Wiesneck Castle near Buchenbach has a long and eventful history. Its few remains can still be found in the forest today.
When troops marching through during the Thirty Years War laid Wiesneck Castle to rubble and ashes, the days of the fortress in 1644 were numbered. It was never rebuilt and fell into disrepair. Today you get through the preserved lower entrance gate – covered by ivy and moss – into the ruin in the middle of the forest. Creeping paths lead around the castle grounds, where only a few remains and individual foundations can be seen. However, an imposing remnant of the wall gives an idea of how large and well fortified Wiesneck Castle once was.
Their existence is proven up to the year 1079. This makes the Wiesneck one of the oldest castles known in south-west Germany, and the oldest in Breisgau, according to the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments. The archological relics of a castle complex that has been rebuilt several times and the visible building remains make the site a protected cultural monument. In their publication “The Castles in Medieval Breisgau” (2003), the medieval historians Alfons Zettler and Thomas Zotz, who once taught at the University of Freiburg, provide insights into the eventful history of the Wiesneck.
The castle was ideally located to make way controls
The castle was on a hill at the entrance to the Wagensteig valley near Buchenbach on the eastern edge of the Zartener Basin. The ideal place to control the important road connection between the Breisgau and the Black Forest through the Wagensteig valley, which has always linked the Upper Rhine region with the Baar. Wiesneck was first mentioned in 1079 when it was destroyed by Berthold II of Swabia – later Zhringer – during the investiture dispute. Berthold conquered the castle “Wisnegk and forced all those from the Brisgw surrounding the Schwartzwald to come here”, reports the Reichenau chronicler Gallus hem.
The von Haigerloch family probably already owned the castle at that time, as Count Adalbert von Haigerloch-Wiesneck can be shown to have resided there in 1096. It is not known when the Wiesneck was rebuilt after it was destroyed. Adalbert’s brother Bruno founded the St. Mrgen Monastery around 1118, which has since remained connected to Wiesneck Castle, in competition with the neighboring St. Peter Monastery. The people of Zhringen had built it around 25 years earlier as a house monastery and burial place. When the Haigerloch family died out, the Wiesneck and the St. Mrgen monastery governor fell to the Counts of Hohenberg.
“Stormed sy and won the lock and noun, what sy found, and plundered the lock […] and burned. “
Heinrich Hug’s Villinger Chronicle
Albrecht von Hohenberg is a particularly interesting offspring of this family. He worked as a diplomat for the German king and earned fame and honor as a minnesinger. In the Codex Manesse – the most important and extensive German song manuscript of the Middle Ages – he is depicted under the name Albrecht von Haigerloch. Two song stanzas are attributed to Albrecht in the Codex Manesse. In 1293 he sold Wiesneck Castle and the St. Mrgen Monastery Bailiwick for 1,020 silver marks to the Freiburg patrician Burkard Turner.
Since then the castle has had different owners. Only 25 years after Burkard Turner, the Wiesneck and the Klostervogtei came to the wealthy Friborg patrician family Snewlin. After a dispute, this abbot threw Konrad von St. Mrgen and three monks into the Wiesneck castle tower for a few months. In 1372 the castle was sold to the nobles von Blumeneck. When these were run down, it fell back to the Landecker, a branch of the Snewlin family, almost 80 years later.
During the Peasants’ War, the Wiesneck was destroyed in 1525 by peasant leader Hans Mller von Bulgenbach and his peasant army. On their march to Freiburg they marched against Junker David von Landeck and his castle Wiesneck. These “stormed sy and won the lock and noun what sy found, and plundered the lock […] and burned on sunday […]”says Heinrich Hug’s Villinger Chronicle.
The Wiesneck was then rebuilt and inhabited. The intact castle can also be seen on the Sebastian table, an altarpiece in the castle chapel in Stegen from the first half of the 16th century. Before it was completely destroyed in the Thirty Years’ War in 1644, the Sickingers were the last residents of the Wiesneck, who then moved their headquarters to Ebnet.
The Wiesneck castle ruins near Buchenbach are now freely accessible and easily reached on foot. Narrow paths lead around the former castle and invite you to explore. You should be cross-country and bring sturdy shoes with you.
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