Kybfelsen castle

Kybfelsen Castle
Burg auf dem Kybfelsen
Freiburg im Breisgau
Northern peak with neck ditch
Kybfelsen Castle
Coordinates	47.960730°N 7.884972°E / 47.960730; 7.884972 Fatal error: The format of the coordinate could not be determined. Parsing failed.
Type	spur castle
Code	DE-BW
Height	820.8 m above sea level (NN)
Site information
Condition	Burgstall
Site history
Built	probably 12th century

remains of wall on the northern peak

View from Kybfelsen peak westward to Freiburg im Breisgau

Kybfelsen castle is a lost spur castle on the municipal area of Freiburg im Breisgau in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Geography

Only a few remains of Kybfelsen castle can be spotted on an elevation of 820.8 m above sea level on a mountain ridge in between the boroughs Günterstal and Kappel in the east of Freiburg. The castle's position on two tops of the mountain ridge roughly about 500 m above the valley allows a clear and unobstructed view with an extensive panorama of the area, making it a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. The view extends from the Feldberg in the east to the Schauinsland in the south. In the West, the view reaches beyond the Freiburg bight to the Kaiserstuhl. On clear days, even the Vosges in France can be spotted.

History

Already in the 14th century, German chronicler Matthias von Neuenburg mentions a spur castle on Kybfelsen ridge. The name "Kyburg" appears for the first time in historical legal texts in Kappel in 1484. Archaeological diggings in the 1920s by O. Kantorowicz date the castle even to former times, when the Zähringer ruled the Breisgau area in the 11th and 12th century. Archaeological finds of pottery from the 12th century reveal additional information concerning the usage of Kybfelsen ridge as a fortified settlement. More recent finds, however, implicate even earlier temporary settlements during the Bronze Age. The question of the builder or the owner of the castle remains unanswered, as no further evidence remains. A connection popular in earlier research to the counts of Kyburg, whose dominions lay in present-day northern and eastern Switzerland, is considered highly debatable nowadays. Due to remaining finds, the end of settlement and the abandonment of the castle is assumed in the first half of the 13th century.

Description

The small castle rose on two peaks of Kybfelsen ridge, the eponymous Kybfelsen, which are connected by a narrow ridge. The castle extends from the northern peak over an area of 70 m to the southern - and plainer – peak, where it reached its maximal width of 30 m. On the southern side, the castle was fortified with a broad wall, of which only pieces of foundation remain in the soil. On the eastern side, the castle was bordered by a large building, the so called "Ostbau" (eastern building), which cannot be located any more. On its southwest corner, the castle wall leaned into the rock face. Remains of foundation on the levelled surface of the southern peak hint at the former existence of a tower ruin, named the "Südturm" (southern tower) in a 1929 archaeological layout by Kantorowicz. The narrow connecting ridge was flanked on its western side by a large wall, which is now decayed, but was clearly recognizable in the 1920s. The steep slope on the eastern side seemed to provide sufficient protection to the castle as there is no evidence of a wall. Remains of wall fragments are primarily preserved on the northern peak. There, an 8-metre-wide tower ruin with up to 2 meters thick masonry can still be seen. In front of the tower, a 12 m deep natural fissure in the rock is located. Due to its artificially caved bottom it is believed to serve as a neck ditch.

Further reading

• Alfons Zettler, Thomas Zotz (Hrsg.): Die Burgen im mittelalterlichen Breisgau, I. Nördlicher Teil: Halbband A-K. In: Archäologie und Geschichte. Freiburger Forschungen zum ersten Jahrtausend in Südwestdeutschland, Heft 14. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2003, ISBN 3-7995-7364-X Search this book on ., pp. 179–185.

External links

• Entry on Kybfelsen in EBIDAT, the databank of the European Castles Institute
• Burg Kybfelsen bei badische-seiten.de Archived 2017-07-12 at the Wayback Machine

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