Wood Tower
The wooden tower in Mainz is a medieval city tower, whose current Gothic appearance dates from the early 15th century. The name derives from the building was located in the immediate vicinity on the Rhine woodpile square of the city of Mainz. Together with the iron tower and Alexanderplatz tower he is one of three still existing city towers of Mainz city wall.
The wooden tower was used - as well as the Iron Tower - as part of the fortification as a watchtower and gate and later as a prison. During World War II it was heavily damaged in 1961 and faithfully reconstructed to a 2000 - year anniversary of the city. Today, the wooden tower houses various initiatives and associations.
Prehistory: The Mainz city wall
The city of Mainz had its own fortification with walls, towers and gates since late Roman times. Shortly before the fall of the Limes 259/260 of the first ring of walls around the city Mogontiacum was built. Not long after 350, the city walls of the late antique Mogontiacum was significantly reduced in the course of the job of the legion camp and using older building material ( spoils ) developed and intensified. After the departure of the Romans were encountered mainly in Merovingian and Carolingian times to repair work on the Roman city wall. It originated in the city of Mainz archeology " Roman Carolingian " designated as the city wall.
The continuity of the early medieval fortifications but was interrupted in 1160 drastically. Once citizens of Mainz after prolonged argument with her Archbishop Arnold of Selenhofen ( and the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa ) this killed, imposed Emperor Frederick I in 1163 as a punishment of the Empire over the city. Your city walls, along with the city's towers was razed (according to some historians, however, confined themselves attention to the destruction of the gate towers ).
Since the city of Mainz was an important political and strategic ally in the fight against the Hohenstaufen Guelph for supremacy in Germany, permission to rebuild a city fortification has already been granted to 1190/1200. With the integration of previously independent suburb Selenhofen in the second half of the 13th century into the fortified city of the predecessor of the wooden tower, the so-called Neuturm was built. He replaced as mounting and gate tower which until then existing there Romanesque Wingert gate and is first mentioned in writing in 1366.
Architectural style
The wooden tower in the construction still preserved today is a monument of the Gothic period and dated to the first half of the 15th century. Like the iron tower has six floors of the tower a rubble masonry, a breakdown by Eckquader and two Kaffgesimse as well as a final, here, however, very steep hipped roof. In contrast to the iron tower, however the wooden tower has in its entire construction to significantly slimmer proportions, which were typical of the conditions prevailing in the Gothic " verticality ".
The archway of the former wooden gate is ogival in shape and has a ribbed vault in the passageway on. Due to the modern raising of the bank of the Rhine, the gate entrance about three meters is now below the present street level. The base of the hipped roof is lined on each corner of polygonal crowned with pointed helmets, corner turrets. These sit on tiered, interconnected by pointed arches, corbels. The high rectangular windows have the typically gothic pointed arch frame.
Two city -side windows on the first floor exhibit in its lunette bust couples: Shown is a citizen couple and a royal couple.
Use in the Middle Ages and in modern times
The wooden tower was used as part of the fortification and at the same time as the gateway passage through the reconstructed city wall. At the gates on the Rhine was in the Middle Ages the wood pile space of angeflößten wood from southern Germany and thus the timber market. This gave the tower and gate its final name.
Like other towers of the city wall served the wooden tower in the late Middle Ages and modern times as a prison. Thus so-called Clubists in 1793, after taking the previously French Mayence, imprisoned in a wooden tower. The most prominent prisoner, however, was in 1803 John Buckler, called Schinderhannes, and its captive band members. This had to start from the March to the Scaffold on the former site of the electoral pleasure palace Favorite after more than 15 months imprisonment in the Tower of wood and there were guillotined after the then applicable French law.