Guardaval Castle
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Guardaval Castle
Guardaval Castle is a ruined castle in the municipality of Madulain of the Canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. History Guardaval Castle was built around 1250 near the village of Madulain to administer the estates of the Bishop of Chur in the Upper Engadine by Bishop Volkard von Neuenburg. The castle sat along the Albula Pass road and collected tolls from travelers going over the pass. The castle was an important administrative center for the bishops; they often took up residence in the castle and ordered their vassals to frequently repair and hold it always available to them. Originally the castle consisted of just the main tower. The second building phase added a curtain wall, a gatehouse to the south; a zwinger, or outer courtyard; and a residential wing to the east. In the 14th century the castle was granted to the wealthy Planta family from nearby Zuoz. The Planta family held a number of estates throughout the Engadine region as well as the rights to mine in the valley an ...
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Hill Castle
A hill castle or mountain castle is a castle built on a natural feature that stands above the surrounding terrain. It is a term derived from the German ''Höhenburg'' used in categorising castle sites by their topographical location. Hill castles are thus distinguished from lowland castles (''Niederungsburgen''). Hill castles may be further subdivided depending on their situation into the following: * Hilltop castle (''Gipfelburg''), that stands on the summit of a hill with steep drops on all sides. A special type is the rock castle or ''Felsenburg''. * Ridge castle (''Kammburg''), that is built on the crest of a ridge. * Hillside castle (''Hangburg''), that is built on the side of a hill and thus is dominated by rising ground on one side. * Spur castle (''Spornburg''), that is built on a hill spur surrounded by steep terrain on three sides and thus only needs to be defended on the one remaining side. When in the 10th and 11th centuries castles lost their pure fortress charact ...
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Zuoz
Zuoz () is a municipality in the Maloja Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. History Zuoz is first mentioned about 840 as ''Zuzes''. Historically, Zuoz was the political center of the upper Engadin. It was the seat of the local bishop. But, it has long ago been supplanted by other Engadin villages such as St. Moritz and Samedan. In 1137-39 the village was acquired from the count von Gamertingen by the Bishop of Chur. In 1244 Bishop Volkart appointed Andreas Planta from Zuoz to be the chancellor of the Oberengadin. The Planta family remained in power until 1798. In 1367, Zuoz joined the League of God's House under the leadership of the Amtmann Thomas Planta. The continuing arguments between Zuoz and Samedan led, in 1438, to the division of the court into two parts, the courts of Sur and Suot Funtauna Merla. In 1492, the village bought the Bishop's property and rights to tax in Zuoz. Then, in 1526 the Bishop lost the right to high justice with the ''Ilanzer articles''. In ...
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List Of Castles In Switzerland
This list includes castles and fortresses in Switzerland. Entries list the name and location of the castle, fortress or ruins in each Canton in Switzerland. Aargau Appenzell Ausserrhoden Appenzell Innerrhoden Basel-Land Basel-Stadt Bern Fribourg Geneva Glarus Graubünden (Grisons) Jura Lucerne Neuchâtel Nidwalden Obwalden Schaffhausen Schwyz Solothurn St. Gallen Ticino Thurgau Uri Vaud Valais Zug # Buonas Castle, Risch # Freudenberg Castle, Risch-Rotkreuz # Hünenberg Castle, Hünenberg # St. Andreas Castle, Cham # Wildenburg Castle (Zug), Baar # Zug Castle, Zug Zürich # Au Castle, Wädenswil # Ruins of Baldern Castle, Stallikon # Ruins of Oberes Baliken Castle, Wald # Ruins of Bernegg Castle, Hinwil # Ruins of Alt-Bichelsee Castle, Bichelsee # Ruins of Breitenlandenberg Castle, Turbenthal # ...
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Germanic Languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, English, is also the world's most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers. All Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic, spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia. The West Germanic languages include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages: English with around 360–400 million native speakers; German language, German, with over 100 million native speakers; and Dutch language, Dutch, with 24 million native speakers. Other West Germanic languages include Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch, with over 7.1 million native speakers; Low German, considered a separate collection of Standard language, unstandardized dialects, with roughly 4.35–7.15 million native speakers and probably 6.7–10 million people who can understand ...
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Romansh Language
Romansh (; sometimes also spelled Romansch and Rumantsch; Sursilvan: ; Vallader, Surmiran, and Rumantsch Grischun: ; Putèr: ; Sutsilvan: , , ; Jauer: ) is a Gallo-Romance language spoken predominantly in the Swiss canton of the Grisons (Graubünden). Romansh has been recognized as a national language of Switzerland since 1938, and as an official language in correspondence with Romansh-speaking citizens since 1996, along with German, French, and Italian. It also has official status in the canton of the Grisons alongside German and Italian and is used as the medium of instruction in schools in Romansh-speaking areas. It is sometimes grouped by linguists with Ladin and Friulian as the Rhaeto-Romance languages, though this is disputed. Romansh is one of the descendant languages of the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, which by the 5th century AD replaced the Celtic and Raetic languages previously spoken in the area. Romansh retains a small number of words fro ...
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Bailiff
A bailiff (from Middle English baillif, Old French ''baillis'', ''bail'' "custody") is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offices and duties vary greatly. Another official sometimes referred to as a ''bailiff'' was the ''Vogt''. In the Holy Roman Empire a similar function was performed by the ''Amtmann''. British Isles Historic bailiffs ''Bailiff'' was the term used by the Normans for what the Saxons had called a '' reeve'': the officer responsible for executing the decisions of a court. The duty of the bailiff would thus include serving summonses and orders, and executing all warrants issued out of the corresponding court. The district within which the bailiff operated was called his '' bailiwick'', even to the present day. Bailiffs were outsiders and free men, that is, they were not usually from the bailiwick for which they were responsible. Throughout Nor ...
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Pledge (law)
A pledge is a bailment that conveys possessory title to property owned by a debtor (the ''pledgor'') to a creditor (the ''pledgee'') to secure repayment for some debt or obligation and to the mutual benefit of both parties. The term is also used to denote the property which constitutes the security. The pledge is a type of security interest. Pledge is the ''pignus'' of Roman law, from which most of the modern European-based law on the subject is derived, but is generally a feature of even the most basic legal systems. It differs from hypothecation and from the more usual mortgage in that the pledge is in the possession of the pledgee. It is similar, however, in that all three can apply to personal and real property. A pledge of personal property is known as a pawn and that of real property is called an antichresis. In earlier medieval law, especially in Germanic law, two types of pledge existed, being either possessory (cf. Old English ''wed'', Old French ''gage'', Old High Germ ...
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League Of God's House
The League of God's House (German: ''Gotteshausbund'', Italian: ''Lega Caddea'', rm, ) was formed in what is now Switzerland on 29 January 1367, to resist the rising power of the Bishopric of Chur and the House of Habsburg. The League allied with the Grey League and the League of the Ten Jurisdictions in 1471 to form the Three Leagues. The League of God's House, together with the two other Leagues, was allied with the Old Swiss Confederacy throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. After the Napoleonic wars the League of God's House became a part of the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Before the League The region that would become the League of God's House has always been heavily influenced by the Diocese of Chur. The Bishop of Chur is first mentioned in 451 when its Bishop St. Asimo attended the Synod of Milan, but probably existed a century earlier. During the 5th and 6th centuries there is evidence of an extensive Romanisation and conversion to Christianity in the region around ...
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Collateral (finance)
In lending agreements, collateral is a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan. The collateral serves as a lender's protection against a borrower's default and so can be used to offset the loan if the borrower fails to pay the principal and interest satisfactorily under the terms of the lending agreement. The protection that collateral provides generally allows lenders to offer a lower interest rate on loans that have collateral. The reduction in interest rate can be up to several percentage points, depending on the type and value of the collateral. For example, the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on an unsecured loan is often much higher than on a secured loan or logbook loan. If a borrower defaults on a loan (due to insolvency or another event), that borrower loses the property pledged as collateral, with the lender then becoming the owner of the property. In a typical mortgage loan transaction, for instance, the real estate being acq ...
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Fief
A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an Lord, overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services and/or payments. The fees were often lands, land revenue or revenue, revenue-producing real property like a watermill, held in feudal land tenure: these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including governmental office, rights of exploitation such as hunting, fishing or felling trees, monopolies in trade, money rents and tax farms. There never did exist one feudal system, nor did there exist one type of fief. Over the ages, depending on the region, there was a broad variety of customs using the same basic legal principles in many variations. Terminology In ancient Rome, a "benefice" (from the Latin noun , meaning "benefit") was a gif ...
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Zwinger
"" () is a German word for outer ward or bailey (castle), outer bailey. It represents an open kill zone area between two defensive walls that is used for defensive purposes. s were built in the Post-classical history, post-classical and early modern periods to improve the defence of castles and town walls. The term is usually left untranslated, but is sometimes rendered as "outer courtyard", presumably referring to the subsequent role of a as a castle's defences became redundant and it was converted into a palace or ''schloss''; however, this belies its original purpose as a form of killing ground for the defence. The word is linked with , "to force", perhaps because the forced an enemy to negotiate it before assaulting the main defensive line. Essenwein states that the "main purpose of this feature was so that the besieging force could not reach the actual castle wall very easily with battering rams or belfry (siege engine), belfries, but had to stop at the lower, outer wall; ...
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