Ramstein ruins (Bretzwil)

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Ramstein ruins
1518: The Ramsteiners (left) leave the castle, the Basler move in. Representation by Karl Jauslin

1518: The Ramsteiners (left) leave the castle, the Basler move in. Representation by Karl Jauslin

Creation time : around 1100
Castle type : Höhenburg, rocky location
Conservation status: ruin
Place: Bretzwil
Geographical location 47 ° 23 '25 "  N , 7 ° 39' 15.3"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 23 '25 "  N , 7 ° 39' 15.3"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred and sixteen thousand two hundred eighty  /  248850
Height: 849  m above sea level M.
Ramstein ruins (canton Basel-Landschaft)
Ramstein ruins

The castle Ramstein is the ruins of a medieval rock castle in the canton of Basel-Land , in Switzerland .

location

The Ramstein ruins are located about 700 meters south of the village of Bretzwil at 849  m above sea level. M. on a mighty rock head, a northern branch of the Aletenchopf . In the immediate vicinity, 250 m east of the ruins, lies the Ramstein Castle Courtyard, which is still managed today.

investment

Only a few weathered remains of the wall remain from the once mighty castle. Images of the castle go back to the 17th century. Much of the following applies to it.

The former access was from the south via a kennel built on the east side of the fortress . This is one of the many examples that refutes the fact that kennels were always designed so that the right side of a rider, not protected by the shield, was exposed to the defender. When entering the castle, two gates had to be passed in the Zwinger before the main gate was reached behind the moat and drawbridge . The wall, equipped with a battlement , followed the edges of the terrain and enclosed the irregularly shaped castle complex.

In the inner courtyard, buildings were grouped against the curtain wall and in the southern part of the castle the upper castle rose on the clearly visible rock rib. This consisted of a residential wing with a chapel , a cistern for rainwater and the round main tower of the fortress. Because such a large system could not only be supplied from the cistern, there was also a fresh water supply from the Aleten located higher up. This was built using wooden teeth .

history

Originally the family called the Ramsteiner von Gilgenberg (Thuringia von Ramstein 1312 as Herre ze Gilienberc ), then von Brislach . A connection with the local wooden and earth castle Moosgräben (east of Breitenbach ) - the earliest form of castle building in this region - could be possible. In 1377 they got the village of Bretzwil as a fief and changed their name to Edelknechte von Ramstein .

The Ramsteiner coat of arms

Ramstein Castle must have existed as early as 1170, as the Ramsteiners took part in a feud against the St. Alban Monastery that year . After the family of the Ramsteiner divided in the 13th century, the rights were divided equally between the two main lines. In 1303 the fortress was destroyed by the Baslers because the Ramsteiners had captured a Basel citizen; a common means at the time to enforce legal claims or to participate in the business success of others.

After the reconstruction, the main Ramstein lines lived on Ramstein, Gilgenberg and in Zwingen , where they were also hit by the Basel earthquake . The damage to Ramstein Castle cannot be precisely determined, but was presumably minor, as there does not seem to have been any significant interruption in the use of the castle.

The Ramsteiners were quite expansive in the 14th and 15th centuries and tried to acquire other rulers, e.g. E.g. the Rifenstein . In 1459 one main line of the Ramsteiners died out, and so the fortress came back into undivided ownership. However, in 1518 Christoph von Ramstein had to sell the now neglected castle with the associated rights to the city of Basel , presumably for economic reasons . The Basler Vogt carried out a partial repair of the system. Parts of the increasingly dilapidated castle were still inhabited into the 19th century. Then the already badly damaged building fabric quickly deteriorated; uninhabited parts were torn down earlier for security reasons.

The Ramsteiner coat of arms, the two crossed glaives , can be found near Bretzwil , Brislach , Nunningen , Zwingen and Zullwil .

See also

literature

  • Werner Meyer : Castles from A to Z - Burgenlexikon der Regio . Published by the Castle Friends of both Basels on the occasion of their 50th anniversary. Klingental printing works, Basel 1981, pp. 120–121.
  • August Burckhardt : The free and noble servants of Ramstein . undated
  • Emanuel Büchel : Ramstein . General view, around 1750, Basel State Archives

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gilgenberg Castle / Zullwil - Solothurn , dickemauern.de