Greifenstein Castle

Geschichte

Greifenstein Castle is a ruined castle in the municipality of Filisur of the Canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. It is included on the register of the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance.HistoryThe castle was built on a rocky outcropping above the village probably in the 12th century as the home of the Greifenstein family. They were probably related to the Wildenberg-Sagogn and Frauenberg in Ruschein families. The first mention of them was in 1233 as Grifenstein when Rudolf von Greifenstein was ordered by the Pope to go on a crusade as penance for murdering Bishop Berthold von Helfenstein. In 1237, he finally left to join the Crusades. In 1243, his relatives Heinrich and Albert were listed as witnesses in a legal proceeding as Hainricus et Albertus de Grifinstain.By the late 13th century the family disappears from the record and in 1300 the Wildenberg family owns the castle and surrounding lands. Whether the Greifensteins died out or if the Wildenbergs married into the family or were a branch of the family is unclear. In 1320 Count Hugo III von Werdenberg-Heiligenberg / von Wildenberg and his wife Anna von Wildenberg mortgaged the castle and lands to the Bishop of Chur for 1150 Marks. However, three years later, in 1323 the Wildenbergs defeated the Bishop's army near Greifenstein, but by 1339 the Freiherr von Marmels ruled over the herrschaft for the Bishop. In 1360 the Freiherr von Wildenberg-Sagogn sold it to the Freiherr von Matsch.