Guardaval Castle

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Guardaval Castle
Guardaval ruins

Guardaval ruins

Creation time : 12th Century
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: ruin
Place: Madulain
Geographical location 46 ° 35 '8 "  N , 9 ° 55' 59.6"  E Coordinates: 46 ° 35 '8 "  N , 9 ° 55' 59.6"  E ; CH1903:  seven hundred ninety-one thousand one hundred and sixty-three  /  162,404
Height: 1785  m above sea level M.
Guardaval Castle (Canton of Graubünden)
Guardaval Castle

The ruins of Guardaval Castle ("Talwache") lie above Madulain in the Engadin in the Swiss canton of Graubünden .

location

The ruin of the hilltop castle is 1785  m above sea level. M. west on a rock spur above the village of Madulain and can be easily reached from the train station in a quarter of an hour. The old mule track from Zuoz to the Albula passed above the castle .

investment

Plant plan
West side

The architectural connections are no longer clearly visible. The center of the complex was the keep in the northwest, remains of a Rasa Pietra plastering have been preserved . The high entrance was on the reconstructed SE side on the second floor. Inside there are no signs of habitation. The room received light from a gap window with a sloping bench. A wooden top cladding is likely.

A bering was added to the originally free-standing tower ; this shows a butt joint at the transition between the walls. In the west end there are traces of an elongated building that is divided transversely and which presumably contained living rooms and stables. In the south there are remains of the wall that probably belonged to a gate system. On the south side are the remains of a small kennel .

Guardval with restaurant around 1880

The area was affected from 1880 to 1935 by the building of an excursion restaurant, the construction of which had destroyed much of the original masonry. On the occasion of a restoration, the building was removed from 1935. In 2005 and 2006 the Guardaval ruins were secured again.

history

Written reports are available about the development of the castle: Bishop Volkard von Neuburg (term of office 1237–1251) had Guardaval built as a customs post and to strengthen the sovereign power. The maintenance of the castle was paid out of taxes that the episcopal subjects had to pay. In the 14th century the Lords of Planta held the castle as an episcopal fief or pledge. The Plantas originally came from Zuoz , where the "Planta Tower" still reminds of the family. In 1359 the Chur bishop documented Guardaval, which indicates the importance of the complex. Lieutenant knight Thomas Planta had the task of keeping the castle in good condition, in particular to provide it with roofs and to make it available to the bishop for military purposes if necessary. They owned the mining and fishing rights for the Engadine lakes, numerous episcopal fiefs and extensive real estate in the Engadine.

The Planta were involved in the founding of the church association in 1367 and thereby promoted the formation of free judicial communities in the episcopal territory. The Planta were allowed to remain on Guardaval, but knight Thomas von Planta (1377) and his son Jacob (1382) had to recognize the episcopal right to termination at any time.

Because Bishop Hartmann von Chur owed money lenders in Zurich, he had to pledge Guardaval to the Church of God in 1409. This came into the possession of the castle through purchase in the late 15th century. It lost its original meaning and was probably given up before 1500. According to the chronicler Ulrich Campell , Guardaval was still almost undamaged around 1550, but deserted and desolate. In 1617 they saw Fortunat Sprecher as a ruin.

Camogas saga

According to an Engadine legend, the Camogasker was once the lord of Guardaval. Initially, the people placed great trust in the knight and were invited to the castle for parties and music. One day, however, the knight learned that he was not the son of his revered father, who had died fighting for the holy grave in the East, but the descendant of a common man, the castellan . Thereupon the young knight had the castellan thrown over the rocks and the mother's bones fetched from the grave. From then on he hated people, rode lonely through the mountains, demanded the hardest labor from his subjects and seduced the country's daughters. He poisoned their being that they forgot father, mother and honor and sat themselves on the castle path so that he might see them.

After the knight had raged for a while and brought misery to the population, an angry father killed him in his castle. Since then, the knight has been a ghostly game hunter, who lives primarily in the Camogaskertal, but crosses the Bernina from time to time. He announces himself with accidents in the Alps, with storms, lightning and thunder he rides on a horse frame, he comes along, animal frames ride in front of him. A few times a year, but on dark days, it can happen that he shows himself to be alive. It used to be said that you first see two glowing eyes and that if you don't say a prayer immediately then you are lost. The children who were born on such a day were called Camogask children in the past.

Surname

Since the Romanic verb guardar (to look) goes back to the Germanic wardon (to observe), the name "Guardaval" appears in numerous forms with a w:

  • 1290-1298 aput Wardavalle
  • 1359 in castro nostro Wardenwall
  • 1377 the vesti Wardaual
  • 1410 ain vesti called Wardavall

The castle is also called Wardauall by the chronicler Johannes Stumpf .

gallery

literature

  • Anton von Castelmur: The castles and palaces of the Canton of Graubünden , Volume I, Birkhäuser-Verlag, Basel 1940
  • Otto P. Clavadetscher, Werner Meyer : The castle book of Graubünden . Zurich 1984, ISBN 3-280-01319-4
  • Castle map of Switzerland, Federal Office of Topography, 2007 edition
  • Werner Meyer: Castles of Switzerland. Volume 3 . Silva publishing house. Zurich, 1983
  • Willy Zeller: Art and Culture in Graubünden , Haupt Verlag Bern, 1993
  • Heinrich Boxler: The naming of castles in northeastern Switzerland and in Graubünden Zurich 1976

Web links

Commons : Guardaval Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Sage