Burgruine Ortenburg

Ruin Ortenbourg

The ruin places castle located in the village of Lower House of the municipality Baldramsdorf, west of Spittal an der Drau, located on the lower north slope of Goldeck and the southeastern edge of Lurnfelds.

History

The fortress is a twin castle, 740 m above sea level, with two drawbridges into two courtyards with a romanesque- gothic and bailey castle keep. In the third courtyard is a Romanesque-Gothic castle chapel, a fortified tower and the palace. Was built in the system of Adalbert, the Freising vice-canon in Lurngau ( 1070-1096 ), whose son Otto was called in 1141 Earl of Ortenbourg. The oldest written mention of the castle dates from the year 1136. Due to the earthquake of 1348 Ortenbourg like other Carinthian castles were destroyed or at least damaged.

Once the castle center of the mighty Carinthian county to which the former city of Teurnia ( Celtic- Roman capital of landlocked Noricum and early Christian bishopric ), the Drau valley of Moellbruecke until Villach and possessions in Upper Carniola was ( to Radmannsdorf ) and Lower Carniola ( at edge and including the Gottschee ) belonged.

Alliances and mining made ​​the Ortenburgers rich; they are the founders of Spittels 1192 and the market Spittal, possessed several castles and were defenders of the Patriarch of Venice ( " Sword of Aquileia " ) until their extinction 1418.

The name of county Ortenbourg was repeatedly inherited, lent and sold, and remained until 1918 exist. The construction of the castle in Spittal in 1527 by Gabriel von Salamanca- Ortenbourg places the castle was only accommodation for servants. 1662 the brothers sold the county Widmann to the princes of Porcia.

1690 has been destroyed by an earthquake and a hurricane-like storm the castle places. From defensive walls and locks a hermitage was built on the mountainside. This had the new (1720-1760) of the monastery - supervised by the Order of Hieronymitaner - soft on the present site. Joseph II abolished the Order. The property acquired in 1871 Gustav Ritter von Gröller.

The Marhube with watch towers and the area of the ruins since 1995 owned by the family Edlinger- Schurian.

With the establishment of a separate association in 1976 the ruins were renovated and made ​​accessible to visitors again. The "Association of Helpers Ortenbourg " in Baldramsdorf provides for the preservation of the historic site.

Former headquarters

From here, managed by the Counts of Ortenbourg their Upper Carinthia and Carniola possessions and in the middle of the 13th century transmitted by the Patriarch of Aquileia as a fief primeval area between Reifnitz / Ribnica and Kulpa, which from the 30s of the 14th century by retreating oberkärntnisch - East Tyrol sons of peasants was settled and developed from the German Gottschee.