Moosburg (Effretikon)

Moosburg
	Moosburg ruins
Creation time :	1254
Castle type :	Niederungsburg
Conservation status:	ruin
Place:	Effretikon
Geographical location	47 ° 25 '29 " N , 8 ° 41' 26" E Coordinates: 47 ° 25 '29 " N , 8 ° 41' 26" E ; CH1903: six hundred ninety-four thousand four hundred and sixty / 253411
Height:	520 m above sea level M.

The Moosburg is the ruin of a low castle in the former hamlet of Moosburg in the south of Effretikon in the canton of Zurich .

history

The Moosburg on the Murer map from 1566

The castle was built around 1254 by Count Hartmann IV of Kyburg for his wife Margaretha of Savoy. After the death of the childless couple, the castle came to the Habsburgs in 1273 and to the Lords of Schlatt ZH around 1300 as a fief .

In 1386 it was destroyed by the people of Zurich, around 1400 Burkhard von Schlatt pledged the Moosburg to his brother-in-law Johannes Schwend the Elder. During this time it was the administrative seat of some lower courts . Schwend's son of the same name was the first Zurich governor in the county of Kyburg . During his tenure from 1424 to 1437 he lived on the Moosburg.

During the Old Zurich War , the castle was destroyed by troops from Central Switzerland in May 1444 and the ruins subsequently served as a quarry. An engraving by David Herrliberger from 1745 shows that the tower and parts of the surrounding wall were still preserved.

The first excavations were carried out in 1896 by the Swiss Society for the Preservation of Historical Art Monuments. The yield was low; a monkshood recovered from the water well turned out to be the most valuable find. In 1910, the Antiquarian Society in Zurich acquired the castle hill.

Extensive excavations took place in 1952 and 1953. Numerous fragments of clay pots, a crossbow bolt and fragments of stove tiles from around 1400 were found. In 1955, the Moosburg was taken over by the Illnau-Effretikon community for 30,000 francs. The northern and western walls were preserved in 1970.

construction

The castle was on a moraine hill in a swampy plain called moss. The hill was accessible from the south via a bridge. The facility was surrounded by a wide and deep moat , which was reinforced in the southeast by a second ditch. A strip of the Riet has survived in the east of the castle hill.

The rectangular residential tower ( keep ) with high entrance was around 13 meters long and 10.5 meters wide; the wall thickness was 2.2 meters. The living rooms were on the upper floors. To the south of the tower was a residential building, to the north were stables and farm buildings. A 1.2 meter ring wall enclosed the building at a distance of around 5 meters.

Depiction by David Herrliberger , 1745
plan
Looking east

literature

Fritz Hauswirth: Castles and Palaces in Switzerland , Volume 4, Neptun Verlag Kreuzlingen

Web links

Commons : Moosburg - Collection of images, videos and audio files