The Wood Tower (german: Holzturm) is a mediaeval tower in

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

, Germany, with the

Iron Tower The Iron Tower (german: Eisenturm) is a mediaeval tower dating to the early 13th century, and modified in the 15th century, which with the Wood Tower and the Alexander Tower is one of three remaining towers from the city walls of Mainz, Germany. ...

and the Alexander Tower one of three remaining towers from the city walls. Its current

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

appearance dates to the early 15th century. It is so named because wood used to be piled next to it on the bank of the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

. Like the Iron Tower, the Wood Tower was used as a watchtower and

gate-tower A gate tower (german: Torturm) is a tower built over or next to a major gateway. Usually it is part of a medieval fortification. This may be a town or city wall, fortress, castle or castle chapel. The gate tower may be built as a twin tower on ...

and later as a

gaol A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correct ...

. It was badly damaged in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and accurately reconstructed in 1961 for the two-thousandth anniversary of the city. It currently houses various organisations and clubs.

Historical background: the defences of Mainz

Beginning in late Roman times, the city of Mainz (then ''Mogontiacum'') was defended by a wall with watchtowers and city gates. The first wall was built shortly before the destruction of the ''

limes Limes may refer to: * the plural form of lime (disambiguation) * the Latin word for ''limit'' which refers to: ** Limes (Roman Empire) (Latin, singular; plural: ) is a modern term used primarily for the Germanic border defence or delimiting ...

'' in 259/260 CE. Not long after 350, in the course of the abandonment of the Roman

camp Camp may refer to: Outdoor accommodation and recreation * Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site * a temporary settlement for nomads * Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...

, this wall was lowered and rubble (

spolia ''Spolia'' (Latin: 'spoils') is repurposed building stone for new construction or decorative sculpture reused in new monuments. It is the result of an ancient and widespread practice whereby stone that has been quarried, cut and used in a built ...

) from earlier construction used to enlarge and strengthen it. After the Romans withdrew, it was improved at various times, particularly in the

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...

and

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...

periods, becoming what archaeologists studying the city have called the "Roman-Carolingian" wall. However, in 1160 the continuity of the city's defences was drastically interrupted. There was a longstanding dispute between the citizens of Mainz and their

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

Arnold of Selenhofen Arnold of Selenhofen (c. 1095/1100 – 24 June 1160) was the archbishop of Mainz from 1153 to his assassination in the Benedictine abbey St. Jakob, where he took shelter from the raging crowd. He was born to a wealthy Mainz family. He studied a ...

(and also with the

Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...

Frederick Barbarossa Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (german: link=no, Friedrich I, it, Federico I), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt on ...

); after the archbishop was murdered, the emperor imposed an

imperial ban The imperial ban (german: Reichsacht) was a form of outlawry in the Holy Roman Empire. At different times, it could be declared by the Holy Roman Emperor, by the Imperial Diet, or by courts like the League of the Holy Court (''Vehmgericht'') or th ...

on the city. The city walls and towers were razed (although it is possible that on the inland side the destruction was only partial).Die mittelalterliche Stadtbefestigung von Mainz
Festung Mainz 2008, retrieved 3 May 2011 However, Mainz was an important political and strategic ally in the

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty ...

s' struggle for supremacy in the German Empire against the

Welfs The House of Welf (also Guelf or Guelph) is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meus ...

, and so in –1200 the city was granted permission to rebuild the defences. The predecessor of the Wood Tower, the so-called ''Neuturm'' (New Tower) was built in the second half of the 13th century when the previously independent settlement of Selenhofen was incorporated into the defences of the city. It replaced the Romanesque Wingert Gate; the first recorded mention of it is in 1366.

Architectural style

The Wood Gate as it stands today is a

structure dating to the first half of the 15th century. Like the Iron Tower, the six-storey tower has walls of crushed stone articulated by square

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

s and two dividing cornices, and is surmounted by a

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

, in this case very steep. In contrast to the Iron Tower, however, the Wood Tower is much more slenderly proportioned, which is typical of the 'verticality' of the Gothic style. The former city gate has a pointed archway, and a ribbed

vault Vault may refer to: * Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards Architecture * Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space * Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored * Burial vault (enclosure ...

for the ceiling. (As a result of the embankment of the Rhine in modern times, the passageway through the gate is now approximately below street level.) Polygonal turrets with tall pointed roofs sprout from all four corners of the base of the roof, supported by stepped

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

s connected by lancet arches. The tall windows have typically Gothic pointed-arch frames. Busts of couples appear above two windows on the first floor on the city side of the tower: a

burgher Burgher may refer to: * Burgher (social class), a medieval, early modern European title of a citizen of a town, and a social class from which city officials could be drawn ** Burgess (title), a resident of a burgh in northern Britain ** Grand Bu ...

and his wife and a king and queen. Holzbahnhof

Mediaeval and modern uses

The tower formed part of the fortifications of the city and also as a gate in the rebuilt city wall. In the Middle Ages, wood rafted down the Rhine from South Germany was piled on the riverbank in front of the gates and the wood market was held here, which gave the tower and gate their name. Like other towers in the city walls, the Wood Tower also served as a gaol in the late mediaeval and early modern periods. Thus in 1793, after the reconquest of the previously French city of

Mayence Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

, so-called 'Clubists', members of the

Jacobin , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = Pa ...

club who had organised the

Republic of Mainz The Republic of Mainz was the first democratic state in the current German territoryThe short-lived republic is often ignored in identifying the "first German democracy", in favour of the Weimar Republic; e.g. "the failure of the first Germa ...

, were imprisoned in the Wood Tower. But its most prominent inmates were Johannes Bückler, known as 'Schinderhannes', and the members of his gang, who spent more than 15 months there before being

guillotine A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at th ...

d under French law in November 1803 on what had been the grounds of the Electoral Palace of Favorite.Uwe Schultz, ''Grosse Prozesse: Recht und Gerechtigkeit in der Geschichte'', Munich: Beck, 1996, pp. 234
238

References

Sources

* Carl Klein. "Das Holzturm in Mainz". ''Mainzer Zeitschrift des Vereins zur Erforschung der rheinischen Geschichte und Altertümer'', 1862 * Ernst Stephan. ''Das Bürgerhaus in Mainz''. Das deutsche Bürgerhaus XVIII. Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1974, repr. 1982. * Rolf Dörrlamm, Susanne Feick, Hartmut Fischer and Hans Kersting. ''Mainzer Zeitzeugen aus Stein. Baustile erzählen 1000 Jahre Geschichte''. Mainz: Hermann Schmidt, 2001. * Günther Gillessen, ed. ''Wenn Steine reden könnten - Mainzer Gebäude und ihre Geschichten''. Mainz: von Zabern, 1991. {{coord, 49, 59, 50, N, 8, 16, 41, E, type:landmark, display=title Towers completed in the 15th century Buildings and structures in Mainz