Heidenberg Castle

Geschichte

Heidenberg Castle is a ruined castle in the municipality of Obersaxen Mundaun of the Canton of Graubünden in Switzerland.HistoryHeidenberg Castle was the first of four castles built to defend and control the region around Obersaxen. The Obersaxen plateau first appears in historic records in 765 when Bishop Tello gave his farms and meadows there to Disentis Abbey. In 806 it became an Imperial Estate, which it remained until 956 when Emperor Otto I donated the village and the village church back to the Bishop of Chur. To control this important village along the Rhine river, four castles were built at various points throughout the Middle Ages. The first was Heidenberg above Tavanasa which may have been built as early as 1000. It was followed by Moregg and Saxenstein (around 1200) and Schwarzenstein (13th century). However, Heidenberg does not appear in any surviving medieval records. In 1468 the inheritance of the Counts of Rhäzüns the other three castles around Obersaxen were mentioned, but Heidenberg was omitted, probably indicating that it had already fallen into ruin. In 1556 the Obersaxen castles of Schwarzenburg, Saxenstein and Heydnischburg were fixed as the border between Obersaxen and Waltensburg. In 1573 the chronicle of Ulrich Campell calls the ruins Heidabergum.