France Petit-Ringelstein west wall from inside

The Château du Petit-Ringelstein (or Château du Petit-Ringelsberg) 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 ...

in the '' commune'' of

Oberhaslach Oberhaslach is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Population See also * Niederhaslach, a neighbouring commune * Communes of the Bas-Rhin department The following is a list of the 514 communes of t ...

in the

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 ...

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 France. It is sited on a small summit that it surrounds with its

enceinte Enceinte (from Latin ''incinctus'' "girdled, surrounded") is a French term that refers to the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification". For a castle, this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the positio ...

constructed of

dry stone wall Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. A certain amount of binding is obtained through the use of carefully ...

Access

The ruins can be accessed via the paths provided by the Club Vosgien. They are on an extension of the path leading from

to the

Château du Grand Ringelstein The Château du Grand Ringelstein (or Château Ringelsbourg) is a ruined castle in the '' commune'' of Oberhaslach in the Bas-Rhin ''département'' of France. Dating from the beginning of the 13th century, it is built around several sandstone ro ...

Toponymy

The name ''Petit-Ringelstein'' is derived from the German words ''Ring'' (ring or circle) and ''Stein'' (stone).

Ruins

A dry stone wall circles the hill top, measuring approximately 61m by 21m, with a height of one metre. It is bordered by a ditch.Salch 1991 There is a quarry nearby from which rocks were cut and dressed. They date, probably, from the first third of the 13th century and would have been used for the Château du Grand-Ringelstein and/or the

Château de Hohenstein The Château de Hohenstein is a ruined castle situated on the road between Oberhaslach and Wangenbourg, not far from the Château du Nideck, in the '' commune'' of Oberhaslach in the Bas-Rhin ''département'' of France. The property of the stat ...

. File:France Petit-Ringelstein north wall from outside and moat.jpg, North wall and ditch File:France Petit-Ringelstein north wall from inside.jpg, North wall from the interior File:France Petit-Ringelstein west wall from over.jpg, West wall; dry stone walling from above

History

Nothing is known of the history of the Petit-Ringelstein. It may have been a primitive form of castle. Its present aspect is probably from a later alteration, perhaps during a siege of the Château de Hohenstein. It has been listed since 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 ...

, and is state property.

External links

Bibliography

* Charles-Laurent Salch, ''Nouveau Dictionnaire des Châteaux-Forts d'Alsace'', Alsatia 1991. * Charles-Laurent Salch, "Archéologie du château alsacien", in ''Châteaux Guerriers'', 1975 * Bernard Haegel, "L'enceinte et la carrière de pierres médiévale du Petit-Ringelstein" in ''Etudes Médiévales'', III, 1985

References

Ruined castles in Bas-Rhin Monuments historiques of Bas-Rhin {{alsace-castle-stub