Burg Greiffenstein – Wikipedia
The ruin of the castle Greiffenstein ( Polish Gryf castle ) is located on a 423 m high basalt summit. It is one kilometer south of the village of Proszówka (Gräflich Neundorf) in der gemeinde Gryfów Śląski (Greiffenberg) in Poland.
The castle probably originated in the 12th century as the seat of a noble von Greiff, but this is not secured. Due to its location about three kilometers east of the Queis, which at that time formed the border between the Duchy of Silesia and the Upper Lusatian sitzkreis belonging to Bohemia, it probably served to secure border. At the beginning of the 13th century it was the seat of the bird of the Greiffenberg-Greiffenstein soft picture. A certificate has proven to be a fake, according to which a Kastellan is said to have been sitting at the castle in 1242.
At that time, the castle, which has been part of the Duchy of Schweidnitz-Jauer since 1274/77, only consisted of the Oberburg. In 1354 she received Seyfried von Raußendorf as a pledge. After the death of Duke Bolko II in 1368, the Greiffenstein, together with the Duchy of Schweidnitz-Jauer, fell to the Bohemian King Wenzel in 1368, who was a son of Queen Anna von Schweidnitz. However, Bolkos II widow, Duchess Agnes von Habsburg, was entirely a lifelong usufruct. After her death in 1392, King Wenzel’s Greiffenstein was to the governor Benesch von Chusnik (Beneš of Choustník) initially pledged and sold two years later. Under the Burggrafen Wolf von Romke used by Chusnik, the castle was a robbery nest. In 1399 Romke was captured by the Greiffenbergers and beheaded at the castle.
Benesch von Chusnik pledged the Greiffenstein to Gotsche II. Schof, who already belonged to the Kynast Castle. When Gotsche acquired the rule of Greiffenstein with the cities of Greiffenberg and Friedeberg a year before his death in 1419, he laid an essential foundation for the possessions of his descendants in the Iser and Giant Mountains. Between 1425 and 1426 Gotsche III. From the Greiffenstein several feuds with the city of Görlitz.
After the Association of Greiffenstein and Kynast by Gotsches III. Nephew Ulrich I von Schaffgotsch in 1511 began a significant expansion of the castle, which was continued by Johann (Hans) of Schaffgotsch after Ulrich’s death in 1543. In front of the old Oberburg, which dominated the facility, a middle castle was created, which was still presented below a outer castle. All three parts of the castle were surrounded by castle walls separately and formed a huge castle complex. Hans, who died in 1584, had married Magdalena von Zedlitz in 1551, who brought Giersdorf to the marriage as a dowry.
Hans Ulrich von Schaffgotsch, who was born at the castle in 1595, expanded the Schaffgotsch possession with the gentlemen Trachenberg, Alt Kemnitz, Hertwigswalde, Prausnitz and Schmiedeberg. In 1627 he was raised to freedom of Semper. After his execution in 1635 in Regensburg (as an alleged co -configurator of Wallenstein), his heirs later received the confiscated property with the exception of the Trachenberg registry. During the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedes stormed the Greiffenstein in 1645, which they had unsuccessfully besieged five years earlier.
After the end of the war it was no longer the defensive castles, but representative castle buildings that the nobility preferred as a place of residence. Schaffgotsch was now the Kynast Castle and the damage to the Greiffenstein was no longer remedied. When the Kynast Castle burned down in 1675, the Warmbrunn Gut, where a castle stood since the end of the 16th century, became a family seat.
Johann Nepomuk von Schaffgotsch, who had already started in 1784 with the new building of Warmbrunn castle in 1777, had a simple summer castle built below the Greiffenstein in 1798, which served as an administrative seat and was completed in 1800. At the same time, he had most of the castle grinded and partially used as building materials. Despite the demolition of the largest part of the castle, the existing ruins are still impressive and great.
Several say around the ruins, including that of Vogel Greiff , a haunted ancestor or the Ritter Gotsche . The castle was also visited by Theodor Körner, who was the poem to her On the Greiffenstein dedicated.
The Greiffenstein remained in the possession of the Schaffgotsch family until 1945.
In Frankfurt there is a Catholic student connection named after the Greiffenstein Castle, the K.D.St.v. Greiffenstein (Breslau) in Frankfurt am Main.
Recent Comments