History

The changing history of Schloss Münichau and its owners begins in the 15th century. It is the world 500 years ago, which is hardly imaginable today. It was in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age - creatively, confusing and destructive. Gothic is replaced by the Renaissance, and humanism (the rediscovery of ancient values) is spreading in Europe. Humanism also brings astrology to Europe and adapts to the Christian faith. The greeting of hat-picking is becoming more and more frequent, but spoons and forks are used only up to the sixteenth century. The people eat with their fingers.

In Spain the rule of the Moors is broken, but from the east the Turks are attacking the Christian West. Christopher Columbus, who will discover America in 1492, is born in 1451. Frederick III, Duke of Styria and Carinthia, was crowned one year later as emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation". He and his son Maximilian the Ist, who in 1493 as "the last knight" on the German Kaiserthron follows, despite occasional setbacks laid the foundation for the Habsburg great power.

At that time Wilhelm von Münichawe lived in Kitzbuhel in Tyrol as a ducal and Bavarian administrator and landlord (1437-1481), who had the complete coat of arms, the monk (Middle High German: Münich) with shield and helmet coat of arms of the Münichauer in the middle of the 15th century. Century visage. Wilhelm or his cousin, Hans Münichauer der Jüngere (the younger), were supposed to have been the feudal lords who built the Schloss Münichau in its present form as a residence. Hans Münichauer was at that time the town and state judge of Rattenberg (1450-1477). He called himself Hans Münichauer von Münichau, and he was a great supporter of Kitzbühel. The original certificate, which the castle first mentioned, is unfortunately lost. In ancient documents only the chapel, which was consecrated in 1469, is mentioned. (Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of book printing with moving, cast letters, died a year before).

The Münichaus were always officials of the Bamberg bishops. They belonged to the lower Bavarian country nobility. At that time Kitzbühel belonged to Bavaria. The oldest records report in 1271 that an Otto von Münichawe and his wife Elsbetha, their children as well as Mathilde, daughter of the knight of Chufstein, concluded a contract of inheritance with the church of Bamberg. The documents of the Münichauer had already in the 14th century the monk in the office seal, but still without shield and visor. The monk was also led by other Bavarian noblemen in their coat of arms. The most famous example of this is the monk of the city of Munich - the "Münchner Kindl".

At the beginning of the fifteenth century some Münichauer sit as landlords at Hohenaschau in Bavaria or as lieders of the Palgrave and Duke Stefan of Bavaria. A Munichauer even brought it to the ambassador of Duke Ludwig of Bavaria at the court of Duke Siegmund of Austria.

For more information, see Gilg von Münichau's history researcher, who is the first "Knight of Münichau" and "Doctor of the Rights" to be presented in the old documents. Probably he was the son of Hans Münichauer, the Rattenberger judge and Münichauer (castle lord) Schlossherrn.

The learned Knight Gilg must have been an adventurous fellow. He made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1483, and did not get out of his way. He was happy to fight with peasant boys and his servants. He is said to have arranged a torture chamber in the castle. Gilg von Münichau was from 1488 to 1494 an office administrator for Kitzbühel. Two years later, he was the Dean of Bamberg, with the Schloss Münichau, who was described in old documents as "with Zwinger and Mauerabfangen".

At the beginning of the fifteenth century some Münichauer sit as landlords at Hohenaschau in The Kitzbüheler castles were originally the seat of a small landed estate, which was not easy to maintain its position against the Kitzbüheler middle class and against the peasants, "reports the Innsbruck city archivist Dr. Klaus Kogler. "But in order to make their elevated and distinct position clear, a residence that clearly differed from the citizen's and peasant's house." Thus, the Kitzbühler Edelsitze (nobel seat), including the Münichau Castle, expresses a way of life that separates itself from the life of citizens and peasants .

The country in the middle of Europe, which is also called Germany, is now divided into powerless territories, principality and free cities. Everywhere the church rules. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII, with the "witch's bullet", presided over the most terrible decree in the history of the Church, the persecution of heretics and witchcraft. Even before this, in the German-speaking world, with the approval of the church, there had been serious riots against others. Equipped with the bull, the inquisitors begin their execution, especially in the dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, and Salzburg. Those who noticed the ecclesiastical witch-masters had already forfeited their lives.

Despite all the grievances, as well as the indulgences, the religious life is in great bloom. In addition to the "dark Middle Ages", the fresh wind of the Renaissance blows. Science, technology and the arts unfold as never before. Per Henlein builds the first pocket watch, the "Nürnberger Ei". The first permanent postal service between Vienna and Brussels is accepted and the Silbergulden in Germany and Austria is introduced as a means of payment. Even the popes, with the power of science and art, are fostered by the papacy, a political power-factor of the first rank, on the eve of the Reformation. Pope Julius II (1503-1513) takes Michelangelo and Raphael into his service and commissioned the construction of the church of St. Peter in Rome. The Sistine chapel is the artistic highlight of this period.

Ritter Gilg von Münichau, however, remained the owner of Münichau at the beginning of the 16th century, although he had moved to Wasserburg in 1507. A year earlier, he had still received the "Gejaid between Selbis- and Klausenbach near Kitzbuehel as well as the Schwarzsee" as fiefs by Emperor Maximilian I. In 1515, Gilg was supposed to have been landlord to Landshut and died shortly thereafter. The enterprising knight was married three times. After the death of her husband, his third wife handed over the castle to her son-in-law Onophrius von Freiberg, who was married to her daughter-in-law Helene. Helene was probably the most interesting coin woman.

The reformation of Martin Luther also fell into their time. During the religious battles, the Habsburgs had risen to the most powerful dynasty in Europe - the emperor Charles V (1519-1596) "the sun did not go down".

The teachings of the great reformer had found numerous followers in Tyrol. But also the radical movement of the Anabaptists, a Protestant sect which was under the social revolutionary and peasant leader Thomas Münzer against the infant baptism. She had a respectable companion among the squires of the surrounding silver and copper mines. Helene von Freiberg, the last minster, also came to the faith of the Anabaptists. In 1529 - at that time the Turks of Vienna were besieged for the first time - they harbored sect-trailers, which were pursued by the authorities, at Schloss Münichau. Sixty-six of them were trained in Kitzbühel. When Helen herself had to fear for her life, she escaped to the castle of her husband in 1530 to Aschau. What happened further, reports the Tyrolean historian Hofrat Dr. Eder according to old records:

Forty horsemen with a gun and the land-flags of the Kling and Wasserburg courts, under Captain Peter Gall, on the first Sunday of the year 1530, before Castle Aschau, demanded from Onophrius of Freiberg the surrender of his wife. However she had already escaped from the castle. In the beginning of February 1530, Duke Wilhelm wrote to the Tyrolean government to take the necessary measures to capture the sectarian who had left her husband in Aschau and had fled to her castle in Münichau. The Tyrolean government, which at that time turned its main activity to the detection of the revivals, which they had executed and burned in Kitzbuhel alone in the years 1528 and 1529, did not linger. They sent on the 12th of February, especially, the Untermarshal Erasmus Offenhauser the proudly sound title for a very ordinary police officer - to the town and country councilor in Kitzbühel, with the order to occupy Schloss Münichau and to arrest the "Freibergerin". The investigations in Münichau, however, were in vain, but it was learned that the woman had escaped to South Tyrol in Eppan; In consequence, the caretaker at Altenburg, Karl Fuchs at Hocheppan, was entrusted with their tracing and captivity. In the meantime this matter had been communicated to King Ferdinand, who, in a letter from Prague, dated April 3rd 1530, declared the goods of the baroness in Tyrol, according to the existing decrees against the sectarians, to be the crown; and the Tyrolese government, with the confiscation of the goods, Hands. Consequently, on 19 April 1530, the government issued an open mandate to Onophrius von Freiberg, his wife, all his relatives, believers, and all who had a speech or demand for the sectarian of the government in Innsbruck. In addition, the judge of Kitzbühel was commissioned to produce an inventory of all of the goods of the fugitives. But the final loss of the castle was not to come: the sons of the Helene of Freiberg and other relatives close to the family, including Cardinal Bernard of Cles of Trent, asked the king to withdraw the confiscation; The latter was softened by her entreaties, and, by letter on June 18th 1530, she ordered the tyrolian government to leave the castle of Münichau, together with all the goods belonging to it, to the sons of the still volatile Helene of Freiberg. " The actual authentication of this act of gratitude, or, as it was called, "Donation und Entschlagbrief um Münichau," was presented by King Ferdinand on the 1st of July of that year. Two years later, Helen was pardoned by Freiberg, but was obliged to publicly revoke her mistaken beliefs. It was not, however, to be moved. In October 1534, the public revocation was issued; She finally declared before the delegate of the Tyrolean government at Innsbruck to abandon her erroneous faith. Now she was allowed to go back to Aschau, in order to settle the last days of her life with her husband ..."

Helene, the last Münichauerin, inherited Schloss Münichau to her sons Pankratz and Christoph Georg von Freiberg. The heirs of the quarreling minster, of course, showed little interest in the castle. Except for the hunt, they hardly stayed there. Finally, on July 8, 1538, they sold the family estate to Knight Mathis Lang, Councilor of the Royal Majesty and Regent of Innsbruck, and his brothers for 7,500 Rhineland florins.

The Langs were a respected aristocracy far beyond Kitzbuehel. Their cousin, Mathias Lang von Wellenberg, was one of the most important men in the circle around Emperor Maximilian I. Born as a son of an impoverished Augsburger patrician around 1468, he studied at the universities of Ingolstadt, Tübingen and Vienna. The capable studios finally made a brilliant career as diplomat and financial advisor to Emperor Maximilian in Vienna. Finally he became bishop, Cardinal (1512) and four years later archbishop of Salzburg. There he resided until his death in 1540.

Shortly before his end, he visited the castle of Münichau and reopened the castle chapel.

When the dynasty of the Langs died, the castle and its lands fell to seven heirs. Of these, only the Prince-Bishop-Salzburg Council, Siegmund von Lamberg, showed interest in Münichau. He was awarded the title Siegmund Freiherr of Ortenegg and Otterstein. In 1579 Siegmund moved to the oldest city in Austria, the Enns (Laureacum). Ten years later, he became the Provincial Capital of Linz and Landmarshal of Lower Austria.

In the first marriage, Siegmund was married to Leonora Siguna Sidonia Fugger, the mastermind of the Kitzbühler "Lamberge". They already belonged to the surrounding castles of Lebenberg and Kapsburg. Around 1600, Siegmund sent his son Raymund as administrator to Kitzbühel. He must have been born around 1562, for he is "khratt 40 jar old". What happened at that time is told by a letter, which Raymund wrote to a cousin in 1611:

Blessed be the most beloved, especially a kind, beloved, cousin, and brother,

... Kitzbühel is never like years ago; The peasants' corruption, indecisiveness, lies, and deception are increasing daily. What they will understand even further from the soldiers will become more evident in the medium term. I thought I'd come to paradise when I had the newspaper that the Raitnerisch Fähndlknechte, so located here, would abdicate. Now, when these are done, we are again plagued with two hundred Stalinish servants. As for the former, they are to be consumed. At last we have nothing and nothing to do, to hold it in the Palatine: put the pin from the barrel and the spoon on a hat, and eat another country.

I should have been able to communicate with you gentlemen, strange things which I have now experienced at Innsbruck. But these things of the pen cannot be trusted. Perhaps there is a time when we have to meet personally, so I will then correct my oral relation as time will bring it. I have had to stop this carnival, in spite of my sister's wedding, that I have not been able to come against Salzburg, and that I was prevented from hostile warfare. Otherwise, I would have applied with such an opportunity to raise the obsolete 400 florins. Please do not hesitate to tell me the delay. It has really been a serious concern for me to have mastered you, sir. I wrote to the Khloner that he should endeavor to pay the 400 fl., and pay the Schinagl to your master, instead of paying it. Contrary to this, I beg to be thinking of the usual receipt. Herewith, I resign, Mr. Vetter and brother, at any time, more willingly-Raymund von Lamberg ... "

Raymund von Lamberg died on October 8, 1618. He suffered, as in old letters, "Melancoley, the longer, the heavier." This year the "Thirty Years War" also broke out, which had begun with the uprising of the Bohemian Protestants.

The ancient nobility family of the Lambergs used to be called "Rittersberg". When a branch of the nobility had become lame on the leg, and then by the had been nicknamed "the lame" by the Kitzbuehlers, they later called the name of Lamberg. One of the foremost supporters of Münichau, Freiherr Georg Siegmund von Lamberg (1568-1632), was the founder of the Second House of Lamberg and Privy Council of Emperor Rudolf II.

He married 1607 Johanna della Scala from the princely family of the Scaliger of Verona. Her family coat shows a ladder with jumping dogs in the red field. After the death of her husband, the former Fürstentochter became the Veronese castle owner at Münichau. Their sons were founded in 1636 by Emperor Ferdinand III. They were raised to the rank of the counts of Grace at the time of his coronation in Regensburg, and were given the right to unite their coat of arms with that of the della Scala. two upright, silver greyhounds with golden collars holding a golden ladder with four rungs. The young Reichsgrafen had higher interests in mind than in Kitzbuehel, and on August 23, 1652, they sold the Schloss Münichau to Johann Raymund Reichsgraf von Lamberg for 13,900 florins.

While the residence was passed on by the generations of the Lamberger, the castle usually only housed administrators and servants. Although the Tyrol was comparatively little affected by the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, a small group of Swedish riders arrived in Munich shortly before Münichau. The lance riders of the Swedes were finally thrown back in sight of the castle, between Kitzbuhel and Kirchberg, by the imperial forces. In the "Schwedenkapelle" at the Klausenbach, the saying goes: "Up to here and not further, came the Swedish riders." An older picture in the chapel shows the Swedish lance riders at the brook, the riders stand in peasant costume. Beneath the peasantry, a priest in the vestment, holding the crucifix in his left hand, and a saber in his right hand.

At that time, Kitzbühel held an excellent position in the Tyrolean art world, and kept it until about 1800. The silver and copper mines and the large farms around, Kitzbühel made the middle class rich. Nowhere else in Tyrol were so many builders, painters, sculptors, art smiths and furnace builders like in the Kitzbühler government district.

The artistic influences from Salzburg and Bavaria were particularly noticeable. Renaissance, early, high and late baroque flourished here. The paintings, sculptures and high altars of the Kitzbühler artists, which at that time came from all sorts of craft trades, can now be admired both in the churches around Kitzbuehel, as well as in Salzburg, Munich and Altötting.

Meanwhile, Johann Philipp von Lamberg, grandson of Georg Siegmund and his Italian wife, Johanna della Scala, had become Prince-Bishop of Passau. In 1696, he persuaded Johann Raymund of the Elder to transfer the inheritance to him by means of a Scheinkauf. For this, he wanted to lend Bishop's dignity to Raymund's son, a Capuchin Father. With this disreputable trade, all the royal goods, including Münichau, had fallen to the princely line of the House of Lamberg. The cardinal died in 1712 in the Abbey of St. Emmeran in Regensburg. He left his goods to his nephew of the same name. Count Johann Philipp d. Jüngere, patron of Ortenegg and Ottenstein, master of the domination Steyr and Kitzbühel, was Oberstlandjägermeister in Tyrol, imperial chamberlain and court chamber council to passau.

The Lambergs experienced their splendor in the eighteenth century, when Cardinal Count Leopold Matthias von Lamberg was elevated to the imperial princehood in 1707. His godfather, Emperor Leopold (1658-1705), made the Austro-Hungarian House a European power and struck the Turks decisively at the Kahlenberg in front of the gates of Vienna.

After the death of Count Johann Philipp d. Jüngeren, the castle Münichau fell to Johann Ferdinand Reichsgraf of Lamberg in 1735. His nephew, Johann Friedrich Joseph, Prince of Lamberg, inherited him. He was the son of Prince Franz Anton and the Ludowika Princess of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. The estate, rarely inhabited by the rule, became more and more "as there was always something to be repaired," according to a letter from 1780.

During this year Empress Maria Theresia, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria died. For forty years she had reigned from Vienna with changing successes. Maria Theresia, whose image threatened to stifle myth in the newer literature, is the only Empress with 16 children to rule the kitsch. Her father, Emperor Charles VI, did not originally think of raising his daughter to the future ruler - he hoped for a son, but he did not get any. Torn, an English historian wrote, had torn Charles VI. Had set heaven and hell in motion in order to procure his daughter's inheritance in his own country, but at the same time to do everything to render them incapable of the government of these countries. The unexpected death of her father brought the Austrian monarchy to the twenty-three-year-old. In a struggle for life and death for the preservation of her legacy against a powerful coalition of her opponents Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, France and Spain, she was finally able to preserve her paternal heritage - with the exception of Silesia, which she took to her great opponent, King Frederick II Of Prussia.

On 4th May 1799, Emperor Franz II, a grandson of Maria Theresia, entrusted Carl Eugen Reichsfürst of Lamberg with the rule of Kitzbuhel. Like many previous owners, he also only entered hunting time at Schloss Münichau. When the imperial prince died in Linz in 1831, his son Gustav Joachim von Lamberg inherited the princely title and the Kitzbühler counties. After his death in 1862 the lordship of the House of Lamberg was extinguished. The reason? His children came from a non-standard marriage. Prince Gustav Joachim had been married to a bourgeois Katharina Hradek. They had eight children.

His legacy, Carl Count von Lamberg, at least covered the roof of the castle with new shingles, thus preserving the formerly proud hunting lock before the total decay. But that was only a delay. The castle was hit in the summer of 1914, almost three weeks after the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne in Sarajevo, and a few days before the beginning of the First World War. On this 15th of July, a heavy night storm swept from the Wilder Kaiser to Kitzbuehel. At ten o'clock in the evening, lightning struck the neighboring inn, where today the inn is located. The timber construction immediately caught fire and attacked the shingled roof of the left, round castle tower. Quickly, the whole castle roof was in flames. The next morning the former Edelsitz was only a smoking ruin.

The then owner of the castle Max Cajetenfref von Lamberg, had been sent to the front right at the beginning of the war. He did not suspect that a group of construction workers with a pickax and a shovel were demolishing the castle's masonry. They needed the rock to be rebuilt for the burned down house next door.

Even though monumentists ran against the barbaric dismantling of the tower in the Tyrolean press and even in Vienna, the courtyard of the pointed hook also fell victim. In view of the terrible events of the war, the people had other worries, especially as the Tyrolese fought against the Italians in front of their front door.

After the First World War, in 1921, the Royal and Royal Court Councilor Oskar Lobmeyr von Hohenleithen acquired the ruins for eighty crowns.

But today the castle of Münichau owes its appearance to its new owners. The brothers Josef, Hanns and Ernst Harisch from a respected Kitzbühler hoteliers family, built the former Edelsitz in 1957 to a first class and very cozy hotel.

They succeeded in transforming the five hundred year old architectural monument without a style break, into a modern classy hotel with much taste and attention to detail. Hannes and Rosemarie Harisch are now able to convince the guest of the castle with new life.