Château du Wineck

The castle Wineck, also Weineck or (wrongly ) Windeck (French Château de Wineck or Château du Wineck ), is the ruin of a late Romanesque castle in Alsace Haut -Rhin. On a rocky plateau standing, she towers over 330 meters above sea level, the small village of Thal cats five kilometers north-west of Colmar. It is the only Alsatian castle that stands in the middle of vineyards, where her name stirs: Wineck means " Weineck ". They surrounded granite able Wineck - Schlossberg produces a Riesling and one of the top wines of Alsace ( Alsace Grand Cru ).

In the 13th century emerged from a simple residential tower, the plant since the second half of the 13th century was a fief of the Bishopric of Basel and during its 800 -year history, including in the possession of the Counts of Pfirt, the Habsburg and the barons of Rathsamhausen. Since 1972, an association takes care of the castle, the keep is visible from afar.

After the ruin of the main castle was classified as a monument historique in October 1984, followed in May 1991, the inclusion of the outer ring wall in the memorial list.

Description

The small castle is situated on a hill -like rocky outcrop and consists of a main castle, which was preceded in the south a little deeper bailey. This was protected by an outer ring wall, from a 15-meter long piece in the southwest is still authentic. The visible today, almost completely acting wall was built only at restoration since the 1970s again.

The core of the castle consists of almost 21 meter high ruins of a nearly square keep and a roughly horseshoe-shaped inner ring wall, which comprises an approximately 25 x 25 meters large area. This is surrounded on all sides by deep trenches. Located on the north side moat is 18 feet wide by excavation work in the last quarter of the 20th century, while the eastern part of the trench used to be at least ten feet wide.

The three floors of the keep rising on a 6.94 × 7.39 -meters-in floor plan and have more than two meters thick. They are made of carved granite and greywacke that are covered on the lower floors on the outside with an Alsace - castles unusual, bright limestone. The cornerstones are humpback cuboids whose material on the third floor red sandstone. At the mountain facing north side of the dungeon on the second floor is protected by projection cube. On its south side, it has a door on the second floor with a light pointed arch, which is built out of a wooden covered balcony. She served a long time as a high input, to the west wall of the first floor, a new entrance was broken in the 19th century. The third level is where the opening of a latrine is visible on the north side.

To the west of the keep can be found - right on the tower then - the remains of a former residential building of granite stones, while once were stables on the east side. In the area enclosed by the inner annular wall courtyard there used to be a kitchen garden.

The main wall of the main castle whose battlements is still visible in part is mostly a reconstruction of the 20th century. It consists of granite quarried stone and is 1.5 meters thick and up to eight meters high. Your north side has a wall thickness of two meters. In its eastern part is the entrance of the small plant.

History

The origins of the castle go back to Wineck a residential tower, which was built around 1200 on the basis of the Counts of Eguisheim. His clients are not exactly known, but it is possible that it was built by the family of Eguisheim - Dabo to secure their territory against the Hohenstaufen. When that became extinct in 1225 with Gertrud von Baden, where both the counts of Pfirt as well as the bishopric of Strasbourg entitled to their possession. The documentary first mention of the castle from the February 5, 1251 is due to the resolution of this inheritance dispute, as Ulrich II of Pfirt Wineck - as well as the adjacent castle Hohnack - from Strasbourg Bishop Henry III. took of Stahleck fief. But even 20 years later, the Pfirter contributed all their castles on the Bishop of Basel as a fief.

Excavations showed that the castle was subjected before their first mention in 1230 structural changes. The tower of the surrounded by a palisade tower castle was raised to a height of about 18 meters. Probably taken place alongside the construction of the perimeter wall and a residential building on the west side of the tower.

Medieval and modern times

Through marriage of Joan, the heiress Ulrich III. of Pfirt, with the Duke Albrecht II of Austria, the county Pfirt including the castle Wineck 1324 came to the Habsburgs, who were subsequently invested by the Bishop of Basel with the castle. They gave the castle as a fief after the Knights of Wineck, a patrician family from Colmar, probably descended from the Girsbergern. This they held until their extinction about 1340 before it as an inheritance to Hartmann von Rathsamhausen, the nephew of the last owner, Andreas von Wineck went.

Among the Wineckern the residential tower has been increased by a further upstairs with vaulted ceiling in the 14th century. The builders could lay on the east wall, a floor higher, and on the south side of the keep the old entrance on the first floor. Only in a third and final stage of construction of the tower was then placed his third floor, where the needle cap ceiling of the second again was destroyed. After a fire in the middle of the 15th century, the castle was abandoned and no longer used. She fell in the following years and was mentioned in a Lehnsurkunde from around 1499 as " zerprochen Burkh ".

The barons of Rathsamhausen remained until their extinction in 1828 the owner of the castle. Then she came to the Baron of Gail and was from 1848 to 1864 the property of Bickard family. This sold the ruins in 1866 for the symbolic price of one franc to the Society for the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Alsace ( Société pour la Conservation des Monuments historiques en Alsace ).

The castle today

Since 1972, the association " Société pour la Restauration et la Conservation du Château de Katzenthal " cares about the preservation and partial restoration of the castle, which can be visited from April to October on Sundays and public holidays in the afternoon. The keep exhibits are on display, which were found during excavations on the castle grounds, including a Romanesque double window whose location was the former cistern.