Strassberg Castle

Strassberg Castle is a ruined castle in the municipality of Churwalden of the Canton of Graubünden in Switzerland.

The castle was built in the 12th century to guard the road from Chur over the alpine passes. The oldest part of the castle, the ring wall, was built in the second half of the 12th century. The main tower was added in the early 13th century. The Lords of Strassberg first appear in the historical record in 1253.

The ring wall around the main castle originally had a residential building along the north side and still shows signs of windows and privies. In the 13th century a large, square, four-story tower was added on the west side of the ring wall. East of the main ring wall was another, larger ring wall which may have included a gate house. Very little of this outer wall remains and it is unclear how it connected to the main castle.

The castle is first mentioned in a record in 1275 as castrum dictum Strasceberch and at that time it was owned by the powerful Freiherr von Vaz. The Strassberg family appear to have been ministerialis, unfree knights in service to a higher noble, or vassals of the Vaz family. Strassberg castle allowed the Vaz to collect taxes from trade along the road. In addition, it protected nearby Churwalden Abbey, which was the burial place of the family. After the extinction of the Vaz family, in 1339, the castle was inherited by the Counts of Toggenburg.

The Toggenburg counts received imperial permission to establish a customs station at Strassberg in April 1348. However, the Bishop of Chur objected and by December of the same year, the Toggenburg permission was revoked. Over sixty years later, in 1413, they were able to acquire customs rights from Emperor Sigismund, which when the bishop objected, ended up with Zürich having to arbitrate between the Toggenburgs and the bishop.

In 1360 the last Strassberg died out and the castle passed fully to the Toggenburgs. For the next three quarters of a century several different Toggenburg vassals held Strassberg as a fief. When the last Toggenberg count, Frederick VII, died the castle was inherited by the Counts of Montfort.

Text adapted from “Strassberg Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Strassberg Castle ranks #6,611 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #138 of the 201 mapped in Switzerland. Founded 1275, it is older than 67% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 860 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. 17 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Winterthur, 98 km away. It is one of the 24 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Graubünden. See how Switzerland compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗