Burgruine Liebenfels is a pair of castle ruins on a rocky hilltop northeast of the municipality of

Liebenfels Liebenfels ( sl, Lepo Polje) is a market town in the district of Sankt Veit an der Glan in the Austrian state of Carinthia. Geography The municipal area is situated on the southern slopes of the Gurktal Alps. It lies about west of the district ...

in the district of Sankt Veit an der Glan, the historical central area of

Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German language, German. Its regional dialects belong to t ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. The surviving structures include examples of Romanesque,

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and

Renaissance architecture Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...

The structures and grounds

There are two massive

keep A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in c ...

s, from around 1300 and the early 14th century respectively, one in the

stronghold A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

and one in the extensive outer Bailey. The keep of the stronghold has six floors and is located in the middle of the small-scale stronghold. This keep has a conspicuous group of windows on the penultimate floor, which F. X. Kohla interpreted as a signal window. These windows are also characteristic of a heated room. The stronghold, which is grouped around the larger keep, also includes the former great hall, which had a hall on the upper floor with three bifora windows and an adjoining, heated room. The conspicuous five-part window group facing north, which indicates a log workshop or plank room, still bears witness to this living room. The complex is surrounded by an early Gothic

ring wall A curtain wall is a defensive wall between two fortified towers or bastions of a castle, fortress, or town. Ancient fortifications Evidence for curtain walls or a series of walls surrounding a town or fortress can be found in the historical ...

with battlements that have been preserved. The castle chapel, also early Gothic, has two floors. To the north of the chapel is another Gothic residential building with stepped gables and evidence of a heated room and the characteristic room windows that can already be observed in the keep and the great hall structure. Liebenfels Hoch-Liebenfels Burgruine Ostteil 04082007 01.jpg, Eastern part of the castle, with keep Liebenfels Burgruine kleiner Turm 04082007 12.jpg, small tower Burgruine Liebenfels 01.jpg, on the left, the main castle with keep; on the right, a second keep Ruine Liebenfels NO.JPG, great hall, residential buildings and outbuildings to the east below the keep Ungarisches Bollwerk Liebenfels.jpg, 200 m north of the castle: remains of a bastion from the Hungarian siege, 15th century

References

''This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia.'' Castles in Carinthia (state) {{Austria-castle-stub

The structures and grounds

See also

References