Waldeck castle ruins (Upper Alsace)
| Waldeck castle ruins | |
|---|---|
 Castle site |
|
| Creation time : | 13th Century |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle |
| Conservation status: | Wall remains |
| Place: | Leymen |
| Geographical location | 47 ° 29 '7.9 " N , 7 ° 28' 29.1" E |
| Height: | 480 m |
The Waldeck castle ruins are the ruins of a hilltop castle on a rocky knoll southwest of Leymen in Sundgau ( Haut-Rhin department ), not far from the French border with the Swiss community of Rodersdorf .
history
The origin of the castle is unclear. Mentioned in 1302 as Valden Castle, the castle belonged to the von Rotberg family . It was transferred to the Prince Bishopric of Basel in 1302 by Johann von Rotberg and eventually passed to the Vitztum family. Between 1330 and 1340, in a feud between the prince-bishop and the Vitztum, it was captured by the prince-bishop's troops and badly damaged. Nevertheless, the Vitztum were ultimately able to keep and rebuild their fiefdom . In the Basel earthquake of 1356 the castle was destroyed and not rebuilt. The sovereignty over the associated rulership changed several times between the prince-bishopric and the Habsburgs , who then retained fiefdom from 1400. In 1500 the Habsburgs enfeoffed the kingdom of Reichenstein with the rule to which half the village of Leymen belonged. Since the Reich von Reichenstein already had the Landskron castle with the other half of Leymen from the margraves of Hachberg-Sausenberg , they now owned all of Leymen until the French Revolution . The amalgamation of the lordships of Landskron and Waldeck with the two different feudal lords repeatedly led to the erroneous assumption in later literature that the Habsburgs also had a share in the feudal sovereignty over Landskron Castle.
description
The main castle was on the highest cliff and had two wings. There are obtained from the southwestern tract wall radicals which a rectangular residential tower or a strongly fortified Palas blank with a floor area of 8 m × 18 m close. The northwest wing consisted of a multi-part building complex, which had a building with 2 to 2.50 meters thick walls in the northwest. There are still traces of a connecting wall between the two buildings.
In the northwestern forecourt there was a two-tier bailey , with the first tier about 12 meters wide and the second 20 meters. There are traces of the wall, but they do not indicate any buildings.
During excavations in the northeast wing at the end of the 19th century, two tips of tournament lances and a large copper kettle were found.
literature
- Eduard Spielmann: Once again: The origins of the Landskron! In: Annuaire de la Societé d'Histoire du Sundgau, 2000, pp. 97–111.
- Werner Meyer : Castles from A to Z. Burgenlexikon der Regio , Basel 1981, pp. 66–67 (with a floor plan of the castle).
Web links
- Entry on the Waldeck castle ruins in the private database "Alle Burgen".
- Waldeck ruins at burgseite.ch
- Château de Waldeck (Leymen) at j57oihy.blogspot.com (French)
