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Origin and history

The castle of Butenheim, located in Petit-Landau (Haut-Rhin, Alsace), is originally a castral motte built around 1050, at the end of the High Middle Ages, to defend the county of Alsace and the Sundgau against the Viking and Sarrasin raids. Founded at the same time as the Abbey of Ottmarsheim, this seigneury is vassal of the descendants of Count Gontran le Riche, ancestors of the House of Habsburg. Located in a marshy area near an ancient Rhine arm, it plays a strategic role in the Alsace plain, 20 km from Mulhouse.

In the 12th century, the castle and its dungeon were built on the original castral motte. The site passes under the control of several vassal families of the Habsburgs, including the lords of Butenheim (mentioned in 1191), the Hungersteins (1337), and then the house of Andlau from 1418. Damaged in 1468 by the Swiss, it was rebuilt and enlarged in the 16th century before being ruined during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Its ruins, razed in 1865, now leave only a few remains of walls and circumvallations, classified as historical monuments in 1964.

The village of Butenheim, mentioned in 1064 under the name of Altorf, develops at the foot of the castle. It is inhabited until the 17th century, with a chapel (cited in 1470) and a tilery. The archaeological site, which was excavated in the 1980s, reveals traces of the early castral mound and later fortifications. The current remains, located at Altdorf, belong to a private company and are limited to a grove and ruins between the Rhine and the D468 road.

Butenheim's seigneury illustrates the evolution of feudal powers in Alsace, linked to the Habsburg dynasty. Its history reflects regional conflicts, from raids from the 11th century to the wars of Religion and tensions with the Swiss Confederation. The castle, symbol of the Sundgau defence, also marks the decline of medieval fortifications in the face of the upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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