Château de Salm is a ruined

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

overlooking the valley of the Bruche, located in the commune of

La Broque La Broque (; ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in the Grand Est region in Northeastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Bas-Rhin department The following is a list of the 514 communes of the Bas-Rhin department of Fr ...

in the present-day ''

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...

'' of

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin () is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among the two French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) de ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Construction began in 1205 and was completed around 1400. It has been listed since 6 December 1898 as a ''

monument historique () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, ...

'' by the

French Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture () is the ministry (government department), ministry of the Government of France in charge of List of museums in France, national museums and the . Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and pro ...

History

The Château de Salm was built between 1205 and 1225 by Henry III, Count of Salm (of ''Haute Lorraine''), on the territory of the

Senones Abbey Senones Abbey (''Abbaye de Senones'') was a Benedictine abbey located in the valley of the Rabodeau, in the present village of Senones in Grand Est, France. History The abbey was founded in the middle of the 7th century by Saint Gondelbert, bish ...

of which he was the lawyer. The Salm dynasty originated in the 13th century with the Counts of Bar (

Bar-le-Duc Bar-le-Duc (), formerly known as Bar, is a commune in the Meuse département, of which it is the capital. The department is in Grand Est in northeastern France. The lower, more modern and busier part of the town extends along a narrow valley, ...

), one of the more powerful families of

Lorraine Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...

. The Salm-Lorraine dynasty came from the Luxembourg family. Henry IV, grandson of the builder, reorganized the saltpans of Morhange as well as the Framont forges which were situated close by. Industrial politics provoked a military reaction around 1259 from the Bishop of Metz, who occupied the installations and forced the count to sell him the castle at Salm and the Château de Pierre-Percée and to swear fealty to him. When the bishop left the castles, the count retook the fortresses. In 1285, the ''

trouvère ''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French ('' langue d'oïl'') form of the '' langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word '' troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to po ...

'' from Lorraine,

Jacques Bretel Jacques Bretel or Jacques Bretex (dates of birth and death unknown) was a French (language), French language ''trouvère'', best known for having written ''Tournament of Chauvency, le Tournoi de Chauvency''. His only known work, signed and dated ...

, spent several days at the castle where he met Count Henry IV. He recounted his stay in his work '' le Tournoi de Chauvency''. The area was the site of an important occupation throughout the 14th and 15th centuries (with

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

and pottery activities), without a doubt the after-effects of the acquisition by Jean de Salm of the lower valley of Bruche in 1366, from

Mutzig Mutzig ( or ; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Bas-Rhin Departments of France, department in Grand Est, in north-eastern France. The commune of Mutzig is located at the entrance of the Bruche (river), Bruche river valley, on the Route d ...

Schirmeck Schirmeck () is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It is the location of the Alsace-Moselle Memorial museum. The name of the town means "protected place". In Lorraine dialect it is called "Chermec". ...

. The large works completed around 1400 considerably altered the castle's defences with the construction of a thick shielding tower, a

barbican A barbican (from ) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe Medieval Europeans typically b ...

and a new gate. The old shield wall was torn down and adapted for new functional requirements. The castle seems, however, to have been ruined around 1500 because it is recorded as a ruin in 1564, though no documentary record of violent destruction is known. Prince Constantin Alexander of Salm-Salm visited the castle in 1779 in the company of the prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, to see an inscription on the

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

of an outside wall. The ruins served as a quarry soon after the annexation of the Principality of Salm-Salm by the French Republic in 1793. It was bombarded by French artillery during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in 1914 because a German observation post had been established there. Integrated into German territory by the Treaty of Frankfort in 1871, the vestiges of it were classified as a historic monument by the Imperial Administration of Alsace-Lorraine on 6 December. In 1919, the territory was attached to the French département of

Description

Constructed at 809 metres above sea level on a rocky hill of red sandstone with a northeast-southwest orientation, the castle extends on different levels over an area of approximately 120 metres by 50 metres. The primitive castle of the 13th century, or ''Kernburg'', was equipped in the southwest with a

shield wall A shield wall ( or in Old English, in Old Norse) is a military formation that was common in ancient and medieval warfare. There were many slight variations of this formation, but the common factor was soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder ...

facing possible attack, behind which were living quarters and the

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

. A palace, or ''Palas'', which shows the remarkable architectural quality of elements which composed the decoration, is situated opposite the curtain walls in the northwest and northeast, which dominate the

keep A keep 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 castles that were fortified residen ...

, or ''Bergfried'' (tower refuge), constructed on the rock's highest point (its northern extremity). In the course of the 14th century, the shield wall was reinforced by one or two flanking towers before a shield tower and a

postern A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often placed in concealed locations, allowing inconspicuous entrance and exit. In the event of a siege, a postern could act as a s ...

were constructed in the front, maybe around the beginning of the 15th century.

Details of the ruins

Since 2004, conservation workers employed by the association of Veilleurs de Salm have been able to excavate lost walls and to progressively understand more of the different stages of construction. The reading of the plans nevertheless remains very difficult, in comparing them to the few ruins which are left. Few significant traces remain of the shield tower, the vaulted ceilinged room that housed the cistern, which is rare in Alsace, and the postern. Analysis of the ruin's details shows the presence of large basses-cours built at the end of the fourteenth century, a barbican and more interior battlements with doors and window slits, but also the presence of cross-shaped windows for crossbowmen in the 13th century. The richness of the movable architecture (still under investigation) suggests the presence of a chapel, which was generally a standard fixture of a count's castle. The shield tower, which is flush with the second floor, has a large artificial hole (damage?). It is named thus not only because it was intended to face siege cannons (the thickness of the wall reaching 3 metres), but also because it hid the castle behind it. The princely visit of 1779 was preceded by important repair works which weighed heavily on the face of the ruins. Even today, the plan and chronology of the castle's construction is still open to interpretation, the assembly of data and analysis of gothic elements place this castle among the most beautiful counts' achievements of the 13th century in Alsace and Lorraine.

Bibliography

(taken from the French page) * Marc Brignon, "La fin du château de Salm", ''Revue Lorraine'' (56), 1984. * Pierre de la Condamine, ''Salm en Vosges'', nouvelle édition augmentée, Ed. du Palais Royal, Paris, 1974. * Dominique Dantan, ''Les châteaux de Salm et Pierre-Percée'', maîtrise d’histoire, Université de Nancy II, 1984. * Danièle Erpelding, ''Actes des princes lorrains, 1^re série, Actes des comtes de Salm'', Université de Nancy II, UER de Recherche Régionale, 1979. * Denis Leypold, "Contribution à la connaissance du château de Salm, données historiques et architecturales", ''L'Essor'' (139), 1988. * Denis Leypold, "Nouvelles données historiques sur la château de Salm : le point sur sa construction", ''L'Essor'' (151), 1991. * Jean-Luc Pupier et collaborateurs, "Senones à travers les âges", ''Bulletin des Amis de la Bibliothèque de Senones'', n° 3, Senones, 1983. * Frédéric Seillière, ''Document pour servir à l'histoire de la Principauté de Salm en Vosges et de la Ville de Senones, sa capitale'', réédition par les Editions Jean-Pierre Gyss, Strasbourg, 1982. * ''Histoire des terres de Salm'', Société Philomatique Vosgienne, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, 1994.

References

External links

Official site of the Château de Salm
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Salm, Chateau de Buildings and structures completed in the 14th century Ruined castles in Bas-Rhin Monuments historiques of Bas-Rhin