Location: Neubois, Bas- Rhin Department Map
Constructed: 12th century
Château du Frankenbourg is a medieval fortress on the outskirts of
Neubois in the Bas- Rhin Department of Alsace, France. Despite year
of neglect Frankenbourg Castle is still a magnificent example of
medieval architects and military engineers. First evidence of a
military fortifications date back to an unknown Roman Fortress that
was erected here by Roman legionnaires. Although we don't know the
exact time period and its layout, archeological digs in the area did
uncover several clues. Archeologists discovered several artifacts
including coins of Constantine the Great (early 4th century),
beautiful statues and a battle ax. They chose this strategic hill
for its natural defenses. It rises to a height of 703 meters and
dominates the local countryside. From here you can see the Ville
Valley, Liepvrette Valley, parts of St. Marie-aux- Mines Valley and
Chalmont mountain. Any movement of local tribes could be monitored
and controlled.
Château du Frankenbourg or Castle
Frankenbourg is a German name that can be translated as "Fortress of
the Franks". The name was given to a simple fortress that was built
here in the 5th century under orders of Clovis of the Merovingian
dynasty. Clovis I just conquered these lands and he decided that the
best location for his new castle would be abandoned and ruined Roman
Castle. Legend claims that it was here in Frankenbourg Castle did
Clovis made a promise to his wife Clotilde that if he will defeat
Alemannic Germanic tribes in the upcoming Battle of Tolbiac that he
will accept Christian God and baptize his people. Oral tradition
claims that Clotilde spent several night praying to her Christian
God to grant her husband victory.
Clovis did win that battle
and many more to come. He became one of the most important rulers in
a future France that managed to gather various Frankish, Gaelic,
Germanic tribes after the fall of the Ancient Roman Empire. He also
kept his promise and became the first Christian ruler of France
bringing new religion to his people. According to local legends
Clovis favored Château du Frankenbourg and spend many days here
hunting and drinking with this friends.
Current citadel of
Château du Frankenbourg was constructed on the same location in the
12th century. Fortress kept is traditional name, but its walls were
bigger and more sophisticated than previous castle. It was badly
damaged during fire in 1582. There was no need for the stationary
military citadel like this medieval castle, so Château du
Frankenbourg was largely abandoned. Its ruins serves as a quarry for
local population for several centuries. Only in the late 19th
century archeologists and historians began to explore ruins of the
castle along with the surrounding lands. In 1898 Château du
Frankenbourg was added to the list of historical monuments by the
French Ministry of Culture.
Geographic location
Schlossberg
It is on the
top of the Schlossberg ("castle mountain"), which separates the Val
de Villé from the Val d'Argent, that the castle of Frankenbourg was
built on an old Roman castle where many objects of this period (coin
of Constantine I, bronze statuette and ax). This cone-shaped summit
rises to 703 meters and is surrounded on all sides by the forest.
From this summit we can see the plain of Alsace, the valley of
Villé, as far as Breitenbach and the valley of Lièpvrette, including
Lièpvre. In this direction, you can also see the mountain of
Chalmont, which rises to 697 meters. On the right, the rock of
Coucou, shelters a hertzian relay of television and radio
broadcasting, which serves the region of Middle Alsace and Val
d'Argent. The castle dominates the entrance to the
Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines valley (the Val d'Argent or Val de Liepvre)
crossed by the Transvosgian road which ends in Lorraine and which,
in the Middle Ages, was of strategic interest.
Access
When
from Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines you want to get to the castle of
Frankenbourg, you first take the national road 59 to the bottom of
the village of Lièpvre, then you turn left after crossing the
Lièpvrette in front of the Cuisines Schmidt. We then follow the road
to La Vancelle, then we cross a pine forest that leads to the
castle. There is no asphalt road that leads to the castle from La
Vancelle. On the other hand, there is a paved road from Lièpvre and
La Vancelle which is only open to automobile traffic at a certain
time of the year and only on Sundays. Another asphalt road exists
from Breitenau in the Val de Villé which allows you to get as close
as possible to the Frankenbourg castle, but here too car traffic is
only open on Sundays at a certain time of the year. The rest of the
journey to the castle is done in ten minutes without fatigue. You
just have to leave the car and park in the car park provided for
this purpose, near the Schlossplatz (Castle Square). The castle is
also accessible on foot from La Vancelle, from Neubois, or even from
Lièpvre.
Previous stands
Long before medieval
times, the place where this castle stands today was the subject of
construction. Archaeological finds have revealed the presence of
objects dating back to the Bronze Age, Roman coins and a statuette -
the bull with 3 horns on display at the Maison du Val de Villé,
discovered by a resident of Rombach-le-Franc. This is not surprising
when we consider that the place represented a strategic position and
an important lock to monitor the entrance to the two Vosges valleys
arranged approximately from west to east: the valley of Villé to the
north and the valley of 'Money in the south.
The construction
of the castle attributed to Clovis?
The exact origin of the
castle is unknown but a former analyst, Daniel Specklin, affirms
that it was Clovis (Clodovig) king of the Franks who built this
castle around the 5th century when he conquered Alsace. He would
have built this castle on a plateau which dominates the two valleys
of Lièpvrette and Villé in order to more easily ensure the passage
of his troops from east to west. He named this castle "Frankenbourg"
which means the fortress of the Franks (Burg der Franken). He built
a chapel there where Specklin said he saw, on one of the painted
stained-glass windows that still existed in his time, the first
Franks coat of arms: three sand toads (black) on a silver field (on
a white background). According to legend, during the battle of
Tolbiac which some historians place in Kochersberg, north-west of
Strasbourg, Clovis had promised his wife Clotilde that he would
convert to the God of Christians if he granted him victory. Alsatian
tradition has it that this promise was made at the castle of
Frankenbourg. After his conversion to Christianity, Clovis would
have replaced the three toads with three fleurs-de-lis which then
became the arms of the kings of France. It is in the chapel of this
castle, says tradition, that the wife of Clovis Sainte Clotilde
prayed, during the battle of Tolbiac, to obtain the victory and the
conversion of her husband. Another legend has long circulated in the
region. At the foot of the mountain, near Villé, a village bears the
name of Bassemberg (the mountain of Basine), where the mother of
Clovis, according to tradition, had a house that she lived during
her stay in the region.
First official mention
This castle
is officially mentioned for the first time in 1123 under the name of
Frankenbourg through a charter of the emperor Henry V. This castle
is also mentioned on July 4, 1153 when Frederick I came to visit the
Erstein abbey founded three centuries previously by the Empress
Ermengarde of Tours around 849, a village that her husband, Emperor
Lothaire I had entrusted to her in 817. It was on the occasion of a
treaty between Abbess Bertha and Margrave Hermann of Baden, attended
by Frederick I of Hohenstaufen and Sigebert III of Werd - a
descendant of the Frankenbourgs and an ally of the Hohenstaufen -
that the name of Frankenbourg is evoked. Sigebert receives the title
of Count of Frankenbourg around 1153 from Frédéric Barberousse. He
probably also held this castle in stronghold of the bishopric of
Strasbourg, which had become its owner by virtue of a donation made
in 1061 by the Margrave Hermann and his wife Hilca. Around 1336,
Ulric de Werd, Landgrave of Lower Alsace, also held it in stronghold
of the same bishopric, and in 1351 the counts Louis and Frédéric
d'Œttingen received it from the emperor Charles IV. The Werds
claimed to descend from Duke Etichon in the same way as the Dukes of
Lorraine. The year 1411, the bishopric of Strasbourg, to which it
therefore belonged, employed 1000 florins and in 1447 2000 florins,
for its reconstruction. At this last time it was occupied by the
sons of Burcard de Lutzelstein whose sons were subjected to exile
because of the innumerable exactions which they caused. In 1470 the
city of Sélestat appointed a lord in charge of supervising the
castle in anticipation of a possible attack by the Burgundian troops
of Charles the Bold.
The Counts of Frankenbourg
We generally know in Alsace the castle of
Frankenbourg which dominates the entrance of the two valleys of
Lièpvre and Villé but we hardly know the counts and the county of
this name. If historians mention it, it was only under the title of
Count de Werd that the last of them took. The name of Frankenbourg
is mentioned for the first time in a charter of the emperor Henri V,
given in Strasbourg on January 26, 1123 for the convent of
Alpirsbach which is in Württemberg. Among the witnesses of this act,
following the counts Hugo de Dagsbourg, Folmar de Hünebourg,
Guillaume de Lützelbourg, Frédéric de Sarrebrück (Saraburc), we meet
Count Conrad de Frankenbourg (Franconeburc). But who was this
Conrad? The lack of documents does not allow this question to be
refined. He is probably closely related to the counts of Sarrebrück
(of Alsatian origin?). The second personage by the name of
Frankenbourg who is in possession of the county is Count Sigebert.
We find for the first time the name of this Sigebert in Alsace in a
document of September 21, 1109 from Bishop Cunon of Strasbourg in
favor of the priory of Saint-Léonard near Bœrsch. In this piece, he
is referred to as just Earl Sigebert. However, this Sigebert (II)
was in fact Count of Saarbrücken, (small) -son of the first known
Sigebert, to whom Henry IV of the Holy Empire, at the request of the
Duke of Lorraine, had donated in 1080 of Wadgassen in the Sarregau.
This Sigebert (Ier) happened to be, like Duke Thierry and Duke
Frederick of Hohenstaufen, of the Emperor's party against the Pope.
Sigebert I, who is count in Sarregau in Franconia (region of
Saarbrücken; cf. the land of Sarre, plus Deux-Ponts / Zweibrücken
originally) owned property from the time of Duke Adalbert of
Lorraine and then of his brother Gérard d ' Alsace (or Gérard Ier de
Lorraine). One of his two sons, Winither, became abbot of Lorsch, of
which he conferred the richest property (in Brumath) in fiefdom on
his brother Sigehart or Sigebert II of Sarrebrück. It is from this
time that the prosperity of the family dates. The sons (or rather
brothers?) Of Sigebert II of Saarbrücken are well known in history.
The most famous, Adalbert, was Archbishop of Mainz (1111-1137) and
Chancellor of the Empire under Henry V, Bruno (n) became Abbot of
Lorsch and in 1110 Bishop of Speyer, then Sigebert III and Frederick
above who bear expressly the title of Counts of Saarbrücken. The
counts of Frankenbourg would therefore come from the counts Sigebert
(moreover this first name will be found among their descendants, the
counts of Werd). In addition, see below a hypothesis to link the
Sigeberts of Saarbrücken-Frankenbourg to Count Conrad of
Frankenbourg met above.
The count-ban of Frankenbourg
This county, better known under the name of
Comte-Ban, forms the less fertile southern part of the Villé valley
because it leans against the northern slope of the mountains, which
separate the Lièpvre valley from that of Villé. It is made up of the
villages of Fouchy (formerly called Grube), Breitenau, Neuve-Église
(Neukirch), Hirtzelbach, Dieffenbach-au-Val and Neubois (Gereuth).
The Val de Villé could have belonged as a whole to one and the same
family, the Ortenbergs. According to tradition this family could be
the descendants of Duke Attich in the 7th Merovingian century. It is
not known when the separation took place, but according to the
origin of the name of the village Neukirch and what is known of the
valley, it should not have taken place before the eleventh century.
As a result of his exposure, the Count-Ban could not have been
handed over to cultivation and exploitation until well after the
county of Ortemberg. We know the counts of Ortemberg since the
beginning of the eleventh century, They are the founders of the
abbey of Honcourt in the year 1000. Their possessions were
transmitted following marriage to the count then emperor Rudolph
IV-I of Habsburg (Ortenberg passed in 1162 to the
Hohenberg-Haigerlochs, in Baden; then Gertrude-Anna de Hohenberg
married Rudolf IV-I in 1245). As already mentioned above, the first
known count of Frankenbourg is a named Conrad in 1123. It is not
known if he was descended from Ortenbourg. Or was it perhaps a
grandson of Hildegarde, wife of Frédéric de Büren, mother of Otto
bishop of Strasbourg and of Frederick (c. 1047-1105; first of the
(Hohen) -Staufen to become Duke of Swabia in 1079; grandfather of
Barbarossa), by a younger brother of the latter, Conrad (born around
1049 and already dead in 1095)? It is plausible that the sister or
the daughter of this Conrad of Frankenbourg was the wife of a count
of Saarbrücken (the latter would then be none other than Sigebert
II) and would have brought him Frankenbourg.
Property of the
Counts of Werd (descendants of the Frankenbourgs), in 1232 it became
a stronghold of the Church of Strasbourg.
In 1359, the Bishop of
Strasbourg bought the lands and the castle of Frankenbourg and
entrusted the administration to the Counts of Linange / Leiningen -
younger branch of the Counts of Saarbrücken and vassals of the
Church of Strasbourg - who thus became Landgraves of the Lower
-Alsace. But faced with financial difficulties, he had to relinquish
a large part of the property he had accumulated, including the
castle and villages of Fouchy, Breitenau, Hirtzelbach,
Dieffenbach-au-Val, Neubois and Neuve-Église and later also
Châtenois. It was the canons of the Grand Chapitre of Strasbourg
Cathedral and the city of Sélestat who bought it. The transaction
took place on October 25, 1462 for a sum of 8002 florins. The Grand
Chapitre of Strasbourg Cathedral took an option for 2,000 florins,
the city of Sélestat contributed 4,000 florins, and two brothers,
Jacques and Bernard Wurmser, pooled 2,000 florins. In 1483 the Grand
Chapitre of Strasbourg bought the vast real estate and forest
heritage of Frankenbourg and thus became the real master of
Count-Ban until the Revolution.
Modern history
The castle
was destroyed by a fire caused by lightning in 1582. It was listed
as a historical monument in its entirety on December 6, 1896, but
the protohistoric wall was not until September 10, 1990.
It
is said in the valley that between 1870 and 1873 the Blessed Virgin
appeared on the path where today there is a Stations of the Cross, a
chapel and a spring, in the forest district of Neubois, not far from
the Frankenbourg castle. . She would have appeared there a hundred
times in front of thousands of people, sometimes from far away.
Architectural elements
The ruins of this castle offer nothing more than a
vast empty enclosure of rectangular shape, surrounded by walls with
a height of 6 to 10 meters. The gate is located on the north side
and faces the Alsace plain. On the side of the Val de Villé,
therefore to the north, is the keep, relatively well preserved, in
which you can still see a brick vault. This tower is 11 meters high
and its walls are 4 meters thick. Inside the enclosure, on the south
side facing the Val d'Argent, you can see, leaning against the wall,
a very well preserved stone staircase of 20 to 25 steps which
probably led to the first floor. Not far from this staircase and on
the same side, near the front door, is a small window, half-hidden
by the rubble which obstructs the entrance and through which one
enjoys a nice view of the ground. the Lièpvrette valley.
The
pagan wall
There is a so-called pagan wall surrounding
Frankenbourg Castle on three sides, about 150 meters below the last
walls. Baptized in this way by Pope Leo IX, who considered it to
predate the Christian era, this wall is on the western slope of the
Schlossberg, a little lower than the castle. On the eastern slope,
there is no trace. This wall bears a certain resemblance to the
pagan wall of Mont Sainte-Odile, but bears no resemblance to that of
Taennchel, although it is about ten kilometers away. The
construction of the pagan wall of Frankenbourg, like its assembly,
comprises considerable blocks assembled by dovetail keys. Its
thickness is 1.80 m, its width 0.60 to 0.90 m, and its height 0.50
to 0.70 m.
- Most specialists think that this wall dates back
to the late Iron Age, perhaps La Tène; Gallic pieces have been
found; at the foot of this wall in 1932 a pot was unearthed
containing several hundred pieces (from the Gallo-Roman or Gallic
period?).
According to the limonite found on the spot, it
could be a half-artisanal, half-cult protected place (as at the
Celtic camp of Bure in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges). Excavations will still
have to confirm this hypothesis. The techniques employed by its
builders tip the scales in favor of this era.
- But it can
also come from the Gallo-Roman period, in particular because of the
particularity that the builders of the time had to burst the rocks
by iron wedges. Bronze coins depicting Constantine I (AD 272-337)
were discovered here in 1926 by Robert Forrer, suggesting that the
Romans stayed at the site during the Late Empire, in the 3rd and 4th
centuries AD Indeed, wooden dovetails were also widely used during
the Roman period.
- Finally, other archaeologists believe, on
the contrary, that the wall could have been built in the Merovingian
period of the High Middle Ages during the reign of the Duke of
Alsace Aldaric and his descendants. They are based on the analysis
of wood chips found on the scene.
Only the northern and
southern slopes of the Schlossberg have preserved sections of the
wall. In its southern part, it follows a practically rectilinear
line which rises gently. The wall also merges into large rocks that
are found on site. Later, around the Middle Ages, many stones from
the pagan wall were probably used to build Frankenburg Castle. This
protohistoric enclosure was listed as a historical monument on
September 10, 1990.
Community life
For several years, many
enthusiasts have been working to make this site accessible to
walkers. among them: the Vosges de Villé Club, the Val de Villé
Historical Society, the Scouts and Guides of France. Since May 2013
the association "Les Mains d'Or du Frankenbourg" aims to federate
all the goodwill around several sites and to "[...] ensure the state
of the ruins of the castle of Frankenbourg and stabilize the
surrounding vegetation [...] ".