Falkenstein Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

The ruins of Falkenstein Castle, often called Alt-Falkenstein, stand on a spur of gneiss at about 618 m above sea level, some 80 m above the floor of the Höllental, above the village of Falkensteig (in the municipality of Buchenbach), east of Freiburg im Breisgau. The site commands the confluence of the Engenbach and the lower entrance to the gorge. The castle was probably built around 1200 by the lords of Falkenstein, ministerials of the dukes of Zähringen attested from the twelfth century, to control the ‘Falkensteige’, a path bypassing the gorge and linking the Breisgau with the Baar and Lake Constance. Their domain extended up the valley as far as Hinterzarten and the Titisee; they also built other castles, including the nearby Bubenstein. The opening of a competing route through the Wagensteigtal reduced their tolls in the fourteenth century. Accused of brigandage against merchants and subjects of Freiburg, the Falkensteins saw their stronghold captured and dismantled by Freiburg on 6 December 1388, with a ban on rebuilding it; local tradition calls it the ‘Räuberschloss’. Only fragmentary sections of wall survive, spread over four levels, on a rock that is today difficult to access.