Münchsberg Ruins

En un regard

Le château en bref

Münchsberg is the ruin of a 13th-century hilltop castle on a ridge west of Pfeffingen (Basel-Landschaft), near Aesch and along the route of the former Platten Pass. At over 150 m in length, it is the largest ruin along the Burgengratweg between Aesch and Pfeffingen. It was founded after 1286 by Konrad III Münch, of an influential Basel knightly family attested from 1154, who thus gave rise to the Münch von Münchsberg branch. The castle was built on land cleared from the Aesch colonial court (Kolonenhof), over which the Münch family held the advocacy (Vogtei) until 1300; its foundation was probably intended to curb the expansion of the neighbouring Schaler family. In 1318, Konrad IV handed the castle over to the Bishop of Basel, who returned it to him as a fief. The Basel earthquake of 18 October 1356 destroyed it; Peter Münch, the last of the branch, died there, and the castle was never rebuilt. The ruin passed to the Münch von Landskron family and then, in 1459, to the Rotberg family, who merged it with the holdings of their Fürstenstein castle; a sale to Solothurn failed in 1515 in the face of the bishop's veto, which he approved in 1555. Heavily overgrown, the site is reached on foot from the Burgengratweg; it is listed as a cultural property of regional importance (category B).