of the mo­nas­te­ry, Hart­wig, do­na­ted a va­luable an­te­pen­di­um (altar front) and a rich­ly-de­co­ra­ted wheel-shaped chan­de­lier. These works of art were pres­u­m­a­b­ly pro­du­ced in the mo­nastry work­shops.

The an­te­pen­di­um in the col­le­gia­te church St. Ni­ko­laus con­sists of a woo­den frame and it is ador­ned with cop­per plate that had been worked and gil­ded. The fil­lets di­vi­ding it into twel­ve pa­nels are em­bel­lis­hed with fi­ligreed ena­mel. In the rectan­gu­lar pa­nels there is a re­pre­sen­ta­ti­on of the apost­les, while Christ can be seen in the cen­tral man­dor­la. This is a re­pre­sen­ta­ti­on of the final judgment, which is also con­fir­med by the in­scrip­ti­on sur­roun­ding the an­te­pen­di­um.

In Ger­ma­ny there exist only three wheel-shaped chan­de­liers (Aix-la-Cha­pel­le  (Aa­chen), Hil­des­heim, Com­burg). The Com­burg chan­de­lier can be view­ed in three dif­fe­rent ways:

1)   Func­tion: With its 48 cand­les it was pres­u­m­a­b­ly the only sour­ce of light in the other­wi­se dark Ro­ma­nes­que church.

2)   Sym­bo­lic level: It re­pres­ents the city of Je­ru­sa­lem with its con­stant­ly stan­ding walls and towers as de­scri­bed in the Apo­ca­lyp­se. In the twel­ve towers there are the cus­to­di­ans (bi­shops, saints, an­gels, war­ri­ers a.s.o.), and in bet­ween the pro­phets are re­pre­sen­ted on twel­ve round me­dail­lons.

3)   As a work of art: Its value was re­dis­co­ve­r­ed only after 1848, when the chain be­a­ring the chan­de­lier came apart, and it lost its gold-bron­ze coat of paint which had been put on in 1570 for its pro­tec­tion. 144 plant mo­tifs can be seen on the in­sets.

Those parts of the ol­dest buil­sings still stan­ding are tes­tio­mo­ny to the first gol­den age of the mo­nastry: The gate­way with its St. Mi­cha­el’s cha­pel, the church towers and the clo­is­ter lying to the west , which in­clu­des Ro­ma­nes­que ma­son­ry up to its eaves. This is  where all the buil­dings stood close to each other and where the monks lived their lifs to­ge­ther: church, re­fec­to­ry (today the Adel­mann Buil­ding) and dor­mi­to­ry (today the Vi­ca­ra­ge). The abbot’s quar­ters were lo­ca­ted in the Alte Abtei, the Old Abbey. In this part of the buil­ding we can see the abbot’s re­cep­ti­on room with a re­cent­ly res­to­red be­au­ti­ful mi­nia­tu­re gal­le­ry. Today this room is used as both a lec­tu­re-room and as a con­cert hall (Kai­ser­saal, the Em­peror’s Room).

In the 15 th cen­tu­ry there was a gra­du­al de­cli­ne of mo­rals. All ex­ter­nal at­tempts for re­form fai­led, and fi­nal­ly in 1488, the mo­nas­te­ry was con­ver­ted into a ca­nons’ chap­ter.

This pe­ri­od is today re­flec­ted in the va­rious buil­dings, as the ca­nons were en­t­it­led to their own quar­ters and hou­se­holds.

Ac­cor­dingly, more buil­dings were erec­ted, e.g. the Neue De­kanei (the New Dea­ne­ry), the Wam­bold Buil­ding, the Geb­sat­tel Buil­ding and the Rei­schach Buil­ding, which even today still bear the names of their last oc­cup­ants. Many of the ca­nons were also mem­bers of the ca­nons’ chap­ters in Ell­wan­gen or Würz­burg.

Con­se­quent­ly, canon vi­cars were also ap­poin­ted. They were ac­com­mo­da­ted in the Vi­ka­ri­en­bau (the Vi­ca­ra­ge) and they of­fi­cia­ted at ser­vices to­ge­ther with the ca­nons.

Men­ti­on must be made of two emi­nent per­so­na­li­ties from that time:

Dean Eras­mus Neu­stet­ter (1551 - 1594) com­mis­sio­ned the con­struc­tion, main­ten­an­ce, al­te­ra­ti­on or re­de­co­ra­ti­on of many buil­dings, his most im­portant buil­ding being the cir­cu­lar wall with a cir­c­um­fe­rence of 460 me­ters, which has been al­most com­ple­te­ly pre­ser­ved. He had his own house built (Alte De­kanei, the Old Dea­ne­ry) in the gap next to the Ro­ma­nes­que gate­way and had an ac­cess built through the tower to St. Mi­cha­el’s cha­pel. He thus crea­ted for him­s­elf a pri­va­te ora­to­ry.

The buil­ding craze of the pe­ri­od ge­ne­ra­ted great plans on the part of Dean Wil­helm Ul­rich von Gut­ten­berg (1707 - 1735). Com­burg Cast­le was to be con­ver­ted into a ba­ro­que mo­nas­te­ry. After the con­struc­tion of a new church (for which he do­na­ted 4,300 flo­rins) and his re­si­dence (Neue De­kanei, the New Dea­ne­ry), he ran out of money. The ba­ro­que church was con­struc­ted by Jo­seph Greis­sing with in­te­ri­or de­co­ra­ti­on done by Bal­tha­sar Es­ter­bau­er.

Com­burg Cast­le pas­sed over to the State of Würt­tem­berg in 1802/03 as part of the pro­cess of se­cu­la­riza­t­i­on, and it ser­ved for al­most one hund­red years as the seat of the Royal Würt­tem­berg Ho­no­ra­ry Corps of In­va­lids, which gave a home to woun­ded el­der­ly sol­diers.

In 1926 the first re­si­den­ti­al Adult Edu­ca­ti­on Cent­re was es­ta­blis­hed in Com­burg Cast­le.

In 1936 this es­ta­blish­ment had to be aban­do­ned as a re­sult of pres­su­re ex­er­ted by the Na­tio­nal So­cia­lists. In the en­suing years there were cour­ses for ar­tis­ans and sto­ne­ma­sons, and later Com­burg Cast­le ser­ved as a Hit­ler youth hos­tel and fi­nal­ly as a pri­so­ner-of-war camp.

On 16 May 1947, Theo­dor Bäu­er­le, the then Mi­nis­ter of Edu­ca­ti­on and the in­itia­tor and co-foun­der of Com­burg Aca­de­my, in­au­gu­ra­ted the first cour­se of fur­ther edu­ca­ti­on for teachers. In­clu­ded in the in­iti­al offer of trai­ning cour­ses there was em­pha­sis on re-edu­ca­ti­on, po­li­ti­cal schoo­ling and edu­ca­ting towards de­mo­cra­cy, as well as a new struc­tu­re for the con­tent of sub­ject-mat­ter. At that time, cour­ses were pro­vi­ded for both teachers and trainee la­wy­ers. Also, doc­tors held con­fe­ren­ces there, until Com­burg Aca­de­my was used ex­clu­si­ve­ly for fur­ther trai­ning of teachers. Since 1947 more than 180,000  teachers have at­ten­ded cour­ses at Com­burg Cast­le.

– Bir­git Ja­e­ger-Goll­wit­zer, Aka­de­mie­re­fe­ren­tin (1998 - 2008)