Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The ruins of the castles of Weckmund and Wahlenbourg, located in Husseren-les-Châteaux (Haut-Rhin), form a fortified 13th century complex, ranked among the first French historical monuments since 1840. Originally, this site, called château de Haut-Eguisheim, had only one enclosure and a unique dungeon. It was occupied by the family of the Counts of Eguisheim-Dabo, which expanded with the addition of two dungeons: the Wahlenburg (mid-12th century) and the Dagsburg (currently on the town of Eguisheim). In the 11th century, their alliance with the lords of Vaudémont, whose name was Germanized in Weckmund, led to the building of a third dungeon in the south, the Weckmund, in the 13th century.

The central castle, the Wahlenbourg, is the oldest, with a dungeon in pink sandstone with bosses and a broken arched door. To the south, a house from the 13th to 14th centuries and a round tower (perhaps from the 14th century) complete the whole. The Weckmund, built in the 13th century, includes a similar dungeon and a partially preserved house, pierced with windows. In 1466, the Mulhusian militia destroyed the castle: only the chapel of Saint-Pancrace remained temporarily, now disappeared. The ruins, a communal property, have undergone repeated restorations, especially since 1973.

The current remains reveal a characteristic defensive architecture: pink sandstone with bosses, lifting holes, and doors in the middle of the skin or in broken arch (like that of the house of Wahlenbourg, resurrected in 1980). The site, though fragmented, illustrates the evolution of a medieval Alsatian fortress, linked to seigneurial rivalries and family alliances. The archival documents, especially those of Dagsburg Castle in Eguisheim, retain figurative traces of these buildings, now reduced to their most resistant structures.

External links