The Burg Griffen is a castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

 on a 130m/427ft-high limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 mountain above the town of Griffen

Griffen, Austria

Griffen is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia in Austria, home to the Griffen Abbey. It is the birthplace of Austrian writer Peter Handke....

 in the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n state of Carinthia

Carinthia (state)

Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...

.

History

The castle was built between 1124 and 1146 by order of Bishop Otto

Otto of Bamberg

Saint Otto of Bamberg was a medieval German bishop and missionary who, as papal legate, converted much of Pomerania to Christianity.-Life:Otto was born into a noble family in Mistelbach, Franconia...

 of Bamberg. In a 1160 deed, Emperor Friedrich I

Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick I Barbarossa was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term...

 mentioned Grivena as a Bamberg property.

In 1292 the Carinthian

Duchy of Carinthia

The Duchy of Carinthia was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, then the first newly created Imperial State beside the original German stem duchies....

 nobleman Count Ulrich von Heunburg with support of Archbishop Konrad IV of Salzburg

Archbishopric of Salzburg

The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical State of the Holy Roman Empire, its territory roughly congruent with the present-day Austrian state of Salzburg....

 occupied the fort in an uprising against Albert of Habsburg

Albert I of Germany

Albert I of Habsburg was King of the Romans and Duke of Austria, the eldest son of German King Rudolph I of Habsburg and his first wife Gertrude of Hohenburg.-Life:...

, the son of King Rudolph I of Germany

Rudolph I of Germany

Rudolph I was King of the Romans from 1273 until his death. He played a vital role in raising the Habsburg dynasty to a leading position among the Imperial feudal dynasties...

 and Duke Meinhard II

Meinhard, Duke of Carinthia

Meinhard II from the House of Meinhardin was ruling Count of Gorizia from 1258 until 1271 and Count of Tyrol from 1258 until his death...

. However Ulrich was abandoned by his allies and one year later had to leave the castle. In 1759 Bishop Adam Friedrich sold the Bamberg estates in Carinthia to Maria Theresa of Austria

Maria Theresa of Austria

Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...

 and the castle was incorporated into the Carinthian duchy.

About 1520 a large reconstruction of the castle took place as a protection against the threat posed by the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces with a base amounted of about 4000 m², though the Turks

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 never laid siege to Griffen. In 1659 a flash impact destroyed one of the towers and the decay of the castle began. In 1768 a last religious service took place and about 1840 the roofs were torn. In 2000 the preservation of the castle began. A steep footpath leads up the mountain to the ruins.

Cave

Within the mountain is the Griffener Tropfsteinhöhle (dripstone cave) with a length of 485m/1591ft, which was not discovered until the late days of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. It is open to public and a natural landmark since 1957.

External links

Griffen at burgen.de