Stegen Castle

From the period up to the Kagenecks, the extensive, partly park-like, partly walled grounds include the main building, the castle in the narrower sense, the chapel to its southeast, and further east the Brothers' House, built by the Kagenecks and so named since its use by the Priests of the Sacred Heart. Furthermore, north outside the wall, beyond the main street of Stegen, is the Aunts' House, also built by the Kagenecks. The castle today houses the accounting office for Catholic parishes of the Archdiocese of Freiburg as well as private apartments, and the Aunts' House also contains private apartments. Heinrich Maximilian Edmund Philipp Franz Xaver Maria von Kageneck (1886–1957), with whom the Stegen line died out, lived in the Aunts' House for some time. Above the entrances to the castle and the Aunts' House is the Kageneck coat of arms, a silver bend sinister on a red shield.

It is the oldest, essentially medieval building of the complex. Ecclesiastically, it belongs to the Roman Catholic parish of Herz Jesu (Sacred Heart) of the Northern Dreisam Valley pastoral unit. From west to east, it consists of the nave with two pointed-arch windows in each side wall, the recessed, straight-closing choir with one pointed-arch window in each side wall, and a sacristy added in 1982–1983. A roof turret, shown in late medieval pictures approximately in the middle of the nave, now stands over the west end. In the west facade, flanked by diagonally set buttresses, opens the pointed-arch portal, above it a round window, and finally the tall roof turret with a clock and bell tower. On the south wall, next to a neo-Gothic personification of Fides (Faith), lean the heavily worn gravestones of Maria Clara Anna Moser and Christian Moser, who died in 1702. Above them is a sandstone tablet with the inscription: "In memory of the Moser family buried here, as well as all families of the Weiler estate in Stegen, who maintained and adorned this castle chapel over 700 years. Stegen 1982 The Priests of the Sacred Heart."

The single-nave room has a travertine floor from 1970 and, since the 1893–1894 renovation, a brown wooden coffered ceiling with an embedded round painting of Saint Sebastian by Joseph Schultis, presumably the same painter who worked in the Freiburg Loreto Chapel in 1902. Sebastian, holding two arrows and a palm branch in his left hand, protects Stegen-Weiler Castle with his right hand holding his cloak. Behind the triumphal arch, the choir opens with a cross-rib vault on corbels, whose capitals seem to be modeled after those of the wall arcades of the portal vestibule of Freiburg Minster and, like the keystone with the Kageneck coat of arms, may have been created during their renovations.

The stained-glass windows in the side walls were created by Lorenz Helmle (1783–1849) from Breitnau, who, with his brother Andreas (1784–1839), also designed several windows in Freiburg Minster. Alfred Erhart, art teacher at Kolleg St. Sebastian from 1972, wrote: "He and his brother Andreas were among the first in the age of Romanticism to rediscover the art of stained glass, forgotten since the 16th century. In terms of content, the windows provide a concise summary of the castle lord's family history, as befits a noble chapel. Certain technical imperfections, combined with the greatest care in detail, give the windows a special charm." The Stegen windows are missing from Daniel Parello's catalog raisonné of the Helmles' work.

The window in the back left of the nave, like all of them crowned with the Kageneck coat of arms, reports on the renovation: "The restoration and new constructions of this Weyler began in 1841, were completed in 1843, under Count Philipp v. Kageneck, and under the direction of the manorial steward Matthias Heizler von Stegen." Lorenz Helmle signed the window at the bottom right. The opposite window lists the family of Philipp Joseph von Kageneck. The windows at the front of the nave show kneeling knights in armor, on the left Arbogast von Kageneck, who fell in 1499 in the Battle of Dornach, on the right Stephan von Kageneck, who fell in 1396 in the Battle of Sempach, both battles in the conflict between the Swiss Confederacy and the Habsburgs.

The western round window contains a Lamb of God by Benedikt Schaufelberger (1929–2011), also an art teacher at Kolleg St. Sebastian.

At the front right in the nave, a cross on the floor marks the crypt where Maria Franz Xaver Philipp von Kageneck and his wife Catharina Wilhelmine rest. Inscribed on a stone tablet on the wall above, beneath the coats of arms and the mottos "IN VALORE VIRTUS" – "GOTT WALTET" (God Reigns), is: "HERE REST IN GOD FRANZ XAVER IMPERIAL COUNT VON KAGENECK ROYAL BAVARIAN ORDER KNIGHT OF ST GEORGE BORN IN FREIBURG 19 JULY 1860 DIED IN WEYLER 30 MAY 1895 AND HIS WIFE WILHELMINE IMPERIAL COUNTESS VON KAGENECK NÉE COUNTESS VON LINDEN BORN IN NUREMBERG 21 JUNE 1863 DIED IN BADEN 25 MARCH 1926 † R.I.P."

The only original medieval piece of movable furnishings belonging to the chapel is an altarpiece from the first half of the 16th century. It hangs at the front left of the nave and shows Saint Sebastian, clad only in a loincloth and pierced by five arrows, tied to a tree trunk. At his feet, henchmen in Landsknecht attire are busy, while from the right, heavily cropped, a scepter-bearer rides in on a white horse. From above, an angel hovers with a red martyr's crown. To the sides, however, the painter has placed three Dreisam Valley locations, each marked with their names: Kirchzarten on the right, Wiesneck Castle to the upper left (east of Stegen), and Weiler Castle in its medieval aspect to the lower left.

The altars are 19th-century compositions. "As described, the two brothers Franz Xaver and Philipp Ernst von Kageneck ... in 1894, with great taste, purchased sculptures and panel paintings of various provenances and qualities, but all from around 1500, from the art trade in Munich, and had them assembled, supplemented by neo-Gothic additions such as tracery and pinnacles, into the impressive whole of the three shrine altars that we still have before us today."

The left side altar shows in the shrine as sculptures Sebastian once again, next to him Saint Bishop Wolfgang of Regensburg with bishop's staff and a model of a church. On the front sides of the painted wings, to the left are Saint Catherine of Alexandria with sword and wheel and Saint Odilia with two eyes on a book; to the right are Saint Barbara of Nicomedia with her tower and Saint Mary Magdalene with her anointing vessel. The reverse sides are also painted. On the predella, angels hold Veronica's Veil.

In the shrine of the right side altar, two winged putti crown an almost fully sculpted Madonna. The wings show in reliefs on the left a saint with an oil lamp, on the right Saint Afra of Augsburg on a burning pyre. The predella with the tabernacle and two angels is a 19th-century addition. If the saint with the oil lamp refers to Lucy of Syracuse, this would be unique in German art. "The meaning of the lamp as an attribute of Saint Lucy cannot be doubted. It is a speaking attribute, a pictorial representation of her name (Lucia = Lux)."

In the shrine of the main altar stands "the expressive carved image of the Crucified, whose loincloth swings dynamically in various directions." The painted wings show, from left to right, Saints George, defeating the dragon, Pope Urban I with tiara and grapes, Christopher, carrying the infant Jesus, and Anthony the Great with a book and a small bell on his staff. The predella contains an Agony in the Garden group.