Aigle Castle: A Medieval Fortress and Wine Museum in Switzerland
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Switzerland
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Savoy
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Aigle Castle is a preserved medieval hill castle in Aigle, Switzerland, developed from the late twelfth century by the Barons of Aigle and the House of Savoy. It protected the settlement and monitored routes through the Rhone Valley, while later serving as a seat of government, a prison, and a museum.
Barons of Aigle and Savoy
The castle’s origins are associated with a small fortification belonging to the Barons of Aigle, who were first mentioned in 1179. The complex developed during the late twelfth century, replacing earlier constructions. Before 1200, the barons became vassals of the Counts of Savoy, a major medieval ruling dynasty whose possessions and feudal networks extended across the western Alps and the Rhone region.
In 1232, Count Thomas of Savoy granted Aigle as a fief to Jacob and Peter of Saillon. The agreement exchanged Aigle for the brothers’ ancestral castle in Valais, and the Saillon family built the castle for the House of Savoy. During the second half of the thirteenth century, Aigle expanded, received a city charter, and acquired a rebuilt castle with a fortified donjon, the principal tower of a medieval castle, and a curtain wall enclosing the defensive complex.
Compey headquarters and strategic conflict
In the fourteenth century, the Lords of Compey inherited the rights of the Saillon family and made Aigle their headquarters. The castle occupied a strategic position near routes leading through the Great St Bernard Pass and toward the Rhone Valley, the Pays-d’Enhaut, and the Pillon Pass. Troops arriving from Italy through the Great St Bernard Pass could use Aigle as a staging point before continuing toward Chillon or into Savoy.
Bern sought control of Aigle from the mid-fifteenth century because of the mountain passes leading into the Rhone Valley. A first attempt in 1464 failed. During the Burgundian Wars, the conflicts of 1474 to 1477 in which the Swiss Confederation fought Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, Bernese forces attacked Aigle in August 1475. They burned the castle and devastated the town in an effort to halt the movement of troops from Burgundy and Savoy through the Rhone plain.
Jean de Compey fled after the attack and was killed soon afterward at Vevey, while his son died fighting for Charles the Bold. The Compey family subsequently failed to recover its rights to the town and castle. Bern rebuilt the castle in 1488 and 1489, establishing it as the seat of a provincial governor.
Bernese administration and the Reformation
By 1483, Bern had incorporated the territory on the right bank of the Rhone between Lavey and Lake Geneva. Aigle became the administrative center of Bern’s first French-speaking region, and Bernese representatives occupied the castle until the French invasion and the creation of the Helvetic Republic in 1798. The Helvetic Republic was a French-backed state whose creation ended Bernese rule over Aigle.
Under Bernese administration, the castle’s defenses and residential quarters were improved. Aigle also became the first city in French-speaking Switzerland to adopt the Reformation in 1528. This sixteenth-century religious movement challenged the authority and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and produced Protestant churches. The reforming preacher Guillaume Farel introduced Reformation ideas in Aigle.
Municipal use and museum formation
In 1798, Vaud became independent from Bern and the Bernese withdrew. The municipality of Aigle acquired the castle in 1804. It then served as an administrative and sanitary building, housed a hospital until 1832, and contained a court. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, its functions also included a prison and a refuge for impoverished townspeople. The prison remained in use until 1976.
The castle’s historical value gained wider recognition at the beginning of the twentieth century. Restoration projects beginning in the early 1970s conserved the building and improved understanding of its historical development. The Guillon Brotherhood created the Vine and Wine Museum in 1971 to preserve local winegrowing heritage, and the museum was established in the castle during the mid-1970s. The castle has since functioned as a museum and is protected as a Swiss heritage site and cultural property of national significance.
Remains
Fortified enclosure and towers
Aigle Castle stands at approximately 430 metres above sea level, surrounded by vineyards. Its early form was probably a modest square tower, comparable to the tower visible on the summit of Saint-Triphon hill. Later Savoyard alterations enlarged the complex and changed the form of its fortified enclosure, which protected the settlement concentrated in the present Cloister quarter.
The thirteenth-century rebuilding added the donjon and curtain wall. During the fourteenth century, the Lords of Compey added turrets and, in 1450, constructed a massive tower at the southern corner. This tower represents late French donjon architecture. Bernese rebuilding in 1488 and 1489 destroyed a round tower and replaced it with a square tower, while changes to the enclosure and internal accommodation reflected the castle’s continuing administrative and residential use.
Wine-related buildings
Tithe Barn and Maison de la Dime
The Grange de la Dime, or Tithe Barn, was erected west of the castle in 1587. Beside the castle gates, the Maison de la Dime houses the Wine-Labels Museum, extending the site’s wine-related history into a separate building associated with the castle grounds.
Castle wine installations
The castle retains large wooden presses on its lower floors and a wine cellar lined with oak barrels of different sizes. Four banquet halls are also preserved within the complex. In the casemates, prisoners left inscriptions, linking the surviving spaces to the castle’s long period of use as a place of confinement.
Vine and Wine Museum
The Vine and Wine Museum occupies seventeen rooms and contains several thousand objects connected with grape cultivation and wine production. Its collections include a press dated 1706, stills used to distill liquids such as wine into spirits, bottles, corks and corkscrews, tastevins, small cups used to assess wine, glasses, and carafes. Other displays address the history of winemaking through old bottles and historical wine-measuring implements.
Six interactive laboratories present the processes involved in transforming grapes into wine. The museum also includes a tasting room and a room devoted to the gods of wine. Reconstructions with figures depict a wine-pressing scene, a cooper’s workshop, and a traditional kitchen of the 1840s. Other rooms present the Vevey Fête des Vignerons, a major Swiss winegrowers’ festival combining local tradition, performance, and representations of viticultural life, along with folk art, painting, and caricature.
Wine-Labels Museum
The Wine-Labels Museum in the Maison de la Dime arranges its labels by theme and presents more than 800 examples from 52 countries. The collection traces the history of wine culture across different regions. Since 2009, the building has also hosted exhibitions of artists’ work.
Nearby sites
