Zahringen castle

The ruins of Zahringen castle is what remains of the ancestral seat of the Zahringer Alemannic noble circle of relatives, positioned near Freiburg im Breisgau. The Zahringer have become a powerful ducal dynasty within the region of what is now South Germany and Switzerland inside the excessive medieval duration and the founding father of several towns, including Freiburg im Breisgau, Villlngen, Neuenburg, Freiburg im Uechtland, Bern, Thun, Rheinfelden and Murten. The call Zahringen is mentioned for the primary time in records dating back to the early 11^th century.

However, it isn't always clear without ambiguity whether they refer already to a fortification on the hilltop or to the village, the modern-day suburb of Freiburg. The first unambiguous mention of the castle is inside the "Rotulus Sanpetrinus", a parchment roll issued inside the close by abbey of St, Peter, dated to 1128. That file changed into written in Latin and contains the passage "apud castrum Zaringen".

The castle became the seat of Berthold II of Zahringen until 1091, while he moved out of this fort to Freiburg Castle at the Schlossberg of Freiburg. He had ordered the development of that new citadel, due to the fact he taken into consideration that region to be greater positive both from industrial and strategical views. The citadel become besieged and taken inside the context of the feud between Welf VI and Conrad III through the young Frederick Barbarossa in 1146.