Ruine Schmirnberg: A Hilltop Castle Ruin in Austria
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Austria
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page7 sections
History
Ruine Schmirnberg is a hilltop castle ruin in Austria, in southern Styria near the Slovenian border. The castle was probably built in the eleventh century by the Spanheimers, a medieval noble dynasty whose lands included parts of the southeastern Alpine region, and may have been given around 1100 to St. Paul, their house monastery. Its position made it the center of a lordship extending across the Leutschach area and west and south of the Poßruck ridge toward the Drava.
From the Schönbergs to the Heunburgs
Schmirnberg appears in written records around 1250 under the name Smilnburch, when it belonged to Hadmar of Schönberg. St. Paul had granted the castle as a fief to the lords of Mureck, but their male line ended with Reimbert II in 1245. His daughter Mechthild then brought the castle and lordship to Hadmar through her marriage. In 1250 Hadmar recorded the return of property that had been alienated from the Bishopric of Seckau. Five years later, his widow compensated St. Paul for wrongs committed by Hadmar.
A manorial farm connected with the lordship was separated from it at an early date and later developed into Schloss Leutschach, also called Trautenburg. Around 1282, the Schönbergs sold Schmirnberg to Count Ulrich of Heunburg. His burgrave, Marquard of Smielenburg, the official responsible for administering and defending the castle district, appears frequently in records until about 1300.
The castle also formed part of the arrangements surrounding Ulrich’s daughter Elisabeth. It served as security for her dowry, while her first husband, Count Hermann of Pfannberg, died in 1287. Ulrich took a leading role in the Styrian noble revolt against Duke Albert I in 1292. Ducal troops captured Schmirnberg, but it was returned in 1295. In 1297 Elisabeth, then Hermann’s widow, authorized a gift to Mahrenberg Monastery of two holdings associated with Marquard of Smielenburg’s fief. The donation was made for Marquard’s daughter Diemut, who was a nun at the monastery.
Elisabeth and her second husband, Heinrich of Hohenlohe, lived at Schmirnberg in 1303 and issued a document there in favor of St. Paul. When the male line of the Heunburgs ended in 1322, the castle remained among Elisabeth’s possessions, together with Traberg and several Upper Styrian revenues.
Walsee, Cilli, and the land-princely lordship
On 21 June 1326, the Heunburg possessions were sold through Heinrich’s brother, Friedrich of Hohenlohe, a canon of Bamberg, to Ulrich I of Walsee for 3,000 marks of silver. Ulrich’s sons, Ulrich and Friedrich, divided the lands around the castle in 1352. After their deaths, Schmirnberg passed to Eberhard VIII of Walsee, who died in 1363. That same year, St. Paul granted the castle as a fief to Duke Rudolf IV. After Rudolf’s death in 1365, it passed to the Counts of Cilli, a powerful late-medieval noble dynasty also known as the Counts of Celje.
King Frederick III took Schmirnberg from the Cilli in 1443 and granted it to his follower Pankraz of Rindscheid in recognition of his long service. In 1445 Frederick made the castle a land-princely fief and pawn lordship. This placed it within the authority of a territorial prince and allowed it to serve as security for an obligation. The lordship also possessed a regional court and blood jurisdiction, meaning authority over serious criminal cases that could carry the death penalty. When Leutschach became an independent market in 1458, it was removed from Schmirnberg’s direct administration and jurisdiction.
Early modern changes and decline
A register from the reform of 1575 records changes in the obligations and status of the lordship’s subjects. The castle was also altered physically. New vaults were built in 1575 and topped with two grain stores, while the four-storey old block was renovated in 1577. Its uppermost floor contained a large hall.
In 1596 Schmirnberg served as a signal-fire warning station during defensive preparations against the Ottoman threat. Such stations relayed fires between elevated positions to communicate the approach of an enemy. The castle remained in land-princely possession until Emperor Ferdinand II sold it in 1621. It was held by the Stubenberg family during the seventeenth century and by the Schönborn family from 1720 to 1912, when ownership passed to the Czerweny-Arland family.
Ownership and part-ownership during the early modern period also involved members of the Herberstein, Proßkhau, Vedl, Wagensberg, Fehr von Fehrntal, Lengheim, Grattenau, Katzianer, Schölling, Breuner, Stubenberger, Khißl, Jabornegg and Gamsenegg, Rabatta, Gaisruck, Renner, and Ursini-Rosenberg families. Policarp Scheidt held an interest from 1621. Peter Philipp von Dernbach, a seventeenth-century German prelate who served as Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg, was also associated with ownership, as were Dernbacher or Dernpacher owners recorded until after 1686. The Schönborn family held the property again after 1686 and from 1724.
The church associated with Schmirnberg was still in use at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The castle remained inhabited until the end of the eighteenth century, but by 1822 it had fallen into ruin. The once extensively fortified complex then continued to deteriorate as a ruin.
Remains
Ruine Schmirnberg occupies a small wooded knoll at approximately 600 metres above sea level. The woodland slopes northward, and the surviving remains belong to an extensively fortified hilltop complex. Sections of the castle walls survive with a thickness of up to 2.5 metres, preserving the scale of its defensive construction.
Castle buildings
The four-storey old block is one of the principal surviving elements. Renovated in 1577, it contained a large hall on its fourth floor. Vaults constructed two years earlier supported a pair of grain stores, linking the later building work with the storage needs of the lordship. These remains belong to the final period of substantial alteration before the castle’s abandonment and subsequent decay.
Chapel and manorial estate
To the northeast of the ruin lie the remains of a chapel dedicated to the Annunciation. It was first mentioned in 1352 and formed a religious element within the castle’s wider complex. The associated manorial farm was separated from the lordship at an early date and later became Schloss Leutschach, also known as Trautenburg, developing into a separate estate rather than remaining part of the castle’s immediate domain.
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