Greifenstein Castle (Filisur)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Greifenstein Castle
Location of the Greifenstein ruins

Location of the Greifenstein ruins

Creation time : 12th Century
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Place: Filisur
Geographical location 46 ° 40 '34 "  N , 9 ° 41' 35.4"  E Coordinates: 46 ° 40 '34 "  N , 9 ° 41' 35.4"  E ; CH1903:  772 484  /  171910
Height: 1246  m above sea level M.
Greifenstein Castle (Canton of Graubünden)
Greifenstein Castle

The ruins of Greifenstein Castle lie above Filisur in the Albula Valley in the Swiss canton of Graubünden .

location

The ruin of the hilltop castle is 1246  m above sea level. M. high above the village and can be easily reached from the track of the Rhaetian Railway via a forest path in about a quarter of an hour. The uppermost part of the facility can only be climbed with climbing equipment today; the path that Clavadetscher / Meyer mention in 1984 is no longer accessible.

Nicolin Sererhard wrote around 1740: The old Gryfenstein castle stands on a very high gächen (steep) Büchel.

investment

The extensive facility was spread over three terrain levels with a large difference in height. The structural connections are no longer clear. A tower-like building with an irregular floor plan stood on the top step, an inaccessible rock head that sloped vertically on all sides. Access was via a staircase carved into the rock with three turns. Holes carved into the rock suggest a covered wooden gallery.

East wall

The main castle was on the terrace of the middle step , leaning against the vertically rising east wall. The lowest of the original three floors is heavily overgrown and filled with rubble. Remains of a surrounding wall following the edge of the plateau have been preserved. Windows, a toilet bay and a rubble stone have been preserved in the west wall . The arrangement of the beam holes in the south-west wall only allows a floor height of approx. 1.5 m; the reason for this classification is not known.

  • South wall with the low floor

  • Window in the north wall

  • North wall to the west

  • North wall to the east

The location and type of the individual buildings are no longer recognizable. The residential buildings and a chapel leaning against the north wall, whose apse carved into the rock is still well preserved, were certainly located here . The paintings mentioned by Erwin Poeschel in 1930 - brown ribbons and ocher-colored and light blue decorations - have not survived. To the south below the chapel was the cistern carved out of the rock , which was closed off by a wall and provided a narrow opening for the scoop. The scoop with carved beam holes was above the cistern. The gate to the facility was in the south-west section, which has been removed except for a few remains.

  • Connection of the north wall to the rock, on the right the apse of the chapel

  • cistern

  • Chute

  • Space for scoop

  • Access to the lowest level

There was a spacious terrace on the bottom step. The entrance was from the east through a narrow entrance, from which wall remains and a channel of a locking beam have been preserved.

history

1896

There are no documents about the construction of the castle; it is assumed that it was built in the second half of the 12th century. Greifenstein was the center of the Greifenstein rule, which included Filisur, Bergün, Latsch and Stuls. According to the coat of arms, the noble lords of Greifenstein were of the same tribe as the lords of Wildenberg and Frauenberg in Ruschein . In 1233 Rudolf von Greifenstein is mentioned, who was involved in the murder of Bishop Berthold and who was sent on a crusade as a penance; for this he received an extension of the deadline to 1237. In 1243 Heinrich and Albert are attested in a Vazer document: … Hainricus et Albertus de Grifinstain.

The castle and rule of Greifenstein passed to the Wildenberger family before 1300; either the Greifensteiners were extinct or a branch of them was named after Wildenberg again. In 1297 an Ortolf, Ammann in Greifenstein, is mentioned as a witness in a Wildenberg document: Ortolfo ministor in Grifenstein . In 1320 Hugo von Wildenberg and his wife Anna von Wildenberg pledged the burch ze Griffenstaein, Bvrguen (Bergün), liute and gueter for 1150 marks to the bishopric in Chur.

After several changes of ownership - Planta from Zuoz , Andreas von Marmels , Werdenberg , von Matsch , who attacked von Greifenstein from Bishop Hartmann - the castle was conquered by the bishop's troops in 1394 ... and God gave him the luck that you had the three vestines ( Ramosch, Steinsberg and Greifenstein) won and dero von Mätsch and became the episcopal center in the Albula valley. On February 2nd, 1396 the bishop promised to keep the people of the rulership their rights and received the oath of allegiance from them ... when we brought the vesti Griffenstain ... under our control . After further disputes between the Matsch and the bishop decided in 1421 as arbiter, Duke Ernst of Austria that the castles should remain with the bishopric, but the bishop had to compensate the Matsch and Toggenburgers for Ramosch and Greifenstein with 2500 marks. In a dispute with Bishop Ortlieb (1458–1491) people in the church occupied Greifenstein, among others, with Zurich intervening in favor of the bishop.

Greifenstein served the episcopal bailiffs as the official residence of the episcopal governors until the municipalities bought out their rulership rights in 1537, then it was abandoned and quickly fell into disrepair. Ulrich Campell mentions them around 1550 as largely destroyed and desolate inside . The roof remained intact into the 19th century. The final disintegration took place after 1840 when beams and hewn stones were used to build the schoolhouse.

  • View to the northwest

  • Window in the northwest wall

  • View from the south

  • Demolition of the south wall

literature

  • Anton von Castelmur: The castles and palaces of the Canton of Graubünden. Volume III, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1940.
  • Otto P. Clavadetscher, Werner Meyer : The castle book of Graubünden. Zurich 1984, ISBN 3-280-01319-4 .
  • Paul Lorenz: On the history of the Greifenstein Supreme Court. Chur 1914.
  • Erwin Poeschel: The Castle Book of Graubünden. Zurich 1930.
  • Luzi Christian Schutz: The Greifenstein castle ruins near Filisur. Matura thesis at the Bündner Kantonsschule Chur 2007.
  • Jürg Simonett: Greifenstein. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Web links

Commons : Burg Greifenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files