Ringstaholm

Ringstaholm stood on an island in the river Motala ström in the Swedish historical province of Östergötland. It was located near Lake Glan by the village of Fiskeby and was in its time one of the mightiest castles in Sweden. Today only a few remains of walls exist. King Charles VIII of Sweden is said to have been born at the castle.

Ringstaholm was first mentioned in 1316. Through an exchange it came in 1377 into the possession of Bo Jonsson Grip and was the seat of one of his bailiffs, who administered the surrounding hundreds which together formed the province of Ringstaholms län. In 1404 the castle was confiscated by the Crown. In 1425 Eric of Pomerania installed the German-born Henrik Styke as provincial administrator, who had to give up the castle during the Engelbrekt rebellion. At the beginning of 1470 the then owner, the knight Trotte Karlsson, was driven from the castle and the building was burnt down.

Later archaeological excavations, in which the foundation walls were uncovered, showed that part of the castle hill had been created by artificial filling.

Machine-translated from “Schloss Ringstaholm” on the German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Ringstaholm ranks #6,337 of 7,044 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #195 of the 200 mapped in Sweden. See how Sweden compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in German) ↗