The town of Höchst am Main, now the Höchst district of Frankfurt, has a history stretching back over twelve hundred years. For a long time, Höchst was an independent town and an outpost of the Kurmainz region at the gates of Frankfurt. It was not incorporated into Frankfurt until 1928.
Geographical classification
Höchst was built at the crossroads of prehistoric transportation routes. Immediately after the Nidda flows into the Main, two navigable rivers at the time, a slope edge pushes almost right up to the riverbank. The plateau is flood-proof and was easy to defend. At the foot of the slope, a ford led through the Main, while a pre-Roman old road, the Antsanvia or Hohe Straße, a forerunner of the later Elisabethenstraße, led from the mouth of the Main near Kastel via Höchst to the Vogelsberg. Starting from the mouth of the Niddam, the Lindenweg (also known as the Linienweg), a pre-Roman, straightforward connection over the Taunus crossing at today's Saalburg, led into the Lahn region. North of Sossenheim, the old trade route, the Hessian Wine Route (Wagenstraße), branched off into the Wetterau.Heßberger, Katja (2024-04-15). "Der Frankfurter Stadtteil Höchst: Wo man Geschichte und Kultur hautnah erleben kann – Der Frankfurter". https://der-frankfurter.de/ (in German). Retrieved 2024-04-16.
Pre- and early history Individual finds of tools and worked pieces of antler from the end of the Upper Palaeolithic in the area of the old town of Höchst suggest that the area of Höchst was already occasionally inhabited by people at this time. However, there is no evidence of a permanent settlement.
It was not until the beginning of the Neolithic period that a permanent human settlement in the area of the Old Town, Höchster Neustadt and Oberfeld can be established. Remains of settlements and pottery shards from the Linear Pottery and Bell Beaker cultures were found during construction work and excavations.
Burial mounds and urn fields from the Bronze Age provide evidence of ongoing human settlement in the Höchster area. Iron Age graves from the Hallstatt and La Tène periods were also found during construction work, indicating Celtic inhabitants. However, there is no evidence of an oppidum, just as there is no evidence of a fixed settlement structure in the sense of a village.Stadtarchiv Frankfurt am Main (City Archives of Frankfurt am Main) Source: "Frankfurt-Höchst – Stadtteilchronik," Stadtarchiv Frankfurt am Main. https://frankfurt.de/
Roman and pre-Franconian period Shortly after the turn of the millennium, the Romans built a fort on the high bank above the Main. There is no exact proof, but it is possible that a bridge spanned the shallow Main at the Wörthspitze near the mouth of the Niddam and connected the Roman settlement with the southern Main areas around the present-day towns of Kelsterbach and Groß-Gerau.
The Romans extended existing Celtic roads and created numerous new connections: The Lindenweg or Linienweg to Saalburg or the Taunus crossing there, the Weinstrasse via this after the Elisabethenstrasse crossing to Wetterau, the Hohe Strasse on the Main / Nidda watershed to Vogelsberg and Thuringia. The Königsteiner Straße still runs in a north-westerly direction to the Feldberg, and the route along the course of the Main can be found after the Nidda bridge as a connection via Griesheim and the Gutleuthof to Frankfurt. Today, these are Nieder Kirchweg and Stroofstraße.Frischholz, Wilhelm: Alt-Höchst. Ein Heimatbuch in Wort und Bild.
A river port was established at the protected mouth of the Nidda, and a military brickworks was built on the northern bank of the Nidda in what is now Nieder Gemarkung.Wolfgang Metternich: Ende gut, alles grün. Die lange Geschichte der Häfen in Höchst. In: Vereinsring Frankfurt (M)-Höchst e.V. (ed.): Festschrift zum Höchster Schloßfest 2007. Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 24-30. infraserv.com (PDF 1 MB). Legio XXII Primigenia produced bricks here between the years 85 and 120. With the further construction of the Limes in the middle of the 2nd century, brick production, which had been temporarily discontinued, was resumed. More than 200 different brick stamps have been preserved, most of them from the XXII legion.
The settlement lost its economic and military importance with the construction of the Elisabethenstraße via Hofheim and the construction of the Limes. It developed into a civilian settlement. When the Alamanni overcame the Limes from 260 onwards and invaded Roman territory, the Romans retreated to their territories on the left bank of the Rhine and gave up their possessions on the right bank. The settlement at the mouth of the Niddam became deserted, and there are no records or reports of the Höchster area being repopulated after the Romans withdrew. Only a few indications point to an Alemannic farmstead in the 4th century and a Merovingian royal court on the edge of today's old town in the 5th century.
Under the crosier: The Mainz period – 790 to 1803
The village of Höchst in the early and High Middle Ages
It was not until the 8th century that there is evidence of a settlement of farmsteads on the high plateau above the Nidda. However, there can be no talk of a village in the modern sense; it was rather a loose collection of individual farmsteads. The first documented mention of this settlement was on August 5, 790 in the Lorsch Codex, when the Frankish lord of the manor Thiotmann donated an estate in villa hostat in Nitahgowe, in the "village on the high site in the Niddagau", to Lorsch Monastery.Minst, Karl Josef : Lorscher Codex (Band 5), Urkunde 3399 5. August 790 – Reg. 2229. In: Heidelberger historische Bestände – digital.Heidelberg University Library, p. 172, retrieved on April 13, 2020. In later times, the Renaissance poet Georg Calaminus wrote down the Hostato legend in verse, according to which the squire Hostato was the only one to survive the Battle of Roncesvalles and was therefore knighted by Charlemagne as thanks for his bravery and appointed bailiff of the high place.
By the early 9th century at the latest, the Archbishopric of Mainz, which was striving to expand its territorial rule, had amassed so many individual privileges under Frankish law in the areas along the Main from Mainz to Frankfurt that Höchst was part of the Mainz possessions and no longer belonged to the Niddagau. Annals of the Fulda monastery from the year 849 report on the "Höchst estate in the Mainz region". The rule of Mainz lasted for almost a thousand years until 1803, and the Mainz wheel in the Höchst coat of arms is still a reminder of this today.
From around 830, Archbishop Otgar of Mainz had St. Justin's Church built on the high bank above the River Main, which is still largely intact today. It is one of the oldest churches in Germany and the oldest building in Frankfurt. The church, which was far too large for the settlement, was a symbol of power for the Archbishop of Mainz vis-à-vis the Frankfurt royal court. At the same time, as part of the church's settlement policy, it served to promote the development of a village settlement and concentration of the population, who had previously lived in scattered individual farmsteads, around the church. Otgar's successor Rabanus Maurus consecrated the building after its completion in 850. The Justinus Church served as the village church. Subsequently, the village of Höchst developed along the main road between a Mainz Fronhof in the west, which was located in the area of the Wed, and the Justinuskirche in the east. The western border of Höchst is formed by a branch of the Liederbach, which flowed to the Main via the area of today's Schloßplatz. At the beginning of the 11th century, it was possible to speak of a village of Höchst.In 1024, Aribo of Mainz invited Bishop Meginhard of Würzburg to a regional synod in Höchst with the words 'convenire nos in unum in vigilia ascensionis Domini in loco vicino qui dictur Hosteti iuxta Moguntiam'. In medieval documentary language, the term locus refers to a village, in contrast to villa, which refers to a single farmstead. Quoted from Lit. Metternich: Die städtebauliche Entwicklung von Höchst am Main. und W. v. Giesebrecht: Die Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit. Volume 2. Munich 1885, p. 706, no. 2a.
The development of another archiepiscopal court to the west of Justinuskirche has been recorded from the 11th century. Together with St. Justin's Church, it was donated to St. Alban's Monastery in Mainz. The church was specifically described in the monastery's writings as being in danger of collapsing; in this way, St. Alban's received further land and privileges in Höchst as a gift. However, no renovation work was carried out on the supposedly dilapidated church. The Höchst branch of St. Alban's Abbey remained in Höchst until 1419.
In the 12th century, the diocese of Mainz appointed a burgrave in Höchst; Count Gotfried von der Wartburg, a relative of Archbishop Henry I, is mentioned in documents.Codex diplomaticus nassoicus. Edited by W. Sauer and K. Menzel. Wiesbaden 1885, vol. 1, nos. 202, 203, 220, 229, 230, after lit. metternich: Die Burg des 13. Jahrhunderts in Höchst am Main. Such a governor usually had his seat in a town or castle. Höchst was not yet a town at this time, so it can be concluded from the proven existence of a bailiff that a castle already existed in the middle of the 12th century as the predecessor of today's Höchst Castle. During excavation work on the castle terrace in 1981, trenches were found which, due to their different orientation, could not have belonged to the – proven – later Gothic customs castle.see Metternich: The 13th century castle in Höchst am Main.
The Mainz toll levied in Höchst and other towns on the Lower Main was abolished and banned by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1157. Only three places, Frankfurt, Aschaffenburg and Neustadt, were still allowed to collect river customs duties.MGH Const. 1 no. 162, p. 225, according to U. Maier, Cl. Bandur and R. Kubon: Der Zollturm zu Höchst am Main. HGH 34/35. Frankfurt-Höchst 1984: Verein für Geschichte und Altertumskunde e. V. With the decline of imperial power in the 13th century, the Electorate of Mainz was once again able to levy customs duties in Höchst. A new and larger castle was built, which had a high, almost five meter thick shield wall on the land side. The result of the castle construction was a modest expansion of Höchst to the west. When the moat was excavated, the deeply cut mouth of the Liederbach was filled in, the castle square was largely raised to its present level and the water was channelled directly into the moat.
New buildings were constructed to the north and east of the castle square between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century. The Allmeygang, which had previously led directly to the Main, was diverted to the new square. To the west of the castle stood the Ochsenturm as a free-standing watchtower, which was later incorporated into the town fortifications built in the 15th century.
Town elevation and urban development in the late Middle Ages
The elevation of Höchst was a point of contention between Mainz and Frankfurt for a long time. The main issue was the levying of the Mainz toll by the archbishops of Mainz, for whom the toll was an important source of income. Frankfurt, on the other hand, regarded the Mainz customs duty at Höchst as an obstacle to trade and repeatedly obtained its prohibition by the emperor. Nevertheless, the people of Mainz often continued to levy the Mainz tolls without bothering about the bans. During the interregnum with its weakened royal power, this usually had no consequences. In 1336, Emperor Ludwig IV of Bavaria granted Frankfurt a privilege that forbade the construction of any fortifications within a seven-mile radius of Frankfurt. This was intended to prevent Höchst from being fortified.