Vilsegg Castle
| Vilsegg Castle | ||
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 Vilsegg Castle - The castle rock with the keep from the southwest |
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| Creation time : | around 1220 to 1230 | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Standing position : | Ministeriale | |
| Place: | Vils | |
| Geographical location | 47 ° 33 '24 " N , 10 ° 37' 34" E | |
| Height: | 887 m above sea level A. | |
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The Vilsegg Castle is a former military facility in Tyrol and is located about one kilometer northwest of the town of Vils , between Pfronten and feet , a few hundred meters from the German-Austrian border.
Geographical location
The ruins of the hilltop castle are located about 60 meters above the Vils valley on a 887 meter high rocky hill on the edge of the Salober mountain , on which the state border between Germany and Austria runs today.
The castle hill slopes steeply all around, making the fortress difficult to attack despite its relatively low location above the valley. Vilsegg is about 350 meters lower than the neighboring Falkenstein Castle, which is already on German territory .
history
In 1263 Heinrich von Vilsegg, a servant of the Lords of Hohenegg, is mentioned at the castle. For their part, the Hoheneggers were feudal men of the Kempten monastery . The castle is likely to have been built around 1220/30 and is considered one of the most important examples of Staufer architecture in Tyrol.
The ministerials of Vilsegg are mentioned for the last time in 1314, afterwards the Hoheneggers themselves sit in the castle.
At the beginning of the 14th century, Count Meinhard II of Tyrol (?) Tried to enlarge his territory at the expense of his neighbors. He also seized some of the Hohenegger castles, such as the nearby Loch cave castle near Pinswang , which Vilsegg held until 1408 as a fiefdom of the Kempten monastery. The monastery then enfeoffed the Duke of Austria with the castle and the rule, who returned both to the Hohenegger as an after-fief.
In 1671, Johann Franz, the last Hohenegger, died, the fiefdom fell back to Austria, so the Roman-German Emperor legally became the direct lieutenant of the monastery with regard to the rule of Vilsegg . The castle was still inhabited by the Austrian carers until at least 1709, but is already listed as a ruin on the Atlas Tyrolensis published by Peter Anich in 1774 .
The year 1806 saw the transition to Bavaria, but in 1816 the city, castle and dominion had to be finally ceded to Austria after the Congress of Vienna .
In 1939, larger parts of the wall collapsed after an earthquake (such as the east wall of the keep with the high entrance ), in 1953 the keep was secured by the Austrian Federal Monuments Office. The remaining remains of the walls of the palace and the fortifications are currently being exposed and renovated. To preserve the castle ruins, the "Interest Group for the Preservation of the Ruin Vilsegg" was founded on July 12, 1981 under Chairman Artur Hartmann, who renovated the keep and the northern curtain wall by 1993 .
description
From the relatively small area hilltop castle essentially only the powerful, six-story is keep maintained.
The castle site is located on a roughly 75 meters long and a maximum of 15 meters wide, rectangular summit plateau facing from west to east, which slopes steeply all around to the valley. The west end of the castle was occupied by the slightly elevated, almost square keep with the dimensions of 10.7 by 10.1 meters. The mighty tower, built around 1220/30, appears to have been habitable at least for a time (window openings) and originally had four non-vaulted floors and a battlement-crowned defense platform . The tower was later raised and closed with a gable roof. The wall thickness of the basement is almost two meters, the east wall has been missing since the earthquake of 1939. The masonry of the 17 meter high keep consists of rubble stones with corner blocks, and bricks can also be seen in the roof structure. The polygonal circular wall that surrounds the western part of the summit plateau was attached to the northeast and southeast corner of the keep, only a few remains of it have survived. Inside the castle, next to the keep, there was a courtyard measuring 17.50 by 15 meters, followed by the palace . Outside the curtain wall on the eastern narrow side of the castle, the summit plateau was divided into smaller plateaus by two cross trenches, which were probably also built on or fortified.
The ascent to the castle complex was from the north side of the castle hill. Below the keep, the castle path crossed an outer ditch and, after a bend, met the outer castle gate . This gate is connected to the north-east corner of the keep by a side wall; the wall has largely been preserved. Behind the outer castle gate there is said to have been a well, which was hewn out of the rock and reached to the bottom of the creek next to the castle path. After another 50 meters of steep ascent, you come across the inner castle gate on the northeast corner of the main castle, followed by a kennel . As an additional safeguard for the complex, two arched trenches with an outer wall were dug to the northwest below the keep.
literature
- Beatrix Pinzer, Egon Pinzer: castles, palaces, ruins in North and East Tyrol . Edition Löwenzahn Verlagsgesellschaft, Innsbruck 1996, ISBN 3-7066-2122-3 , p. 59.
- Toni Nessler: Castles in the Allgäu, Volume 2: Castle ruins in the West Allgäu and in the neighboring Vorarlberg, in the Württemberg Allgäu, in the northern Allgäu around Memmingen, in the northeast Allgäu around Kaufbeuren and Obergünzburg as well as in the eastern Allgäu and in the adjacent Tyrol . 1st edition. Allgäuer Zeitungsverlag, Kempten 1985, ISBN 3-88006-115-7 , pp. 252-261.
- Oswald Trapp : Tiroler Burgenbuch. Volume 7: Oberinntal and Ausserfern. Athesia et al., Bozen / Innsbruck / Vienna 1986, ISBN 88-7014-391-0 .
Web links
- Pictures of Vilsegg Castle on Burgenparadies.de
- Entry via Vilseck (Vilsegg) to Burgen-Austria
- Entry on castle ruins Vilseck in the Austria forum
Individual evidence
- ^ Oswald Trapp: Tiroler Burgenbuch. Volume 7: Oberinntal and Ausserfern