Prägrad Castle
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Prägrad Castle
Prägrad Castle (, from Slavic for outer ward) is a ruined medieval castle in Carinthia, Austria. It is located near Feldkirchen on a hillside above the road to Lake Ossiach. The fortress was mentioned in an 1166 deed when the Nuremberg burgrave Conrad II of Raabs sold it to the Franconian Bishops of Bamberg, who then held large estates in the Duchy of Carinthia. Prägrad served as an administrative seat of Bamberg ''ministeriales'', controlling the traffic on the road along the southern shore of Lake Ossiach to Villach. The Carinthian dukes had acquired the premises by 1258. Temporarily owned by the Carinthian Counts of Ortenburg, the castle passed to the Counts of Celje in the late 14th century. Upon the death of Count Ulrich II in 1456, it was seized by the Habsburg emperor Frederick III who leased it to the Bishops of Gurk. From 1628 the estates were enfeoffed to Ossiach Abbey. Remnants of the inner bailey, erected around 1200, and several outer walls are preserved. ...
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Hillside Castle
A hillside castle is a castle built on the side of a hill above much of the surrounding terrain but below the summit itself. It is thus a type of hill castle and emerged in Europe in the second half of the 11th century. As a result of the particular danger to the site from attacks on the castle from the rising ground above it, this weak point is usually strongly protected by a shield wall (fortification), shield wall or a ''Bergfried''. Often a combination of these two passive defensive works were used. The advantage of a hillside castle was that its water well, well was much less deep than that of a hilltop castle. The boring of the well was often the most expensive and time-consuming element in the overall construction of a castle. Often, however, its water supply was ensured with the additional help of donkeys as pack animals, entailing the construction of special donkey tracks. There are numerous hillside castles in the German Central Uplands, especially in stream and river v ...
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Villach
Villach (; ; ; ) is the seventh-largest city in Austria and the second-largest in the federal state of Carinthia. It is an important traffic junction for southern Austria and the whole Alpe-Adria region. , the population is 61,887. Together with other Alpine towns Villach engages in the Alpine Town of the Year Association for the implementation of the Alpine Convention to achieve sustainable development in the Alpine Arc. In 1997, Villach was the first town to be awarded Alpine Town of the Year. Geography Villach is a statutory city, on the Drau River near its confluence with the Gail tributary, at the western rim of the Klagenfurt basin. The municipal area stretches from the slopes of the Gailtal Alps (Mt. Dobratsch) down to Lake Ossiach in the northeast. The Villach city limits comprise the following districts and villages: In 1905 a part of the municipal area St. Martin was incorporated. In 1973 the city area was further enlarged through the incorporation of Landskr ...
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List Of Castles In Austria
This page is a list of castles and castle ruins in Austria, arranged by States of Austria, state. A ''Burgruine'' is a ruined castle, a “castle ruin”. Burgenland * Bernstein Castle, Burg Bernstein * Forchtenstein Castle, Burg Forchtenstein * Burg Güssing * Burgruine Landsee * Burg Lockenhaus * Schloss Rechnitz * Burg Schlaining Carinthia (state), Carinthia Lower Austria Salzburg (state), Salzburg * Burgruine Edenvest * Burg Finstergrün * Burgruine Friedburg, Neukirchen am Großvenediger * Burg Golling * Burgruine Gutrat * Burgruine Hieburg, Neukirchen am Großvenediger * Festung Hohensalzburg, Salzburg * Burg Hohenwerfen, Werfen * Burg Mauterndorf * Burg Moosham * Burgruine Plainburg * Burgruine Saalegg * Castle Saalhof * Burgruine Wartenfels * Burgruine Weyer, Bramberg Styria Tyrol (state), Tyrol The Tyrol is named after Tirol Castle, which was formerly in Austria but is now in Italy. * Ambras Palace * Burg Bideneck * Burg Bruck * Burg Freundsberg * ...
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Zwinger (fortification)
A () is an open kill zone area between two defensive walls that is used for defensive purposes. s were built in the medieval 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 belfries, but had to stop at the lower, outer wall; also that two ranks of archers, behind and above one another, could fire upon the approaching enemy".von Essenwein, "Kriegsbauk" ...
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Inner Bailey
The inner bailey or inner ward of a castle is the strongly fortified enclosure at the heart of a medieval castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It is protected by the outer ward and, sometimes also a '' Zwinger'', moats, a curtain wall and other outworks. Depending on topography it may also be called an upper bailey or upper ward. The inner bailey enclosed the most important living quarters and defensive elements for the lord and his family, e.g. the great hall, the ''palas'', the tower house and the keep or '' bergfried''. The castle well or cistern was usually found in the inner bailey, because water supplies were particularly important in the past in order to be able to withstand a siege for any length of time. The inner bailey is usually the oldest part of a castle, because it contains those buildings that were the first to be built during its construction. It often has flanking towers that enabled gr ...
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Ossiach Abbey
Ossiach Abbey (''Stift Ossiach'') is a former Benedictine monastery in Ossiach, in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The site is one of the venues of an annual music festival called "Carinthian Summer". History In 878 the East Frankish king Carloman of Bavaria dedicated the Treffen estates around Lake Ossiach to the Benedictine monastery of Ötting. In the late 10th century the lands passed to the Bishops of Passau and later to Emperor Henry II, who conferred them to a certain Count Ozi, affiliated with the Styrian Otakar dynasty and father of Patriarch Poppo of Aquileia. A church probably already existed at Ossiach, when Count Ozi about 1024 established the Benedictine abbey, the first in the medieval Duchy of Carinthia. The first monks probably descended from Niederaltaich Abbey in Bavaria. Ozi's son Poppo succeeded in removing the proprietary monastery from the influence of the Salzburg archbishops and to affiliate it with the Patriarchate of Aquileia, confirmed by Emperor ...
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