I have wanted to visit the castle Wartburg since acquiring a taste for Wagner’s operas many years ago. On my previous trips to Germany, it had not been easy to reach the region of Thuringia, because it lay in the former German Democratic Republic.
The attraction was twofold: the architecture of a significant medieval fortress, and its many links to German history and legend.
The Wartburg stands on a ridge of the Thuringian forest above the town of Eisenach, also renowned as the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach. The castle towers above the town and the surrounding countryside; the ridge is 410 metres high. It is a long and steep walk up, but the views are expansive.
The castle was built in stages from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The earliest extant building – now named the Palas – was constructed between 1157 and 1170. Its style is late Romanesque, and it is regarded as one of the finest non-ecclesiastical examples of this style in northern Europe.
The Palas has been restored recently with care and respect for its original appearance. A major feature is the 200 carved capitals, nearly a third of which are original. It is likely that this part of the castle hosted the famous ‘Sängerkrieg’ – the contest of the singers – in 1207. In the forty years after its completion, the court of the counts of Thuringia supported the best known German poets, in particular Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach, the author of Parsifal. This contest has been immortalised by Richard Wagner in his opera, Tannhäuser. The Elizabeth of the opera is Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, who grew up in the Wartburg and married Ludwig IV of Thuringia. She was renowned for her charitable work, died at the young age of 24, and was canonised by the church five years later.
The other parts of the castle have links to important events in German history. Martin Luther, for example, was kept safe here in 1521; he started on his translation of the Bible into German in a small study that has been re-created.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries these parts of the castle were restored and decorated in a style that reflected the taste of the times. The highest level of the castle is called the Festsaal, a hall rather romantically decorated and embellished and now used for concerts and, of course, performances of Tannhäuser. At the end of our Wartburg tour, we sat in this lavish space and listened to the overture and Venusberg music. Somehow it seemed so right!
Saturday 25 July 2015
