Today's Castle: Hochosterwitz

Today's castle is Burg Hochosterwitz, one of Austria's most famous fortresses.

The castle sits on a splendid pillar of rock in the mountains of Carinthia, with spectacular views in all directions.

The castle assumed its modern appearance in a major restoration of 1570 to 1585, after it had been damaged during the wars between Austria and the Turks. However, the spot has been fortified for a long time. The area is full of Celtic and Roman ruins, and there may have been an ancient fortress here. The first certain mention of the castle dates to 860, when Emperor Louis the German gave it to the Archbishop of Saltzburg. He called it ‘Astarwiza’, a name that remains obscure despite the intensive application of Teutonic Geschichtswissenschaft. (Celtic, Slavic, and German origins have been suggested.)

In the 11th century, Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg ceded the castle to the Dukes of Carinthia for their support during the Investiture Controversy. (A complicated dust up between the emperor and the pope, ostensibly about who could appoint bishops.) They, in turn, gave it to the Osterwitz family, a knightly clan whose head was the Duke's hereditary cupbearer. That was in 1209, and the oldest surviving buildings in the castle date to around this time.

There is an old folktale that the castle was besieged in the 1340s by the troops of Margarete Maultasch ("Bagmouth", that would be), Countess of Tyrol. According to the story, the defenders induced the besiegers to give up by stuffing all their remaining grain into their last cow and catapulting the beast over the battlements, as if to indicate that they were flush with food and could hold out for a long time yet. The besiegers, who must never have heard any folktales before, packed up and went home.

In 1476 the last of the hereditary cupbearers, Georg of Osterwitz, was captured by the Turks and died in a Turkish prison. He had no direct heirs, and since he owed a lot of money to the Habsburgs that his relations couldn't or didn't want to pay, Emperor Frederick III seized the castle in payment.

This area was fought over by the Austrians and Turks throughout the sixteenth century, and the castle served several times as a refuge for people fleeing Turkish plunderers.

In 1541 the Habsburgs granted the castle to Christoph Khevenhüller von Aichelberg, military governor of Carinthia, because of his outstanding service in the Turkish wars. Khevenhüller hired Italian architect Domenico dell' Aglio to renovate the castle and install bastions for canon.

After Christoph Khevenhüller died it passed to his son Johann, who built the comfortable manor house at the foot of the castle rock. (Something he conveniently recorded for us by carving "JK 1559" above the front door). In 1571 he sold the castle to his cousin, Georg Khevenhüller It was Georg who completed the fortifications, with their famous 14 gates along the spiraling entrance road, and restored the buildings in the core. The castle's web site says,

Because of the 14 gates, each equipped with different treacherous methods of guarding the path, local legend maintains that the castle has never been conquered and that none of the attacks managed to get beyond the fourth (Engelstor) gate.

But since I have't found any source that says the castle was ever seriously besieged, that is probably another good story.