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Origin and history

Ferrette Castle, built on a rocky piton at an altitude of 612 m, dominates the town of the same name in the Upper Rhine. Founded around 1100 by Frédéric I of Ferrette, son of Thierry I of Montbéliard, he probably rises on the foundations of a Roman tower. The capital of Ferrette County, it was first mentioned in 1144 as a residence of the Counts, although its existence dates back to 1040. The county, almost sovereign between 1105 and the end of the 13th century, gradually spreads from the Western Sundgau to Altkirch and Thann, becoming a major power in Upper Alsace.

Frédéric I, heir of the Alsatian lands in 1103, settled there around 1125 and founded the Comtal dynasty. His grandson, Frédéric II, enlarged the estate but came into conflict with the bishop of Basel, before being murdered in 1233. His son Ulrich II finally sold the castle and the city to the bishop in 1271, becoming his vassal. A false parchment of the 19th century wrongly accused Ulrich II of parricide, a deception unveiled a century later by historian Christian Wilsdorf.

When Ulrich III died in 1324, his daughter Jeanne married Archduke Albert of Habsburg, integrating Ferrette with Austria. The castle, remodelled in the 15th and 16th centuries to adapt to firearms, passed into the hands of Charles the Temerary in 1469, then of the Reich lords of Reichenstein in 1504. The Fugger bankers (1540–67) turned him into a fortified garrison, adding ramparts and ditches. During the Thirty Years' War, he was looted by the Swedes (1632), burned by the French (1635), then ceded to France by the Westphalia Treaties (1648).

Louis XIV offered Ferrette to Mazarin in 1659, whose heirs — including the princes of Monaco — retained the title of Count of Ferrette. Abandoned after 1789, the castle was sold to industrialist Jean Zuber in 1838 and classified as a historic monument in 1842. Its ruins, consolidated since 1930, bear witness to its comtal and military past, between seigneurial power, European conflicts and progressive decline.

In 1600, the castle consisted of three ensembles: the Oberschloss (upper castle) with 6 rooms and 11 rooms, the House of the bailli (4 rooms, stables, cachots), and the House of the Knights, surrounded by walls and bastions. A 60 m well and a Sainte-Catherine chapel completed the building, symbolizing the power of the Ferrettes before their decline.

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